#From Richmond to Atlanta

[whore-4-drewstarkey]

Surprise- dad!Drew Starkey x Fem!reader

Summary: In which drew surprises his daughter at her kindergarten holiday after being away for work.

Warnings: Angst, fluff, mean mothers 🥴, gossip

A/N: dad drew makes me melt 🫠 again idk how i feel about this. but oh whale. some friends wanted me to finish this so i did. NOT EDITED (bc i’m lazy asf)

Y/N and roslyn had just arrived to the elementary school located in the suburbs of Atlanta, Georgia. Y/N opened the drivers door to her Toyota Venza, walking to the back door behind the passengers seat, opening it to reveal her and drew’s daughter roslyn. roslyn looked up at Y/N, giggling lightly as her mom unbuckled her seatbelt, lifting her up and out of the car, and grabbing her pink unicorn backpack.

“you ready sweetheart?” Y/N asked roslyn sweetly as she grabbed her daughter’s tiny hand. “yeah but is daddy coming?” roslyn asked shyly, as she looked up at her mother with pleading eyes.

“baby, i already told you, he’s still working on that project in Charleston. i know he wishes he could be here for your school party, but you know he can’t baby” Y/N had bent down, caressing roslyn’s face as she’d told her baby girl the bad news.

“oh. okay then. maybe next time?” roslyn sweetly smiled back at her mama.

“yeah, maybe next time. just remember he loves you so much and hates being away” Y/N cooed back to her and drew’s creation.

as soon as the two were done with their discussion, they walked into the elementary school, and to roslyn’s classroom. roslyn was only five years old, and was the female spitting image of drew starkey. she had the beautifully straight, dirty blonde/brown hair and his piercing ocean blue eyes. but she got her mothers softness and care free attitude. the perfect mixture of the two.

“oh hello ms Y/L/N! and little miss roslyn! are you guys excited for the easter party today?” roslyn’s teacher, mrs. richmond, roslyn’s kindergarten teacher spoke with enthusiasm.

“good morning! she couldn’t stop talking about how excited she is for today the whole ride here” Y/N smiled sweetly as she played with roslyn’s pigtails. Y/N bent down to roslyn’s level and continued, “go put your bag up baby and go play with maisey before class starts” and with that roslyn obeyed, and went to find her friend.

“Y/N could you possibly help set up the decorations outside the classroom, like in the entry way and hallway? some of the other mothers are out there now” mrs richmond had asked Y/N sweetly. mrs richmond was an older woman in her mid to late fifties. she had dark brown hair that had started to turn grey and was decently tall.

“yes of course!” Y/N smiled as she sat her purse down, on the round discussion table in the back of the classroom, but grabbed her phone out of it, shoving it into the back pocket of her dad jeans which so happened to be a pair of drew’s old jean from set. but of course she had to roll them as his legs were so abnormally long to her as she was roughly 5’4.

as soon as she finished grabbing what she needed she walked outside of the classroom, to the hallway near the classroom entrance, being met with all the other mothers. compared to the other moms, Y/N was pretty young, at only 24-years-old compared to them who were around 30-34 years-old. she knew that she was judged for being a young mother, but she never let them get to her. there, however was one other young mother, maiseys mother, aka roslyn’s best friends mother; stella. stella had maisey when she was 20, so her and Y/N connected quite quickly. stella had been the only one Y/N had really ever communicated with outside of school events. that was her friend. Y/N had met drew when she was only just barely 19-years-old. drew had come to kent university one weekend to see his baby sister brooke, and his dad, todd, who was the head females basketball coach. Y/N had been roommates with his little sister brooke, and had become best friends with her instantly. Y/N had gotten drew’s number early on and as drew had visited more and more that year, they’d started dating, and shortly after they started dating she’d become pregnant with their sweet bundle of joy, roslyn.

“oh hey, Y/N? it’s Y/N right?” daniella, another mother asked Y/N as she attempted to not give Y/N a judgy look, but failed miserably.

“uh, yeah it’s Y/N. so what are we doing out here today?” Y/N smiled sweetly, telling herself she wouldn’t let her facial expressions affect her.

“you and stella can go hang these little floating easter eggs down the hall” daniella asked, well more so demanded Y/N and stella to do.

and with that, Y/N and stella made their way to the end of the hall entry way to hang the floating easter eggs from the ceiling.

“so, how’s drew? is he coming today?” stella asked Y/N knowing how much Y/N and roslyn had been missing him.

“i’m not sure. he said he had to stay in charleston another week for some voice overs for the fighting scenes. who knows. but i’m not gonna count on it, only because i know how busy filming has been and how anticipated season 4 has been” Y/N stated as she focused on stapling the string that had an egg attached at the bottom to the tiled ceiling.

“okay, do you guys think her rings real?” daniella blurted out in a loud whisper to the other moms, referring to Y/N wedding ring.

“um, what do you mean?” becky, another mother who was a part of daniella’s posse asked back.

“like do we really think she’s married? that ring is at least 50k. if it’s real, plus her last name is y/l/n and between us ladies, her daughters last name is starkey, so why are they different?” daniella ranted on about her suspicions about Y/N.

“hm, i never knew that. that’s definitely weird” tracy, another mom in the posse commented.

“yeah, and when have we actually seen this ‘husband’ of hers? never.” daniella continued.

“honestly, she probably got knocked up young, and gave her daughter the fathers last name” becky chimed in.

“wait, have any of you tried looking her up on facebook?” tracy asked out of curiosity.

“well, duh” daniella stated before continuing. “but like everything is private. plus, the only thing that isn’t is her relationship status, and it says married, but not to who. even tried instagram, same thing there. both profile pics are of her on the beach or something.”

ever sense drew had started acting in bigger roles, she’d turned all of her social media to private mode, as she didn’t want the hateful messages her way, nor the paparazzi. she didn’t need it and roslyn definitely didn’t need it. it’s something she and drew had agreed on the moment she found out she was pregnant. she never advertised her relationship with drew publicly. of course drew advertised his with her, but with her consent. plus none of the mothers there knew anything about his existence directly so it didn’t matter.

“oh my god, are they still going on about my marriage?” Y/N giggled down to stella as the two women listened in on the not so private conversation going on just a mere 10 feet from them.

“ugh, don’t you just wish drew would come in today, just to shut them up?” stella laughed up at her as she continued to staple the floating easter eggs up and across the hallway ceilings.

“more to see the looks on their faces actually” Y/N giggled out before continuing, “or to see roslyn’s face when she sees her daddy” and with those words coming out of Y/N mouth, stella chuckled to herself as soon as she saw the tall, lean actor round the corner of the hallway, sending her a smile, pleading not to acknowledge he was there.

drew slyly came up behind Y/N as she stood on a classroom chair, on her tippy toes and all due to her shortness, stapling even more floating easter eggs to the ceiling. drew, grabbed Y/N hips, speaking, “sees who’s daddy?” he’d chuckled. Y/N gasped, and jumped back, but didn’t fall due to drew’s strong, muscular arms, catching her from falling. she turned around, looking up, facing her husband of three years for the first time in person in over two months. he’d been wearing a crisp white tshirt paired with his favorite navy blue carhart jacket Y/N had bought him for christmas, along with his usual blue jeans and iconic vintage green stussy hat. Y/N took in the sight before her, seeing as his hair had grown out to its mullet form, and his facial hair had also started to grow longer during the early spring months.

“shut up. oh my goodness, you scared me! and to answer your question, your daughter” Y/N yelped out as she smacked drew’s chest. he leant down, whispering, “am i not yours too?” and with that Y/N smacked him again, “joseph andrew starkey!”

“okay, first off, no hug, no kiss, no ‘babe, i missed you! oh my god!’?

“well, yes, but i’m preoccupied love. also we’re in a school right now and people are lurking” Y/N chuckled lightheartedly, as she pointed up at the ceiling full of her work. as soon as she said the first half of that sentence, drew engulfed her in a huge hug, squeezing his wife tight, head resting on top of hers. his arms wrapped around her waist. Y/N had her arms wrapped around his neck, as she stood on her tippy toes.

as the two lovers hugged, just ten feet away the little mom posse was watching and listening very content.

“did she just say starkey? isn’t that what you said her daughter’s last name is?” tracy asked daniella.

“uh, yeah. wow he’s tall” daniella spoke as she stared at Y/N and drew hugging. she chuckled coldly, continuing, “wait a minute…. that’s her daughter’s dad? him? she got with him? how? have you seen her?”

“maybe they’re not married? maybe engaged? i literally don’t understand it” becky questioned, as the three stood in disbelief.

“i wonder how old he is” daniella spoke her thoughts out loud as stella had come over to join the older women to give the the couple some privacy.

“he’s 29 and they’re married. have been for over three years” stella spoke to the women matter-of-factly.

“wait, how much do you know?” tracy looked at stella quizzically.

“she’s my best friend. i know everything. they’ve been together since she was 19. you guys have absolutely no shot with him so give it up already. they’re soulmates. she’s been with him every step of the way, she’s known him before everything happened” stella chuckled at how dumb these moms were to her best friend’s relationship.

“what do you mean?” becky asked quizzically.

“yeah, not saying anymore” stella smirked at the moms again.

back over at the couple, they broke away, as they each held the others forearms. “i missed my girls, ya know that?” drew spoke softly to Y/N as he stared down into her eyes.

“i know and we missed you so much. roslyn can’t even sleep without the stuffed tiger you bought her. says it reminds her of you” Y/N softly spoke up at him. she soon continued, “and i cant sleep without one of your hoodies on. thanks for the attachment issues” she teased.

“awww that’s so cute oh my goodness, i cant wait to see my baby girl” he cooed at the thought of his daughter.

“what about you? were you able to sleep well away from home?”

“i mean not really, didn’t have your body against mine” he spoke quietly as he saw the mom posse staring at the two of them. “could barely survive without your touch” he whispered into her ear, earning a scoff from from her in return, but he continued to speak “had to bring out the old pictures in my hidden folder”

as soon as those words left his mouth, Y/N had a light blush covering her cheeks, as she knew exactly what he was talking about. “drew! we’re in a school, tone it down” Y/N spoke up in a normal tone on accident. drew looked down at her, as a warning to her loud tone, nodding his head towards the moms. she immediately understood and scoffed at the thought of them listening. she couldn’t wait to face them now.

“but babe, in all seriousness can i please just get one kiss? i know we’re in a school… but fuck it. right?” he began to plead.

“hmm, and have the mom posse over still watch the show?” Y/N asked as she placed her right hand under her chin, thinking. she came up with an answer and began to speak again, “sure, why not. fuck it” and with that drew gripped her jaw sternly but gently, tilting it upward, caressing it, and dipped his head down to Y/N level, since he towered over her. Y/N wrapped her arms around his neck as drew placed his lips onto hers for a slow, passionate kiss, in which she reciprocated. the two of them just giggled after a second during the kiss as they knew the moms down the hallway were sure to be saying something about it.

“oh my god they’re kissing? in a school? with children around?” daniella scoffed in jealousy.

“i wonder what they’re talking about” becky thought out loud to the other moms.

“probably something you don’t wanna know. catch you ladies in the classroom” stella smirked proudly, mainly at the fact at how jealous the moms were. she couldn’t wait to talk to Y/N about their reactions to drew’s appearance.

as drew and Y/N finished laughing, Y/N spoke up, “well hunny, as happy as i am to finally see you in the flesh again, i think someone else will be even more excited”

“oh my god take me to my little girl. lead the way babe” drew chirped out so happily as Y/N started dragging drew by the hand towards the classroom. not before being stopped by the mom posse first though.

“oh, Y/N who’s this?” daniella asked in a sweet tone.

“this is drew, drew, meet some of the other moms. daniella, tracy, and becky” Y/N introduced nervously. drew, however noticed early on how nervous she’d gotten, instinctively wrapping his left arm around her from behind, splaying his large left hand on her left hip, wedding ring exposed.

“hi, nice to meet you all. i’m roslyn’s dad, but i feel like that’s easy to figure out because she looks just like me” drew chuckled as he did a slight wave, as he’d said hi.

“so lovely to meet you drew! why haven’t we seen you around… like ever?” becky interrogated.

“well, i’ve been doing a lot of work stuff these past few months unfortunately. i have to go out of state for business a lot for long periods of time” drew spoke, beating around the bush; his job.

“oh so what do you do for work?” tracy jumped into the conversation to draw as much information out of drew as possible.

“uh… i’m actually an actor” he blushed as he became a bit nervous, letting random strangers know of his job.

“hey, uh if you don’t mind, we’re gonna go see our daughter. he hasn’t seen her in over two months and she really misses him” Y/N sassily spoke to the mean mom posse.

“oh- uh yeah. right” daniella stuttered out as she became slightly embarrassed in front of the couple.

“take me to my baby girl please” drew smiled down to Y/N, who in return started to walk away, grabbing his large right hand into her left and dragged him into the classroom.

as Y/N opened the classroom door slowly, she could sense how excited drew was to see his daughter again due to his urgency, softly pushing Y/N ahead. “hurry up baby” he urged softly into Y/N ear from behind her as he bent down to her level.

as drew neared his daughter, who’d been sitting in her tiny chair at her tiny desk, he spoke up softly as he squatted his large frame down, “hey angel, what are you drawing right now?” as he pointed to the piece of paper roslyn had been drawing on.

roslyn simply dropped her crayon, slowly turning to her right to be met face-to-face with her daddy who she’d been missing for the past two month. her mouth opened as it began to quiver, as fears brimmed her blue irises. “d-daddy? you’re home?!” she stuttered out as she began to sob, attempting to put her tiny arms around drew’s neck.

“aw babygirl, don’t cry. are you trying to make daddy cry too?” drew cooed as he lifted roslyn into his arms, standing up with her crying into her neck. drew’s heart clenched so type at the sound of his precious little girls happy cries. “and yes baby. i’m home. i got done with filming early” he continued to coo as he cradled her tiny head against his neck, shushing her weeps.

with that, roslyn lifted her brown head of hair to look up at her father as her tears began to dry up, only to be met with her father’s face. tears brimmed his striking blue eyes, making the tiny girl twist her face in worry, wiping away any tear of his that fell. “don’t cry daddy. please don’t cry” she pouted as drew let out a chuckle at her words.

“happy tears my little girl…. happy tears. i promise. i missed you so much. you’re my little princess. ya know that?”

“what about mommy? what’s she?” the young child asked her father. “well, she’s my queen, and you’re our princess. how does that sound?” he smiled right at her, as she wrapped her arms around his neck again.

“i love that. i want a puppy. don’t princesses have puppies?” she questioned as drew let his head fall back in laughter of joy.

“we will think about that. yeah?” he smiled down to his little girl again.

“mmhm” she hummed in response, as Y/N approached the two loves of her life with adoration filled in her eyes. she was most happy seeing her daughter and her daughter’s father reunite. every time she witnessed it her heart was filled with pure love and bliss. nothing could compare to how she felt when the two were together.

Y/N walked up behind drew and to his side, brushing roslyn’s light brown hair from her face and behind her ear, as she smiled at the two, who looked back at her. “you good drew?” Y/N asked as she smirked at her husband who still had a few years every now and then leak from his eyes. she brought her soft, dainty hand up to his face to wipe them away as he smirked at her, still cuddling their daughter in his arms.

he simply responded with a sincere smile, “i’m just happy to be back with my two girls”

Taglist @slut4drudy @runningfrom2am @maybankslover

[coimbrabertone]

NASCAR Numerology: How NASCAR's Current Teams Got Their Numbers: Part Three.

Alright guys, we've done Trackhouse, Penske, Wood Brothers, RCR, and SHR, now we're gonna cover the numbers for Hendrick Motorsports, Roush Fenway Keselowski Racing, and Spire Motorsports. That's a grand total of nine cars to cover and some very historic numbers, so let's get on with the origins, the meaning, and some of the notable events in the history of some of the most significant numbers in modern day NASCAR.

We start with Hendrick Motorsports, which is a bit of a mess for two reasons:

The first is that Hendrick has like three different numbering schemes simultaneously: One built around the #5, one built around the #24, and a handful of car numbers that don't fit into either scheme.

The other is that Hendrick Motorsports has recently restructured, to the point where...the #5 is the #48, the #48 is the #88, the #9 is the #24, and the #24 is the #5.

Confused yet? Don't worry, I'll explain it all.

The Hendrick Motorsports story begins in 1984 with the All-Star Racing #5 of Geoff Bodine. This team initially had high aspirations, trying to sign the likes of Richard Petty, Dale Earnhardt, and Tim Richmond, but after sponsorship and co-ownership deals fell through, Rick Hendrick was left holding the bag alone, he and Geoff Bodine would need to make do with each other.

Well...they won Martinsville, Nashville Fairgrounds, and the season finale at Riverside.

This was enough to keep the #5 team alive, and for 1985, they returned, now properly under the Hendrick Motorsports banner. The #5 didn't win in 1985, but improved results throughout the season moved them up from 9th in the standings to 5th.

This was enough to finally win over Tim Richmond, who came over to start a second team with Folgers sponsorship - this was the #25, and Rick Hendrick's dad, Papa Joe, co-owning this entry.

Tim Richmond took seven wins in 1985 and finished 3rd in the standings, but unknown to everyone else...he was suffering from AIDS all this time. This would keep him out of the car for most of 1987 - with Benny Parsons running a Folgers #35 car in his place - but he would return midseason and immediately win two in a row at Pocono and Riverside.

Unfortunately, Richmond's return would only last eight races. Tim Richmond would attempt to return to NASCAR for 1988, but the medications he was taking to manage his illness conflicted with NASCAR's drug testing policy. Richmond would die from AIDS complications in August 1989.

Hendrick Motorsports at this point ran three numbers built around the #5 - the #5, the #25, and the #35.

They were also running the first non-scheme numbers in the form of the #17 with Darrell Waltrip, however, DW would take his team and his number in 1991 to start his own team, Darrell Waltrip Motorsports. The split was amicable, and Rick Hendrick actually helped DW get the team setup.

The next team - and the next numbering scheme - came in 1993, when Hendrick Motorsports hired Jeff Gordon to drive the #24. Initially, the team had intended to run the #46 - because for the movie Days of Thunder, Hendrick Motorsports provided the car and had Greg Sacks race at Phoenix 1989, Atlanta 1990, and Darlington 1990 to acquire footage.

The City Chevrolet sponsorship on the $46 Days of Thunder car is actually modeled on a real Chevrolet dealership that Rick Hendrick owns in Charlotte.

Unfortunately, issues with Paramount - who distributed Days of Thunder - prevented Hendrick Motorsports from running the #46 for real. So instead, they picked the #24, because it had relatively little history in NASCAR prior to Gordon, it was available, and it came right before #25. Thus began the most dominant partnership of the 1990s.

Jeff Gordon would win 93 times and would win championships in 1995, 1997, 1998, and 2001.

Terry Labonte in the #5 would add to Hendrick's 1990s domination with a 1996 championship.

Such was Jeff Gordon's success that, in 2001, Rick Hendrick allowed Jeff to become the co-owner of a new entry - the #48 of Jimmie Johnson. #48 was double #24, beginning the new numbering scheme. This would also see a part-time #84 car for Kyle Busch in 2004.

Jimmie would win the 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2013, and 2016 championships in the #48, equaling the 7 titles of Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt.

Then we get the #88 car, which was set up in 2008 for Dale Earnhardt Jr. when he moved to Hendrick Motorsports. Why #88? Well, his DEI number was #8, Dale Jr. had a rabid fanbase, and a lot of people already had #8 merch and #8 tattoos. How to keep those people invested in Dale Jr.? Simple, make his new number two 8s, hence #88.

Thus, come 2017, Hendrick Motorsports has the #5 of Kasey Kahne, the #24 of Chase Elliott, the #48 of Jimmie Johnson, and the #88 of Dale Earnhardt Jr.

Then everything started to change.

For 2018, Chase Elliott moved to the #9, taking the number most associated with his famous father, Bill Elliott. Bill had run the #9 at his own team from 1975-1981, then continued running it at Melling from 1982 to 1991, and then ran the #9 again at Evernham Motorsports in 2001, 2002, and 2003 as he spearheaded Dodge's return to NASCAR.

Chase was in the #9, but he took his #24 team with him. Hence my joke about the #9 really being the #24.

Meanwhile, Kasey Kahne dropped out of Hendrick due to chronic dehydration issues impacting his ability to race. Kahne's #5 team became the #24 team for rookie William Byron.

Also in 2018, Alex Bowman took over the #88 for Dale Jr.

Fast forward to 2021, and Hendrick Motorsports shuffles things around again.

Kyle Larson started the 2020 season win Chip Ganassi Racing, however, during the COVID-19 hiatus, Kyle Larson used a racial slur on a hot mic during an iRacing event. McDonalds, Credit One Bank, and Chevrolet dropped him that day. This left Chip Ganassi no choice but to fire Larson the next day.

Kyle Larson was highly rumored to replace Jimmie Johnson in the #48 for 2021, but after the n-bomb incident, sponsor Ally didn't want to touch him.

Nevertheless, Larson dominated in dirt racing in 2020, completed a racial sensitivity course, and made outreaches to black communities to apologize for his actions, including a visit to the George Floyd Memorial in Minneapolis.

All of this convinced Rick Hendrick that he should hire Kyle Larson after all, but he needed to shuffle things around to make it happen.

The flagship #5, Hendrick's original number, would return for the first time since 2017, with Kyle Larson running it, primarily sponsored by Hendrick Cars, but also Valvoline, Cincinnati Inc., and Tarlton. The team, however, would be the same as Jimmie Johnson's 2020 #48 team.

Alex Bowman's #88 team, however, would switch to the #48 plate and take on Ally as their sponsor.

Thus the #24 became the #9, the #5 became the #24, the #48 became the #5, and the #88 became the #48.

An awful lot for one team, huh?

Roush is thankfully a bit simpler.

The #6 is Roush's flagship car and has been ever since they were founded in 1988. Why the #6? Then sponsor Stroh's Light wanted a one-digit number to be instantly recognizable. Thus, Mark Martin's time with the #6 began.

Initially, Roush built around the #6 brand, with their second car being the #16 Family Channel Ford and them running the #60 Winn-Dixie car for Martin's Busch Series starts.

Their third car in in 1996 was the #99, which didn't really fit - other than the coincidental of 9 being 6 upside-down so #99 is kinda like two sixes, but Jack Roush says that was a coincidence. But Roush Racing went back to the sixes scheme in 1998 with the #26 car. They also bought the #97 John Deere Pontiac in 1997 and changed it over to a Ford for 1998, bringing it into the team for a five-car effort.

Roush had a couple of six car races in 1999 because Jack grew interested in Busch series racer Matt Kenseth, who was running a Chevrolet for Robbie Reiser. Jack didn't seem to mind too much, and by the time 2000 rolled around, he took Reiser, Kenseth, and their #17 car into the Cup series, running the DeWalt Ford.

Matt Kenseth won Roush's first Cup championship in 2003 with the DeWalt #17, and so in 2024, RFK Racing's two cars are the #6 and the #17.

The original Roush number, and their first championship winning number.

Now for Spire Motorsports real quick.

The #7 car in NASCAR became famous due to owner-driver Alan Kulwicki, who in the late 80s and early 90s, insisted on doing things himself even as NASCAR was starting to move towards bigger, multi-car teams. Alan winning the championship himself in his own equipment in 1992 would inspire a slew of drivers to follow his lead in this era, but for Alan himself...well, he died in a plane crash on the way to Bristol in 1993.

He never got the chance to defend his title.

The #7 AK Racing team was taken over by Geoff Bodine in 1993 - 'member him from Hendrick? - and ran as Geoff Bodine Racing for awhile, before selling to Ultra Motorsports for 2000. Ultra Motorsports and the #7 car of Jimmy Spencer had precisely one notable moment to their name.

At the 2003 MBNA America 300 at Dover International Speedway, the #7 Sirius Satellite Radio Dodge was a lap down when the caution came out, becoming the first car to benefit from NASCAR's new beneficiary rule - implemented to stop drivers from racing back to the line after the caution flag came out - which led to commentator Benny Parsons dubbing him the lucky dog.

Sirius' logo at this point included a little dog.

So yeah, that's where the term "Lucky Dog" in NASCAR comes from, the more you know.

The #7 then went through Robby Gordon Motorsports for awhile, followed by Tommy Baldwin Racing - in which Danica Patrick made her final NASCAR start in the 2018 Daytona 500 - before winding up at Spire Motorsports for the 2021 season.

Corey LaJoie has run the #7 from 2021 to 2024, accomplishing fuck all, and will be replaced for the 2025 season. It is currently unknown who will replace him. Justin Haley has been linked to the ride, and he actually won Spire's only Cup series victory in only his third start at a rain-shortened 2021 Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona.

Spire then built out their numbering scheme off the #7, with Carson Hocevar running the #77 and Zane Smith running the #71 - though he is due to be replaced by Michael McDowell for 2025.

So yeah, that's Hendrick, Roush, and Spire down. We've done #5, #6, #7, #8, #9, and #10 already, so next time we'll pick up with Joe Gibbs Racing and their #11 Toyota.

[eretzyisrael]

 Opinion

By MICHAEL KAYE   Published: FEBRUARY 28, 2024 03:04 THE WRITER speaks at a marketing conference in New York City wearing a #EndJewHatred T-shirt.(photo credit: COURTESY MICHAEL KAYE)

It’s been almost five months since October 7, a day that completely changed the lives of more than 15 million Jews around the world. But the aftermath of the attack is still present, months later. In many ways, it feels as though this nightmare just happened, while at other moments, it’s hard to remember what life was like before that day of terror.

I am not fluent in Hebrew. I do not wear a kippah. I have almost 30 tattoos. I am not your stereotypical Jew, but I have become a proud Jewish activist. But October 7 changed me, as it did many others. Who I was before is someone I can never be again. I cannot be complicit or silent. I donate to the Anti-Defamation League; I speak at conferences wearing an #EndJewHatred T-shirt; I never leave home without Jewish-themed jewelry; and I use my social media platforms to discuss the rising antisemitism on college campuses across the United States and around the world.

As someone who was educated at a Jewish school and learned about the Holocaust, I am no stranger to antisemitism or the dangerous impact it can have. My earliest memories include being taught by my parents to be proud but quiet about my Judaism, having swastikas carved on my school playground, being immediately evacuated on September 11, and always leaving my Star of David at home when traveling. 

During my childhood and teenage years, I heard from and met many Holocaust survivors, including Elie Wiesel. I listened to their stories about how the world remained silent.

Today, it feels like the beginning of a second Holocaust. That is why I cannot remain silent.

A scary time to be Jewish

For this Jewish New Yorker, it’s a scary time to be Jewish. The American Jewish Committee’s State of Antisemitism in America report found that 93% of American Jews surveyed think antisemitism is a problem in the United States and 86% believe antisemitism in the country has increased over the past five years. 

In November, I attended the March for Israel in Washington. Around me were Jewish people from Atlanta, Chicago, Houston, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Richmond, San Diego, and Queens. A man from Brooklyn put tefillin (phylacteries) on me; it was the first time I had worn tefillin in almost 20 years. I even got to meet Julia Haart and Miriam Haart from Netflix’s My Unorthodox Life, who grew up in a religious community not too far from me. While there, I realized this gathering had the most Jews I’ve been around since I was in Israel in 2006. It was the safest I had felt in years. But there were also allies, including Congressman Ritchie Torres and CNN contributor Van Jones. That day reminded me of why I am proud to be Jewish and why I cannot be silent about my Judaism any longer.

Since October 7, I have lost hundreds of followers on social media. I have received anti-Israel and anti-Jewish messages, even threats. But I am not alone. The AJC found that six in 10 people have come across antisemitic content online, and 78% of American Jews feel less safe as Jews in the United States since that horrific day.

To many of us, the current climate feels different. We’re feeling angry, confused, and isolated. In my lifetime, I have watched the nation unite after domestic and foreign terrorist attacks, social justice actions, and wars. Rarely, outside of politics, have I seen us this divided: the Jewish community against everyone else. Overnight, people who had never spoken about any Middle Eastern wars became experts on the conflict. Disinformation spread like wildfire across social media, and much of it felt aimed at damaging or discrediting Jews and Zionists. Almost immediately after October 7, it was not only taboo to express sympathy for the Israelis who were captured or murdered; it was discouraged and forbidden, often met with attacks, both physical and verbal.

BUT THROUGH these painful months, there have also been glimmers of light.

During this period of mourning, I have watched people of all backgrounds come together – to educate, to grieve, to hope, and to pray. A Christian connection on social media thanked me for sharing educational resources. Jewish friends from elementary school and high school reached out. A Muslim friend held my hand as I cried, and another has been checking on me periodically for months. These are the moments I have chosen to cling to.

Our future is not where one side loses and another wins. It’s where we all unite.

The writer is an award-winning communications strategist, data storyteller, purpose-driven marketer, and educator based in New York City. He often speaks about antisemitism, LGBTQ+ rights, and social justice issues.

[todaysdocument]

Letter from Jefferson Davis to General Robert E. Lee Asking Advice on Who Will Replace General Joseph Johnston

Record Group 109: War Department Collection of Confederate RecordsSeries: Jefferson Davis' Papers

Richmond,

July 12' 1864.

To Genl. R. E. Lee

Petersburg, VA.

General Johnston has

failed, and there are strong

indications that he will

abandon Atlanta. He urges

that prisoners should be

removed immediately from

Andersonville. It seems nec-

essary to relieve him at once.

Who should succeed him.

What think you of Hood for

the position.

Jefferson Davis.

[handwritten red ink]

Compared with Original,

Correct copy,

Marcus J.........

[reality-detective]

TOP 100 US RIOTED CITIES!

I'm sure if anything goes down from all the people who have crossed over our borders, the Military will have everything under control swiftly. You may want to avoid these cities if anything goes down, and for your safety, please stay away from the military if you see them. This list was pulled and organized from a NY Times recent article listing the top 100 prior-rioted cities, for quick reference. They are 👇

(THOSE WITH * ARE TOP 25 CITIES JUST ISSUED BY THE WHITE HOUSE ON 2/9/24):

Alabama

Huntsville

Mobile

Alaska

Arizona

* Phoenix

Arkansas

Bentonville

Conway

Little Rock

California

Beverly Hills

Fontana

La Mesa

* Los Angeles

* Oakland

Sacramento

* San Diego

* San Francisco

San Jose

San Luis Obispo

Santa Ana

Santa Rosa

Vallejo

Walnut Creek

Colorado

Colorado Springs

* Denver

Connecticut

Delaware

Florida

Fort Lauderdale

Jacksonville

Lakeland

* Miami

Orlando

West Palm Beach

Georgia

* Atlanta

Athens

Hawaii

Idaho

Illinois

Aurora

Bloomington

Rockford

Indiana

Fort Wayne

Hammond

Indianapolis

Lafayette

Iowa

Des Moines

Iowa City

Waterloo

Kansas

Wichita

Kentucky

Louisville

Louisiana

* New Orleans

Maine

Maryland

Massachusetts

* Boston

Michigan

* Detroit

Grand Rapids

Kalamazoo

Lansing

Minnesota

Duluth

Minneapolis

* St. Paul

Mississippi

Missouri

Ferguson

Kansas City

St. Louis

Montana

Nebraska

Lincoln

Omaha

Nevada

Las Vegas

Reno

New Hampshire

New Jersey

New Mexico

Albuquerque

New York

Albany

* Buffalo

* New York City

North Carolina

Ashville

Charlotte

Raleigh

Wilmington

North Dakota

Fargo

Ohio

Cincinnati

Cleveland

Columbus

Dayton

Springfield

Toledo

Oklahoma

Oklahoma City

Tulsa

Oregon

Eugene

Portland

Salem

Pennsylvania

Erie

* Philadelphia

Pittsburgh

Rhode Island

Providence

South Carolina

Charleston

Columbia

South Dakota

Sioux Falls

Tennessee

Chattanooga

Murfreesboro

Nashville

Texas

* Arlington

Austin

* Dallas

* El Paso

Fort Worth

* Houston

Lewisville

* San Antonio

Utah

* Salt Lake City

Vermont

Virginia

Fredericksburg

Richmond

Virginia Beach

Washington

Bellevue

* Seattle

Spokane

West Virginia

Wisconsin

Green Bay

Madison

Milwaukee

Wyoming

[hongduongn120]

The Wanderer

So, after arriving in Boston, Flynn quickly decided that he lacked the motivation and funds to settle down and build a business. And so, in true American fashion, he packed up and spent the next 3 years wandering from city to city, sort of like a grand tour but not. His routes took him from New England down to the Gulf of Mexico, through to the Pacific Northwest and the Great Lakes before settling down in St. Louis. The major cities he visited during this 3-year journey include:

- Boston, Massachusetts

- Providence, Rhode Island

- New York City, New York

- Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

- Baltimore, Maryland

- Washington, D.C.

- Richmond, Virginia

- Atlanta, Georgia

- Savannah, Georgia

- Jacksonville, Florida

- Mobile, Alabama

- New Orleans, Louisiana

- Austin, Texas

- El Paso, Texas

- Tucson, Arizona

- Los Angeles, California

- San Francisco, California

- Eugene, Oregon

- Portland, Oregon

- Seattle, Washington

- Helena, Montana

- Billings, Montana

- Rapid City, South Dakota

- Milwaukee, Wisconsin

- Chicago, Illinois

- Springfield, Illinois

- St. Louis, Missouri

[malibu-barb]

Trixie Happy NY Cocktails at TITS FROM 5PM CST

Bald and the Beautiful Live

Salt Lake City, Capitol Theatre - Jan 5 SOLD OUT

Live performance by Katya at Kinetic Kink, Echostage, DC - Jan 13 UNABLE TO PERFORM DUE TO UNFORSEEN CIRCUMSTANCES

Denver, The Paramount - Jan 6 SOLD OUT

Philadelphia, Miller Theater - Jan 19 SOLD OUT

Pittsburgh, Benedum Center - Jan 20 LOW AVAILABILITY

Monterrey, Showcenter Complex - Feb 1

Mexico City, Pepsi Center - Feb 2

Grindr/ Katya hosted podcast "Who's the asshole" starts 15 Feb

Richmond, Carpenter Theatre - March 18 SOLD OUT

Atlanta, Coca Cola Roxy - March 20 SOLD OUT

SPD Portland, OR on 23 February

SPD San Francisco, CA on 25 February

San Diego, Civic Theatre - Feb 28 LOW AVAILABILITY

Los Angeles, The Novo - 1 Mar

SPD Cleveland, OH on 8 March

SPD Grand Rapids, MI on 9 March

SPD Detroit, MI on 10 March

Katya Zamolodchikova's birthday - 1 May 1982

Trixie Mattel's birthday - 23 August 1989

Footnotes:

Trixie and Katya in 2023

Trixie and Katya in 2022

Trixie Mattel Pride 2023 DJ

Bald and the Beautiful Podcasts

Gooped Archives

[ktwritesstuff]

The Babysitter (a Last of Us fanfic) pt. 6

Title: The Babysitter Fandom: The Last of Us Rating: Mature Characters & Pairings: Joel Miller x Reader Word Count: ~2,700 Summary: Calm before the storm. Beta-read by the immaculate globe-trotter, @bs-fangirl.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 (below cut) | Part 7 | Part 8

Somewhere Outside Richmond, Virginia. Summer 2010

After Atlanta, the three of you were careful, stayed away from populated areas; you rarely encountered the infected.  The world outside was more beautiful than FEDRA’s propaganda led you to believe–green and quiet–it was a shame you weren’t feeling well.

At first you tried to brush it off as allergies; it has been so long since you had been in actual nature, but allergies didn’t usually come with nausea and body aches.  Of course, sleeping on the ground didn’t help.  Eventually you admitted that it had to be flu or some other virus; you didn’t know how you picked it up when you hadn’t seen any other people in weeks.  

The nights were getting colder and you were running low on supplies.  You were hungry and exhausted–the lymph nodes under your arms so swollen and tender you couldn’t even carry a backpack without crying–so Joel and Tommy took turns exploring the mountainous terrain while you rested as best you could.   

Joel had been gone for little more than an hour and you didn’t expect him back until closer to nightfall, so when you heard footsteps approaching through the trees Tommy raised his gun.

“It’s just me,” Joel called.  “Calm down.”

“What are you doing back?” you asked, sitting up from where your head was resting on Tommy’s pack.  “Did you find food?”

“Better,” Joel said, reaching to help you up. 

“What’s better than food?” 

“I’ll show you,” he said.  “Come on.  Trust me.”

You and Tommy followed Joel about a mile into the woods until you came to a steep ledge along a riverbank.  Joel lowered himself down and reached up to help you.  

“I don’t like this, Joel,” you protested.  Your arms and legs felt weak and the rocks were wet and slippery; you gripped Tommy’s hand harder as he helped to lower you down.  

“I know, Sweetpea,” Joel put a hand on your back to support you as you made your way down the ledge.  “I got you.  We’re almost there.”

After wading through the river and trudging through the woods in wet socks and shoes for another twenty minutes you reached what might have once been a gravel path or road, now overgrown with grass and greenbriars.  

At the bottom of the hill there was a perfect little cottage bathed in dappled light.  The tin roof was covered in moss and speckled with dandelions.  A black walnut tree was growing through the remnants of the porch.  There was a clear pond and a garden that had gone wild with bolting greens, summer squash that had gone to seed, and runner beans trailing up the pawpaw saplings sprouting up through the yard.

“Joel,” you gasped.    

“There’s more,” Joel said, grinning like a maniac.  

The porch groaned under his weight as he climbed the steps to the house, you and Tommy following carefully behind him.

In the front room there was a wood-burning stove, a wooden rocking chair still in good condition, a sofa that was mostly dry-rotten, and a whole shelf full of books, even an antique sewing machine with a foot-pedal and a basket full of scraps where squirrels had made their nest.  They scurried through the window as you came into the house.     

The area behind the cabin was overgrown with wildflowers and brush.  Tommy actually whooped at excitement at the sight of a fat doe bending down to nibble on the tall grass, which caused her to turn tail and run.  On the other side of the room there was a set of narrow stairs up to a loft and a little kitchen where Joel was already throwing open the cupboards which were stocked with rice and beans and mason jars full of soups and tomatoes and pickles.

“I know it looks like a lot, but we still have to be careful,” Joel said.  “With a little planning, it should get us through winter.”

You covered your mouth and sank on to the floor; every muscle in your body finally giving out in relief.  Joel grabbed you by the waist and hoisted you back up; you held onto his shoulders for support.

“This is ours,” you laughed.  “Our house.”

Joel nodded, his pride evident in spite of his usual seriousness.  

“If the well is good, Tommy and I can get the pump working–we might even have running water.  There’s a bedroom back here,” he said, guiding you into the back room.  There was a double bed with a cast iron frame, a wardrobe, and a cedar chest of linens and wool afghans that Joel tossed onto the bed.  

“There’s plenty of wood, I can get a fire going in no time,” Joel explained.  

You nodded, sinking onto the bed, tears streaming down your face.

“Stop that,” Joel warned, but his voice was soft.  “Everything is going to be okay now.  We’re gonna make some food–you can finally get some rest and get healthy.”

You slept like a rock until Joel roused you with a mug of hot soup–a bean and vegetable number with tomatoey broth.  You wished you had some crackers to settle your stomach, but even without it was the best meal you had eaten in months.  

After, you slept again until after nightfall when Joel came to bed, undressing in the dark.  

“Tommy’s going to take the loft,” he explained.  “I’ll stay down here with you.”

“I’m afraid of getting you sick,” you protested as he climbed into bed beside you.

“If you haven’t gotten me sick already, you ain’t gonna,” Joel said.

You spent a few days subsisting on applesauce and oatmeal and sleeping as much as possible.  Joel mostly kept watch over you, hauling firewood, and fixing things up around the cabin–reinforcing sagging floorboards, patching holes in the roof.  There was a shed on the property with tools and supplies, but without electricity things took time.  Tommy helped out whenever Joel needed an extra set of hands, but mostly he passed time exploring the surrounding forest and stalking deer–so far unsuccessfully.  The house had come with a rifle and a small supply of ammo, but he knew to be judicious with it.  

You spent your few waking hours cataloging the contents of the wardrobe–women’s clothes, much of it handmade, most of it too small for your frame, but there were a few dresses you could use–and the cabin’s modest library–cookbooks, field guides on local plants and wildlife, and herbal remedies.  Little by little, a picture began to form of the cabin’s previous occupants.

You dreamed of her often.  Sometimes a lone pioneer, sometimes a fairytale witch.  You woke feeling feverish and ashamed.  You felt haunted.  Joel fretted over you when you screamed yourself awake, unable to explain why.  He never slept much either, so you weren’t surprised when you woke one night to an empty bed.  

The wind was cold.  You could hear black walnuts thunking against the tin roof as it blew.  You wrapped a knitted blanket around you and padded out to the kitchen in bare feet.  

Joel and Tommy were speaking in hushed tones out at the table.  They had a fire going, sharing nips of alcohol from an ancient-looking bottle of whiskey.  You wouldn’t have thought much of it, except they went silent real quick when they realized you were out of bed.  You couldn’t avoid the question that had been burning at the back of your mind any longer.  Who would have left this place when it had everything you needed?

“Joel, was there somebody here when you found this place?”

Joel cleared his throat, not meeting your eyes in the firelight.  

“There was an old woman,” he said.  “She was dead when I got here.”

“You swear,” you said.  “Do you swear she was already dead?”  You almost asked him to swear on Sarah, but you decided against it, knowing you would have to live with the answer.

“Jesus, Sweetpea, I swear,” Joel said.  “She died natural, as far as I could tell, in her bed–which makes her a hell of a lot more fortunate than the likes of us.”

“In the bed where we’ve been sleeping,” you wailed, pointing back to the bedroom.

Tommy chuckled.  

“You see why I didn’t want to tell you,” Joel said.

You closed your eyes and took a breath, choking down a sob.  People died all the time–you had lost your entire family in one night and barely shed a tear–so why were you suddenly overcome by the loss of this person you had never even known?  

“What did you do with her?” you asked.

“I wrapped her up in the comforter and walked her down the hill; I flipped the mattress over and I came and got you and Tommy,” he explained.

“Joel!” you shrieked.  

“What was I supposed to do?”

“We have to bury her,” you said.  “She left all of this for us; it’s the least we can do.”

You hardly considered yourself a Christian anymore, but still.  It didn’t sit right with you to leave your predecessor out in the open to be scavenged by wild animals.

“Fine,” Joel growled.  “We’ll take care of it, first thing tomorrow.  Go back to bed–you need to rest.”

True to his word, in the morning, Joel dug a modest grave.  You thought about looking at the remains before they were interred, but couldn’t bring yourself to unfold the threadbare fabric of the old quilt.  You covered the mound with river rocks.  Tommy whittled two dowels down and bound them with twine to make a cross.    

“You don’t know that she was Christian,” Joel protested.  You glared.  

“Would you like to say a few words?”

“I think I just want to say ‘thank you,’” you said, standing over the grave with a bouquet of Black-eyed Susans from the field behind the house.  “I know you don’t know us, but because you planted a garden we get to eat and have a safe place to sleep. And I just want you to know, we’ll take care of your home.”

After the funeral, it felt like a spell had been broken.  You were sleeping through the night and your appetite returned.  By the end of the week, you were feeling much stronger, so when Tommy finally brought home a deer, he and Joel showed you how to field dress and butcher it. 

Joel put the knife in your hand, standing behind you, guiding you through the motions.  

“Keep the point away from you and go slow,” he warned.  “Be gentle, you just want to go through the skin.  Puncture the stomach or intestines and all you’re gonna have is a fucking mess.”

You made it through the first layer of skin and the membrane beneath without too much difficulty.  Without the heart beating, there was less blood than you expected.

“This is a fat fucking deer,” Joel laughed, helping you scoop out the guts.  “Hell yeah,” Tommy agreed.

“She’s beautiful.”

You ran your fingers through the coarse fur, around the rose-like bloom where Tommy’s bullet had entered the deer’s shoulder and struck her heart.  Tommy knew what he was doing: a clean kill, quick, and as close to painless as it got.  You wondered where they had learned this; imagined that maybe they had gone on hunting trips with their father when they were young.

“You alright?” Joel asked.  “You look pale.”

You nodded, shaking off the wave of sickness.  

“I’m okay,” you said.  “What next?” 

“Reach inside,” Joel said, guiding your hands into the stomach cavity.  “Feel that muscle there, you’re going to cut through to get to the heart and esophagus.  Once you cut through that we can pull everything out to let it drain.”

“You’re a natural,” Tommy said, patting your back encouragingly.

“Takes a soft touch,” Joel agreed.  

Tommy took the deer to drain the rest of the blood.

With no refrigeration, the three of you realized you didn’t have a reliable way to preserve the meat; it was going to be much more than you could eat before it went bad.  Joel thought if he took the pelt and the extra meat to the Richmond QZ, he could trade for medicine or other supplies.  You didn’t like the idea of him out there alone, but neither he nor Tommy were willing to leave you alone.  

By day three with no sign of Joel, you started to panic.  Tommy put on a brave face, but you could tell he was just as worried as you were.  When reading could no longer keep your anxiety at bay you walked, exploring the forest.  You collected black walnuts and happened upon a strawberry patch up the hill from the cabin (though it was too late in the season now for strawberries), you even found chicken of the woods.  Tommy refused to touch it, convinced you were going to poison him.  

It was close to sunset on the fourth day when you finally caught sight of a figure with Joel’s approximate proportions and coloring, limping along from the rocks overlooking the old gravel road.    

“Joel!” you called out, scrambling down the hill.  “Joel.”  

“You had us scared half to death,” you said, throwing your arms around him.

“M’alright,” he said, relaxing into you.  “Twisted my damn ankle.  I’m sorry I scared you; I’ve just been moving slow.”     

Joel let you take his pack, and you ducked under his arm to support him on the path back up to the cabin.  Once you were within earshot you called out for Tommy and he helped you get Joel back up to the house and settled onto the bed with pillows under his bad ankle.  

“You got any Advil in here?” Tommy asked, rooting through Joel’s pack as you struggled to get his boot off his swollen foot.  There was a hint of bruising, but Joel could wiggle his toes.  It didn’t rule out a fracture, but if there were, hopefully it was small enough to heal on its own.  

“I wish,” Joel grimaced.  “Managed to find a new pressure switch for the jet pump, though.”

While Joel and Tommy went over their plans to get the well back in order, you sorted through your jars of dried herbs and spices, mashing up comfrey and wild garlic to warm on the stove with a few drops of oil from the pantry.  

“What the hell is that?” Joel said as you went to wrap his ankle with the paste.

“An herbal poultice,” you said.  “I learned how to make it from one of the books–been using it on cuts and scrapes.  Arnica’s better for a twisted ankle, but it doesn’t grow wild in this part of the country.” 

“I’d rather have some good old fashioned ice,” Joel complained, gritting his teeth as you tightened the bandages.

“Well we don’t have ice, now do we,” you snapped, tying off the bandages a little tighter than you needed to.  “So you’re just going to have to keep off it.  Now, are you hungry?  We’ve got fish.”

“Yes.”  Joel frowned; you knew he hated being laid up, but at this point there was nothing else you could do until his ankle had a chance to heal.  Thank heavens, it wasn’t worse. 

“I’ll put a plate on the stove for you,” you said.  “You have to rest.  The well can wait a few days more.”  

It was dark by the time Joel had eaten and dinner had been cleaned up; you changed into a flannel nightgown by candlelight.  You hadn’t even realized how scared you had been until you felt the relief washing over you as you climbed into bed beside him.

“I missed you,” you said, tucking yourself close to his side.  “It gets cold at night.”

Joel put his arm around you and kissed the top of your head.  You realized he must have been scared, too.  Or at least he was glad to be home, as much as he liked to complain.

“I even asked Tommy if he would come down to keep me warm,” you teased.  

“You did?” Joel chuckled.  “How did that go?”

You laughed.  “He gave me his blanket and told me to go sleep by the stove.”

Baby's First Taglist: @stilllivindue2spite, @amethystwonders11, @teacupcollectorr, @jbaby2, @flyingmushroomsss, @boysddontcry, @cated18, @sunnycamm

[commiepinkofag]

Detroit is biggest U.S. city to pass resolution calling for ceasefire in Gaza

The resolution passed 7-2 following hundreds of comments by Detroiters

After hearing hundreds of spirited comments from Detroiters, the Detroit City Council voted 7-2 on Tuesday to pass a resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza — becoming the largest U.S. city to do so. Public comments were overwhelmingly in favor of the resolution, calling it a “bare minimum” given the ethnic cleansing happening in Gaza. …

Detroit joins other U.S. cities like Atlanta, Georgia; Akron, Ohio; Wilmington, Delaware; Providence, Rhode Island; and Richmond, California in passing a ceasefire resolution.

[fuckyeswednesday13]

🗣Only 28 days Away USA‼️


See Wednesday 13 performing a full set of Murderdolls songs LIVE this October-December

Support from @geminisyndrome @infectedrain_official and @blacksatellite

🗣Tickets and VIPS on sale NOW through the venues.

Officialwednesday13.com

Fri 20th Oct - LOS ANGELES, CA - The Whisky

Sat 21st Oct - LAS VEGAS, NV - Count’s Vamp’d

Sun 22nd Oct - RENO, NV - Virginia Street Brewhouse

Tue 24th Oct - PORTLAND, OR - Bossanova Ballroom

Wed 25th Oct - SEATTLE, WA - El Corazon

Fri 27th Oct - ROSEVILLE, CA - Goldfield Trading Post

Sat 28th Oct - SAN JOSE, CA - The Ritz

Sun 29th Oct - SAN DIEGO, CA - Brick By Brick

Tue 31st Oct - PHOENIX, AZ - The Nile Theater

Wed 1st Nov - ALBUQUERQUE, NM - Launch Pad

Fri 3rd Nov - DALLAS, TX - Sundown At Grenada

Sat 4th Nov - HOUSTON, TX - Warehouse Live

Sun 5th Nov - AUSTIN, TX - Come And Take It Live

Mon 6th Nov - Tulsa OK- Shrine

Tue 7th Nov - LAWRENCE, KS - The Bottleneck

Thu 9th Nov - MINNEAPOLIS, MN - Skyway Theater

Fri 10th Nov - MADISON, WI - The Annex

Sat 11th Nov - JOLIET, IL - The Forge

Sun 12th Nov - BLOOMINGTON, IL - Castle Theater

Tue 14th Nov - RACINE, WI - Route 20

Wed 15th Nov - FLINT, MI - Machine Shop

Thu 16th Nov - CLEVELAND, OH - The Foundry

Fri 17th Nov - PITTSBURGH, PA - Crafthouse

Sat 18th Nov - LITITZ, PA -Mickeys Black Box

Sun 19th Nov - CLIFTON, NJ - Dingbats

Wed 22nd Nov - SPARTANBURG, SC - Ground Zero

Fri 24th Nov - WINSTON-SALEM, NC - Millennium Center

Sat 25th Nov - RICHMOND, VA - Canal Club

Sun 26th Nov - LEESBURG, VA - Tally Ho

Tue 28th Nov- Atlanta Ga - Masquerade

Thu 30th Nov -KNOXVILLE, TN- The Concourse

Fri 1st Dec - LOUISVILLE, KY - Headliners Music Hall

Sat 2nd Dec - COLUMBUS, OH - The King Of Clubs

Sun 3rd Dec - INDIANAPOLIS, IN - Hi Fi Annex

Tue 5th Dec - DES MOINES, IA - Lefty’s Live Music

Wed 6th Dec - LINCOLN, NE - Bourbon Theater

Fri 8th Dec - DENVER, CO – Oriental Theater

Sat 9th Dec - COLORADO SPRINGS, CO - Black Sheep

Art by @jonnybush

[beguines]

With the collapse of both the rural and urban economies, millions, including many children, took to riding the rails. In 1932, Southern Pacific, just one of many railroads, threw almost seven hundred thousand people off its trains. Shantytowns, aptly dubbed "Hoovervilles," emerged in major cities around the country, especially in those like Chicago that were transportation centers. Spontaneous struggles, including group raids on food stores, emerged. And into this environment stepped the Unemployed Councils (UC), led by the Communist Party (CP). In a matter of months, hundreds of militant mass organizations had been organized around the country. On March 6, 1930, Communists worldwide took part in unemployment demonstrations. In the United States, where more than a million demonstrated, it is estimated that fifty thousand protestors turned out in Boston, thirty thousand in Philadelphia, twenty-​five thousand in Cleveland, twenty thousand in Pittsburgh and Youngstown, and one hundred thousand each in New York City and Detroit. Active UCs existed around the country, including the South; Atlanta, Birmingham, Richmond, and Chattanooga were early centers. Yet isolated areas were not immune. Especially militant and well organized were groups in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. In the iron mining town of Crosby, Minnesota, the Communist leader of the UC won election as mayor, began hiring unemployed miners, and led a hunger march on the state capital. Yet as Lorence notes, although Michigan was among the most active places, with large, influential unemployed movements not only in Detroit and the Upper Peninsula, but in Flint, Saginaw and Bay City, and Pontiac, the more conservative western part of the state was less militant and confrontational.

Piven and Cloward call it the "largest movement of the unemployed the country has known". As a contemporary social scientist, Helen Seymour, argues, "Every large city, most small cities and towns, practically all states . . . witnessed the growth, with tremendous variation as to type, duration, method of accomplishment, of relief pressure groups". The Musteite Unemployed Leagues claimed a hundred thousand members in 187 branches in Ohio alone, and another forty to fifty thousand members in Pennsylvania in 1933, and they were dwarfed by the much larger Communist-​led Unemployed Councils in members and branches. Of course, some areas were passed over, and even when they did emerge, they did not approach high levels of militancy. Nevertheless, what is most striking is the ubiquity and range of unemployed struggles and active groups.

One of the richest accounts of early unemployed activity is given by Nathaniel Weyl. The UCs were organized by blocks and in tenements, and also in breadlines, flophouses, and relief centers, all with their particular demands and forms of action. One of the major activities of the neighborhood committees was to fight evictions: they amassed crowds, fought evictors, including police, moved furniture back when it had been removed, and re-​hooked up utilities. By 1932, in some cities evictions had all but ended. All over the country, unemployed groups organized marches on relief stations, city halls, and even state capitals, demanding greater relief. In Chicago, where the Socialist Party (SP) was especially strong, the UC initiated a joint demonstration of tens of thousands of unemployed, demanding no cut in relief and an end to evictions. Chicago and Illinois officials rushed to Washington, DC, to borrow 6.3 million dollars from the Reconstruction Finance Corporation in order to meet the demands. Mayor Anton Cermak responded to critics by highlighting the seriousness of the growing radicalization of the masses: "I say to the men who object to this public relief because it will add to the tax burden on their property, they should be glad to pay for it, for it is the best way of ensuring that they keep their property". The central national demand of the UCs was unemployment insurance at the expense of employers and the state, embodied in the Frazier-​Lundeen Bill and eventually supported by unions as well as all unemployed groups.

In addition, many of the unemployed groups were industrially oriented. United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) locals in West Virginia, Ohio, and Pennsylvania established active unemployed organizations of their laid-​off members. Communists organized unemployed stockyard workers for hunger marches. The CP-​led Auto Workers Union (AWU) led marches and picket lines at auto plants protesting layoffs, the most famous of which was the March 7, 1932, Ford Hunger March in Detroit and Dearborn, Michigan. As the subsequent chapters demonstrate, active, mass-​supported groups of unemployed in steel towns and wood centers were widespread and played important roles in union organizing.

Michael Goldfield, The Southern Key: Class, Race, and Radicalism in the 1930s and 1940s

[reasoningdaily]

In the years before the Civil War, New York police officers sold free Black Americans into enslavement. Public Domain/Courtesy of Wikicommons

 Clashes between protestors and the police from Portland to Atlanta to Kenosha are recent flashpoints in the long history of policing in America. While the police today emerged from a hodge-podge of national and international iterations, one of the United States’ earliest and most storied forces, the New York City police, offers modern Americans a lesson in the intractability of problems between the black community and the officers sworn to uphold the law.

That long history is both bleak and demoralizing. But this past also reminds us that real change will only happen by learning from the collective American experience, one in which those who supported systems of oppression were met by others who bravely battled against them.

As the nation’s most populous city for most of its history, New York has been uniquely affected by this dynamic. In the decades before the Civil War, when Gotham’s police force was becoming regularized and professionalized, Manhattan routinely erupted in riotous violence over the very meaning of equality.

No one individual embodied the brawling roughness of New York policing like Captain Isiah Rynders of the U.S. Marshals.

Born in 1804 in the Hudson River town of Waterford, New York, Rynders was a gambler on Mississippi River steamboats. He reportedly killed a man after a card game and fled to his home state around 1837.

Known for his thunderous voice, a powerful memory, and a penchant for histrionics, Rynders made an immediate impact on New York City.

Black New Yorkers became his main target, and for decades, he patrolled the streets looking for runaways who had escaped enslavement in the South and who, against tremendous odds, had found freedom in Manhattan.

The Constitution’s Fugitive Slave Clause required northern free cities like New York to return the self-emancipated to their southern enslavers, and the NYPD and officers like Rynders were only too willing to comply, conveniently folding their hatred of black people into their reverence for the nation’s founding document. Armed with the founders’ compromise over slavery, Rynders and his fellow officers,

men like Tobias Boudinot and

Daniel D. Nash,

terrorized New York’s black community from the 1830s up through the Civil War.

And, even worse, it often mattered little whether a black person was born free in New York or had in fact escaped bondage; the police, reinforced by judges like the notorious city recorder Richard Riker, sent the accused to southern plantations with little concern and often even less evidence.

Thanks to Rynders, Boudinot, and Nash, the New York police department had become an extension of the powerful reach of southern slavery, and each month—and often each week in the summer months—brought news of another kidnapping or capture of a supposed runaway.

Black New Yorker John Thomas, for example, was claimed by an enslaver from Louisville, Kentucky. Thomas purportedly fled slavery along the Ohio River, then travelled through Canada, and ultimately found a job as a porter in a Manhattan hotel.

In late 1860, Thomas was arrested as a fugitive by the Manhattan police. While in prison, Thomas hastily drafted a note, dropped it out his cell window, and asked a passing boy to give the note to his employer, who submitted a writ of habeas corpus.

Unfortunately, the marshal on duty was none other than Rynders, who produced a different black man in response to the writ, and the judge declared the writ satisfied. In the meantime, Thomas’ employer and friends learned, too late, that one of Rynders’ deputies had taken the real John Thomas to Richmond, where he would be transported to Kentucky, lost in the darkness of American slavery, like untold numbers of other kidnapping victims.

Fortunately, New York’s black community was not without heroic defenders like David Ruggles, the tireless activist and journalist. Ruggles led the city’s antislavery community while the likes of Rynders, Riker, Boudinot and Nash, a group so wicked that Ruggles had labeled them “the kidnapping club,” patrolled the streets and docks in search of their next prey.

Joined by activists like Horace Dresser, Arthur Tappan, Charles B. Ray and other antislavery protestors, Ruggles fought relentlessly against those officers and marshals who threatened black liberty.

Just as modern protestors decry the role of the police in the quest for order, black and white activists in pre-Civil War New York claimed that the force was little more than a vigilante expression of the worst tendencies of white residents.

A more professionalized police force, however, did not mean one more suited to the protection of black civil rights. On the contrary, in the early 1800s, the police proved sadly and persistently indifferent to the black lives they were supposed to protect.

By modern standards, the early NYPD was a ragtag band of barely organized and only partially trained officers. The daytime police remained inadequate to deal with the robberies, violence, prostitution, gambling and other crimes of a city approaching 300,000 people in the 1830s.

Only 16 constables, elected by citizens of each ward, along with about 60 marshals appointed by the mayor, patrolled the city. Only constables and marshals had the power to arrest under a magistrate’s orders. Armed with warrants issued by Riker, marshals like Rynders could terrorize Gotham’s black residents, who came to fear the police presence in their neighborhoods.

Part of the fear emanated from the fact that Rynders’ confederates Boudinot and Nash did not wear uniforms or carry any kind of badge signifying their authority.

The familiar dark blue uniforms of the NYPD were not instituted until the 1850s, so African Americans harassed or arrested by the police could not even be sure that they were being accosted by legal authorities.

Equally problematic was the fact that neither Nash nor Boudinot earned regular salaries on which they could depend; their ability to support themselves and their families came from fees set by state law, which virtually required officials to arrest as many people as possible.

The situation almost guaranteed corruption, and tied the financial interests of the New York police force to the financial interests of southern slaveowners. Not that they needed any push to over-police the black community, but patrollers like Nash and Boudinot had every incentive to use their blanket writ to arrest as many accused fugitive slaves as they possibly could. In fact, their financial well-being depended on it.

Boudinot and Nash operated almost like independent agents in a police force that was itself in disarray, an institutional chaos that only rendered Black lives even more vulnerable. Fernando Wood, elected mayor in 1854, controlled the police department and relied heavily on Irish immigrants to man the force.

But by the 1850s, anti-Irish politicians were trying to establish a new police force, soon to be called the Metropolitans, that would replace Wood’s Municipals. A clash erupted in 1857 when Wood refused to back down, and for months, the city actually had two competing police departments who battled each other as much as they combatted crime.

Both Wood’s Municipals and the state’s Metropolitans were guilty of malfeasance and dereliction of duty.

In fact, the Municipals, led by police chief George Matsell, had been called “slave catchers” by the city’s black community and its allies in the Republican press.

George Matsell, a member of the NYPD since 1840, himself was suspected of corruption, and rumors spread that he extorted money from criminals, seized stolen property for his own use, and skimmed the profits of illegal activities.

By the time the Municipals and Metropolitans vied for control of the New York police, Matsell had managed to build a sprawling summer mansion within a vast vineyard in Iowa, where local landmarks still bear his name. New York politician Mike Walsh labeled the heavy-set Matsell a “walking mass of moral and physical putrefaction.”

The crisis between the Municipals and the Metropolitans was only resolved when Wood and the Municipals finally backed down and the Metropolitans emerged as the city’s permanent and only official police force. Yet, the new police force proved no more respectful of black lives.

Boudinot became a captain in one of the city’s main wards and Rynders became a Democratic elder statesman during and after the war. In fact, New York City, always ready to defend the cotton trade with the South, voted against Lincoln in 1860 and harbored racial conservatives like Wood during the war and after. Embodied by newspapers like The New York Weekly Caucasian, one of the nation’s most prominent promulgators of white supremacist ideology, the city remained an unfriendly place for African Americans.

One hundred and fifty years later, policing has changed a great deal, particularly in its militarization and organization, but the tensions between the nation’s black communities and the police are still very much evident.

Black Americans have been fully aware of this history for generations because they have been the objects of so much of the violent quest for law and order. Although many people might assume that Riker’s Island was named after the city recorder, it appears that the name originates less from an individual and more from Manhattan’s general Dutch heritage. But though their origins may be different, both the prison and the city recorder share a similar past of neglecting the plight and suffering the New York’s most vulnerable residents.

Now, with some white Americans learning the fraught history of policing for the first time, have they come to realize that the last moments and utterances of Eric Garner, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and untold others are but modern expressions of a deep and deadly struggle that stretches back to America’s earliest beginnings.

[coimbrabertone]

NASCAR Numerology: How NASCAR's Current Teams Got Their Numbers: Part Four.

Welcome everybody to the mission creep blog! We've done Trackhouse, Penske, Wood Brothers, RCR, SHR, Hendrick, RFK, and Spire, which means we've cleared the first ten numbers!

Today we're going to talk about:

Joe Gibbs Racing, who runs the #11, the #19, the #20, and the #54 this year.

Kaulig Racing, who runs the #13, the #16, and the #31.

Rick Ware Racing, who run the #15 and the #51,

and 23XI Racing, who run the #23, the #45, and sometimes the #50.

So, starting with Joe Gibbs Racing...and their story starts with none of their current numbers! Rather, it starts with the #18 in 1992.

Why the #18? Once again, it was a story of lowest available number, as 1-12 were taken, the #13 was being used by a part time time along with various superstitions around it, and #14, #15, #16, and #17 were taken as well. Thus, JGR debuted in 1992 with Dale Jarrett in the Interstate Batteries Chevrolet. This partnership won the Daytona 500 in 1993 and won at the fall Charlotte race in 1994, but for 1995, Dale Jarrett would leave. He moved to Yates Racing to take over the #28, subbing for the injured Ernie Irvan, and when Irvan returned to the #28 in 1996, Jarrett moved to a second Yates car, the #88.

Thus, JGR had to make their own story with Bobby Labonte, who impressed immediately by winning the 1995 Coke 600 and sweeping Charlotte.

1997 would bring only one win, at Atlanta, so for 1997, JGR switched to Pontiac. This era of JGR, with Bobby Labonte running the Interstate Batteries #18 Pontiac, is when the team really broke into the top of NASCAR.

Bobby would finish second to Dale Jarrett in 1999, but in 2000, Bobby Labonte would win the championship for JGR.

This was also the time that JGR became a two car team for the first time, but more on that in a moment.

For now, Labonte continued in JGR through the end of the 2005 season, with his last three years in a Chevrolet as GM began phasing out the Pontiac brand in NASCAR. Upon his retirement, he was replaced by JGR development driver JJ Yeley, but Yeley would only last two winless seasons.

He would be shuffled off to Hall of Fame Racing for 2008.

This is when JGR experienced its biggest change in history when, feeling like they were second or even third fiddle at Chevrolet, they switched to Toyota for the 2008 season. Toyota looked downright bad in 2007, but with a year of experience and JGR making the switch, there was hope.

Another reason to hope was that Kyle Busch, the hotheaded but fast kid from Hendrick Motorsports, made the switch, with JGR signing M&Ms as a sponsor over from Yates.

Thus, one of the most recognizable partnerships in modern NASCAR began, with Kyle Busch, Toyota, and M&Ms - they won the 2015 and 2019 championships together, took countless wins, and along with Kevin Harvick of SHR and Martin Truex Jr., Kyle formed part of the "Big Three" drivers that dominated the late Gen 6 era of NASCAR, particularly 2017-2019.

However, during the 2022 season, Mars Inc., parent company of M&Ms, announced that they were ending their NASCAR sponsorship. Kyle Busch was forced to move to the #8 car at RCR, while Joe Gibbs announced that his grandson, Ty Gibbs, would move up to the NASCAR Cup Series.

Rather than the #18, he would continue in his Xfinity number, driving the #54.

Ironically enough, the #54 originates with Kyle Busch, as Kyle Busch Motorsports has long run the #51 (a tribute to Days of Thunder antagonist Rowdy Burns, who Kyle has nicknamed himself after) and the #4 in trucks. When KBM moved up to the second-tier Nationwide series in 2012 neither number was available, so they ran the #54 instead.

Kyle and Kurt Busch split the season, with Kurt taking its only win at Richmond.

For 2013, KBM's Nationwide team was sold to Joe Gibbs Racing, where, in 2022, Ty Gibbs ran the #54 to the Xfinity series championship (for those who don't know, Busch, Nationwide, and Xfinity are all the second-tier NASCAR series, it just doesn't have a proper name so it has always been known by its title sponsor, which has changed a few times).

So, the #18 became the #54.

Meanwhile, Joe Gibbs' second number was the #20, introduced in 1999. Why the #20? Because the #19 was taken by a part-time team at the time, so the #20 was the next available number after #18. This number was initially ran by Tony Stewart with immediate success, winning the championship in 2002 with Pontiac and 2005 with Chevrolet. The Home Depot #20 was one of the iconic cars of NASCAR's boom era, and Tony Stewart was its superstar driver. In 2008, however, JGR switched to Toyota, while Tony was an all-American GM guy to his core.

The awkward partnership only lasted for one year before Tony left JGR to start his own team with Gene Haas, forming SHR.

Joey Logano replaced Tony in the #20, showing flashes of brilliance, but with only two wins in four seasons, Logano was replaced with Matt Kenseth for 2013. Logano would move to Penske, with much more success there than he had at JGR.

Matt Kenseth, meanwhile, saw the #20 switch from Home Depot sponsorship to running a Dollar General primary. Nevertheless, Kenseth showed immediate success, taking seven wins and falling just nineteen points off championship leader Jimmie Johnson.

Two years later in 2015, Kenseth was on for another championship contending season before being spun out from the lead at Kansas by none other than Joey Logano. Getting caught up in a wreck at the next race at Talladega saw Matt Kenseth get eliminated in the round of 12, while Logano won his third race in a row at Talladega to sweep the round of 12.

In retribution, at Martinsville two weeks later - the first race of the round of eight - Matt Kenseth wrecked Joey Logano as the crowd cheered. Kenseth was suspended for two races, but getting wrecked at Martinsville, a tyre problem at Texas, and failing to win Phoenix meant that Joey Logano didn't advance either.

A historic feud between drivers of the #20.

Kenseth would leave JGR after 2017, handing the #20 over to Erik Jones for three seasons, before it ended up in the hands of current driver Christopher Bell in 2021.

Bell has made the championship four in both 2022 and 2023, but finished fourth in the standings both years.

JGR's third car was the #11, co-owned by JD Gibbs and running the #11, which was the number JD used in college football at William & Mary. The #11 debuted in 2004, running various drivers such as JJ Yeley, Jason Leffler, Ricky Craven, and even Terry Labonte before settling on Denny Hamlin at the end of 2005. Hamlin went full time for 2006.

The team, with primary sponsorship from FedEx, has run ever since.

Denny Hamlin and the #11 team have won three Daytona 500s, fifty-four races, and have basically done everything in NASCAR besides winning a championship. Truly the Chicago Cubs of the stock car racing world.

Last on the list for JGR is the #19, which Joe Gibbs was finally able to secure in 2015. They had already poached Matt Kenseth from Roush for the #20, so Gibbs decided to do it again and nabbed Carl Edwards for the #19, a partnership that lasted two years before Carl abruptly retired at the end of the 2016 season for reasons NASCAR fans still speculate about to this day.

In the words of Carl Edwards himself...he had taken too many knocks to the head over the years and with him then starting a young family with a neurosurgeon wife, he decided to retire.

Daniel Suárez replaced Edwards for 2017 and 2018, before the other leading Toyota team in the form of Furniture Row Racing collapsed, giving JGR the chance to pick up 2017 champion Martin Truex Jr. for the 2019 season. Truex brought sponsors Bass Pro Shops and Auto Owners Insurance over with him.

2024, however, will be Truex's last season. Chase Briscoe will take over the #19 for 2025.

One team down.

Kaulig Racing has two full time cars, the #16 and the #31, as well as a part-time #13. The #31 is driven by Daniel Hemric, the #16 by AJ Allmendinger, Shane van Gisbergen, Josh Williams, Derek Kraus, and Ty Dillon, and the #13 has been used by Allmendinger in races where both he and SVG were running, such as COTA and Chicago.

Kaulig took #16 since it was available in 2021 (their usual Xfinity numbers, #10 and #11, were both taken), the #31 was chosen for their chartered entry for 2022 since RCR had vacated it after 2019, and the #13 because one: it was vacated, and two: it's the inverse of the #13. Yeah, not much story there, Kaulig is a new team and their numbers don't have much historic meaning behind them.

I mean, Roush ran the #16 for a long time, most successfully with Greg Biffle, but there's no link between that and Kaulig.

Kaulig does have two wins - Indianapolis Road Course 2021 and Charlotte Roval 2023 - with AJ Allmendinger, which is the most success the #16 has had since Biffle, for whatever that's worth.

Now onto Rick Ware Racing.

Rick Ware Racing has built up their history as a start-and-park team running the #51, and initially their numbering scheme was built on that, running numbers such as #52, #53, and the #54 as well. This is also the number that Rick Ware uses on its co-entries in other series, such as its alliance with Dale Coyne Racing in Indycar - where the #51 is currently run by a slew of drivers, of which Katherine Legge is expected to finish out the season - and IMSA LMP3 racing, where Rick Ware runs his son Cody.

Cody Ware was arrested in 2023 for assaulting and strangling his then girlfriend, so that's the first and only time I will mention him on this blog.

Anyway, more recently Rick Ware Racing has started professionalizing its NASCAR efforts, with Justin Haley showing promise in the #51 car that he runs in alliance with RFK Racing. Their other car, the #15, is still somewhat of a revolving door of drivers, but it does appear to be improving.

So, that's the #11, the #13, the #15, and the #16. Roush has the #17, the #18 is currently vacant, JGR has the #19 and the #20, Wood Brothers has the #21, Penske the #22...that means 23XI is next.

23Xi Racing, a joint venture by Michael Jordan (the 23 part) and Denny Hamlin (the 11 part, or XI in Roman numerals) is another new NASCAR team, having entered NASCAR in 2021 in alliance with Joe Gibbs Racing.

The history of their numbers is quite simple, the #23 is Jordan's jersey number, and the #45 is the number he wore when he returned to the Chicago Bulls in 1995 after a brief sabbatical during which time he played for the White Sox's minor league affiliates.

Bubba Wallace has run the #23 since it was established in 2021, while Kurt Busch was the initial driver of the #45 before a career-ending crash at Pocono. Ty Gibbs was drafted in to replace Kurt, before 23Xi briefly switched Bubba into the #45 to compete for the owner points playoffs. Daniel Hemric and John Hunter Nemechek also had starts in 23XI cars in 2022.

For 2023 though, Tyler Reddick has been brought in to drive the #45, winning twice in 2023, and another two times so far in 2024.

Bubba, meanwhile, won Talladega 2021 in his #23, and Kansas 2022 while filling in in the #45.

23XI's third car was initially the #67 - get it, like 2,3,4,5,6,7? - but this year, in a promotion with sponsor Mobil 1, it has run as the #50 to celebrate their 50th anniversary.

Travis Pastrana, Kamui Kobayashi, and Corey Heim have all started in the #67/#50, while Juan Pablo Montoya is scheduled to run the #50 at the 2024 NASCAR Cup race at Watkins Glen.

So yeah, we started with a college football number in the #11, and we finish on a team named after basketball numbers with 23XI.

I believe tomorrow will be the end of this series, as Front Row Motorsports with the #34 and #38, Legacy Motor Club with the #42 and the #43, and JTG Daugherty with the #47 are the only remaining full-time teams.

Higher numbers are a bit sparse in NASCAR these days, huh?

[sassymakerpirate]

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[missmcspooks]

Special 100th Post: Murder By Alphabet

I wanted to do something a little different for my 100th post, and decided to make a simple list of serial killers for every letter of the alphabet. Q and X have been left out due to the fact that nothing exists for those letters so, my apologies!

Atlanta Ripper: Is an unidentified serial killer who’s suspected of killing 15 women in Atlanta between 1909 and 1914. 6 different suspects were found, but no convictions have ever been found. It’s possible that the Atlanta Ripper could be responsible for as many as 21 murders, but there’s no hard evidence that can declare that these murders were committed by the same person. 

Bouncing Ball Killer: Is an unidentified serial killer who’s suspected of killing at least 6 women in Los Angeles between May 1959, and June 1960. 3 initial suspects have been cleared, and 5 others have been suspected, but no convictions have been made. 

Charlie Chop-off: Is an unidentified serial killer known to have killed 4 children in Manhattan between 1972 and 1973. Police heavily believe that a man named Erno Soto is the killer, as the murders stopped after his arrest, but were let go due to lack of evidence. 

Doodler: Is an unidentified serial killer suspected to have killed between 6 and 16 men, and an additional 3 assaults on other men in San Francisco, California. He was given his nickname the “Doodler” due to his signature of sketching his victims before stabbing them to death. 

Edward Edwards: Before becoming a serial killer, he was a former fugitive. He escaped from jail in Ohio and held up multiple gas stations before making a run for it to Georgia. He landed himself on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List by 1961. He was captured in Atlanta, Georgia, and convicted of 5 confirmed murders, but is suspected to have killed 9-15 additional people.

Freeway Phantom: Is an unidentified serial killer who is suspected of killing 5 young girls and one woman in Washington, D.C, between April 1971, and September 1972. There have been multiple suspects, but no convictions have happened. 

Grim Sleeper: Lonnie David Franklin Jr. was a serial killer who was responsible for at least 10 murders and one attempted murder in Los Angeles, California, between 1984 and 2007. He gained his nickname as the Grim Sleeper due to appearing to have taken a 14 year break between his murders. He was also convicted of sexual violence and rape. 

Hillside Stranglers: Two serial killers named Kenneth Alessio Bianchi, and Angelo Buono Jr. They were convicted for kidnapping, raping, torturing, and killing 10 women together in Los Angeles, California, between October 1977, and February 1978. The victims were between 12 and 28 years old. Bianchi killed two additional women by himself, and were both sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. 

I-70 Strangler: Is an unidentified serial killer who’s suspected of killing at least twelve boys and men in Ohio and Indiana between June 1980, and October 1991. This case is officially unsolved, but it’s heavily suspected that the serial killer, Herb Baumeister, was the killer. Herb is now deceased, and was convicted for murdering over a dozen men in the early 1990s, some of them last being seen around gay bars. He killed himself after a warrant was out for his arrest. 

Willie Ben Jones: Is a serial killer who killed at least sex workers in Richmond, Virginia, between 1980 and 1991. When asked why he killed these women, he replied by stating that they “had to be punished for being sex workers.” He was given 3 consecutive 20 year sentences. 

Todd Kohlhepp: Is a serial killer and sex offender who was convicted of killing seven people in South Carolina between 2003 and 2016. He also kidnapped at least one woman, sexually assaulted another, and claims that he’s killed many more. 

Leonard Lake: Was a serial killer during the mid 1980s, and was convicted of raping, torturing, and killing 11 women, and is suspected to have killed as many as 25. He also had an accomplice, Charles Ng. They killed their victims at a remote cabin in Wilseyville, California.

Cory Morris: Is a serial killer, rapist, and necrophile who murdered at least 5 sex workers in his trailer in Phoenix, Arizona, between September 2002, and April 2003. He was sentenced to death, but is currently still alive at age 45. 

Francis Nemechek: Is a serial killer who killed 4 women and a young boy in Kansas between December 1974, and August 1976. He admitted to the murders and also claimed to have sexually assaulted some of them, but plead not guilty for the reason of insanity, but was found guilty anyway and sentenced to life in prison. He has been denied parole 4 times. 

Juan David Ortiz: Is a serial killer and spree killer who killed 4 sex workers in September 2018. He was arrested after a potential victim escaped and contacted the police. 

Pleasant Pruitt: Is a serial killer who killed three subsequent wives. He was never charged with killing his first two wives, but ended up taking his own life after he killed his last wife to refrain from going to prison. 

Robert Ben Rhoads: Is a serial killer and rapist who was convicted in 1994 for murdering 3 women that he found at truck stops. He’s also suspected of killing as many as 50 women. 

Skid Row Stabber: Is an unidentified serial killer who murdered 11 women between 1978 and 1979 in a neighborhood that people liked to call “Skid Row” located in Los Angeles. This neighborhood is known to house a lot of homeless people, who are often subjected to victimization. Bobby Joe Maxwell was arrested, charged, and convicted of the murders, but his conviction was overturned in 2010. 

Brandon Tholmer: Is a serial killer and rapist responsible for at least 12 murders of elderly women between January 1981 and October 19823, in Los Angeles' West Side. He gained the nickname “The West Side Rapist.” It’s speculated that he possibly had an accomplice, and could’ve killed up to 34 women.

Andrew Uridales: He was a serial killer who was convicted of murder twice. He was convicted in 2002 for killing 3 women in Illinois, and then convicted in California in 2018 for killing 5 women. He was sentenced to death in California, but killed himself in prison a few months later. He also attacked another woman in 1992, but she thankfully escaped. 

Darren Deon Vann: Is a serial killer who was arrested in October 2018 for the murder of Afrikka Hardy (19), in Hammond, Indiana. He also confessed to killing 6 other women, and led the police to all of their bodies, which were found in 5 abandoned structures in Gary, Indiana. He is suspected of killing as many as 18 women.

West Mesa Murders: Is an unidentified serial killer who’s responsible for the murders of 11 women, whose remains were found buried in the desert of West Mesa of Albuquerque, New Mexico, in 2009. There have been multiple suspects, but no one has been charged. The killings were believed to be the work of a serial killer, but they suspect that it’s possible that a sex trafficking ring could’ve been involved. 

Robert Lee Yates: Is a serial killer also known as the Grocery Bag Killer, who’s known to have killed at least 11 women Spokane, from 1975 to 1998. He also confessed to killing two additional women in Walla Walla in 1975, and another murder in Skagit County in 1988. In 2002, he was convicted of killing two women in Pierce County and was sentenced to death, but his sentence was later changed to life without parole, as the Washington Supreme Court ruled capital punishment as unconstitutional in 2018. 

Zebra Murders: Were a string of racially motivated murders and related attacks committed by a group of four black serial killers in San Francisco, California, between October 1973, and April 1974. They murdered at least 15 people and wounded 8 others. Police gave the case the name "Zebra" after the special police radio band they assigned to the investigation. Some authorities believe that the “Death Angel’s,” as the killers called themselves, may have killed as many as 73 or more victims since 1970.

[saleintothe90s]

478. 93 things about 1993, part 4

(part 3)

(source)

18. ValuJet flies for the first time (October 26)

ValuJet's first flight was from Atlanta to Tampa on October 26, 1993. By 1994, the planes with their silly mascot on them had made 15 emergency landings! 1 On June 8, 1995 one of their ancient planes had an engine fire on the tarmac in Atlanta.

We all know what happened to ValuJet just 2 1/2 years later.

19. Kenneth Junior French kills 4 because of "gays in the military". (August 7th)

He got four life terms + an extra 35 years tacked onto his sentence.

Newsweek, February 8, 1993

20. Socks Mania

People went absolutely feral over Bill Clinton's cat, Socks. There was merch:

Such as this Socks cat food container (eBay seller passalong)

This Socks watch that I still remember seeing at my local Kmart in 1996. Yes, the battery was dead. (eBay seller ha-340226)

This socks doll I also remember seeing at Kmart on a family vacation in Ohio that I desperately wanted. (eBay seller 13navybeans)

I don't have the date on it, but here is a clip of kids petting Socks at Christmas.

21. Julia Roberts and Lyle Lovett get married (June)

When Roberts returned to the set of The Pelican Brief following her wedding, the cast and crew (including co-star Denzel Washington) threw her a party in which they all wore shirts that read: "He’s A Lovely Boy … But You Really Must Do Something About His Hair" on the back. 2

They only lasted til 1995, but they were cute together.

22. Base Closings (March)

Growing up, I thought this was the first time bases closed in the U.S., ever. No, a whole bunch closed just a couple of years prior!

(source)

23. Florida tourists killed

The state government ordered that all company logos be removed from rental cars, and it abolished special license tags for such vehicles. Rental car agencies now give customers detailed safety brochures in English, Spanish, German and other languages, and they play tape recordings with similar messages over the public address systems in their rental offices every five minutes. 3

There was even a bit in the SNL episode (hosted by Shannen Doherty) where Phil Hartman played Disney's Michael Eisner, alerting tourists that you'll won't get murdered in northern Florida where Disney is:

Hi, I’m Michael Eisner, speaking to you from the Magic Kingdom here in Orlando. You know, for the last few months, Florida has been victim to a terrible tragedy: the horrific murder of nine foreign tourists in Southern Florida. We here in Northern Florida express our sympathies.. to the families of those murdered hundreds of miles away.. in Miami, the capitol of Southern Florida.

8 tourists were killed in 1993. 4

24. Miller Clear

Faced with lackluster sales, the Miller Brewing Company has ended its market test of Miller Clear, the brewing industry's first clear beer. "We're not manufacturing it any longer for the near term," Eric Kraus, a spokesman for the Milwaukee-based brewer, said on Tuesday. "We had a tremendous initial trial, but repeat business was not necessarily as good." The beer that has been made will be sold, but no more will be brewed, Mr. Kraus said. In April, Miller began test-marketing its clear beer in Richmond, Minneapolis and Austin, Tex. 4

(there's some more about it on Weird Universe)

25. Tonya Harding's dress pops (January)

Earlier this year, a snap on her costume broke at the United States championships. At the 1992 Olympic trials, her blades were mounted slightly out of position, leaving her stranded with a broken axel. Skate problems also delayed her arrival at the 1992 Winter Games in Albertville, France, where she finished a disappointing fourth. By 1993, fourth was the best she could do at the United States championships. 5

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“ValuJet - Airlinefiles.” n.d. Accessed October 13, 2023. https://airlinefiles.com/valujet?showall=1.

“TBT: Lyle Lovett and Julia Roberts Got Married After Dating for Just a Few Weeks.” n.d. InStyle. Accessed October 14, 2023. https://www.instyle.com/news/tbt-julia-roberts-lyle-lovett-relationship.

Rohter, Larry. “Tourist Is Killed in Florida Despite Taking Precautions.” The New York Times, September 9, 1993, sec. U.S. https://www.nytimes.com/1993/09/09/us/tourist-is-killed-in-florida-despite-taking-precautions.html.

Clary, Mike. “Woman Confesses to Killing German Tourist, Police Say : Crime: She Reports Being Angered When the Couple Targeted for Robbery Would Not Stop Their Rental Car. A Third Suspect Is Held.” Los Angeles Times. September 11, 1993. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1993-09-11-mn-34072-story.html.

Longman, Jere. “FIGURE SKATING; For Harding, Not All Sequins and Music.” The New York Times, October 26, 1993, sec. Sports. https://www.nytimes.com/1993/10/26/sports/figure-skating-for-harding-not-all-sequins-and-music.html. https://archive.ph/G5T63