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I feel so weird about situations like this. I feel that accusations should be taken seriously but I also don't think he should be considered guilty automatically.
Yea there's no good way to deal with something like this. I wanted to post it because no matter what it's important to know the whole conversation around any artist you might want to support.
With an accusation like that I'm always inclined to believe the victim. She has a lot more to lose from saying something like this than she stands to gain. Gaslamp Killer is successful public figure. He's not going to lose money from this or get tossed in jail. And I am absolutely willing to hear an argument against this woman's story.
My initial post was probably too reactionary. No matter what though it's important to validate and listen to people when they open up like this so other possible victim's might feel empowered to share their experiences too. I think that's worth the cost of some momentary dsicomfort.
I disagree with this point. Look at what happened with PWR BTTM, basically their entire career is over (not saying it isn't deserved). I agree we should listen to these stories and take them seriously though.
I feel so weird about situations like this. I feel that accusations should be taken seriously but I also don't think he should be considered guilty automatically.
Yea there's no good way to deal with something like this. I wanted to post it because no matter what it's important to know the whole conversation around any artist you might want to support.
With an accusation like that I'm always inclined to believe the victim. She has a lot more to lose from saying something like this than she stands to gain. Gaslamp Killer is successful public figure. He's not going to lose money from this or get tossed in jail. And I am absolutely willing to hear an argument against this woman's story.
My initial post was probably too reactionary. No matter what though it's important to validate and listen to people when they open up like this so other possible victim's might feel empowered to share their experiences too. I think that's worth the cost of some momentary dsicomfort.
I'm not saying the accuser is wrong or anything here, and I don't want people to misconstrue my intentions here. I think it takes a lot of courage to speak up as a victim, especially against someone rich/powerful/famous. but desert daze in 2013 was in april, which was months before this incident, not the prior week as she states in her story. I'm really not trying to pass judgement or disbelieve the woman's story entirely, but that struck me as wrong the first time I read her account. It may be a trivial detail though.
Yea there's no good way to deal with something like this. I wanted to post it because no matter what it's important to know the whole conversation around any artist you might want to support.
With an accusation like that I'm always inclined to believe the victim. She has a lot more to lose from saying something like this than she stands to gain. Gaslamp Killer is successful public figure. He's not going to lose money from this or get tossed in jail. And I am absolutely willing to hear an argument against this woman's story.
My initial post was probably too reactionary. No matter what though it's important to validate and listen to people when they open up like this so other possible victim's might feel empowered to share their experiences too. I think that's worth the cost of some momentary dsicomfort.
I disagree with this point. Look at what happened with PWR BTTM, basically their entire career is over (not saying it isn't deserved). I agree we should listen to these stories and take them seriously though.
I guess I what I was getting at was, "taking the accuser seriously probably won't immediately destroy a public figure's career."
I mean that's part of why it's tough to deal with these kinds of things. Comparing PWR BTTM and GLK isn't a perfect 1:1 comparison. GLK is way more established than PWR BTMM so it will be harder for him to completely crash and burn. Other artists like Freddie Gibbs and Conor Oberst have been accused of rape and were able to move past it. I know it's traumatic for something like that to happen but rape is traumatic too and there are far more real instances of rape than instances of false reporting. Best to not cut off the nose to spite the face.
Also the PWR BTTM thing was way more serious because there were accusations of more than one assault, bullying, and sexual advances on underage people. And the real nail in the coffin was Polyvinyl dropping them. That makes me think Polyvinyl knows something we don't.
Again, no good way to deal with all of this. I'm more than willing to have my viewpoint changed on this one. But it's good to talk about.
I was in Little Five Points today and I randomly ran into the singer of The Growlers. I had a very brief conversation with him. Then an hour later realized they were playing at the Variety Playhouse tonight.
You’re not gonna be able to do that, I don’t think. Show was at 9 and over after Midnight. Next tour.
Challenge accepted.
Seriously though, my first show is an early one and the second is a very late one (I believe Leon Vynehall will not start before 1 AM). I believe I might make it happen. So, they play for about 2 hours then?
Post by SupeЯfuЯЯyanimal on Oct 14, 2017 10:37:44 GMT -5
Questlove just put up a 200 song history lesson on funk for Keith Olbermann. It's part one on teaching him about hip-hop following his dumb statement about not being "sure about it" until Eminem's BET freestyle the other night.
This woman says she was drugged and raped by The Gaslamp Killer. Please no one post about that piece of shirt ever again.
I'm a TYT supporter and they have had segments of his during breaks (via Complex? maybe, can't remember). I've messaged them to investigate further, consider stopping broadcasts of it in the future in light of this. They are pretty good about response times, and hope they decide to look further into this.
I disagree with this point. Look at what happened with PWR BTTM, basically their entire career is over (not saying it isn't deserved). I agree we should listen to these stories and take them seriously though.
I guess I what I was getting at was, "taking the accuser seriously probably won't immediately destroy a public figure's career."
I mean that's part of why it's tough to deal with these kinds of things. Comparing PWR BTTM and GLK isn't a perfect 1:1 comparison. GLK is way more established than PWR BTMM so it will be harder for him to completely crash and burn. Other artists like Freddie Gibbs and Conor Oberst have been accused of rape and were able to move past it. I know it's traumatic for something like that to happen but rape is traumatic too and there are far more real instances of rape than instances of false reporting. Best to not cut off the nose to spite the face.
Also the PWR BTTM thing was way more serious because there were accusations of more than one assault, bullying, and sexual advances on underage people. And the real nail in the coffin was Polyvinyl dropping them. That makes me think Polyvinyl knows something we don't.
Again, no good way to deal with all of this. I'm more than willing to have my viewpoint changed on this one. But it's good to talk about.
There is no great way to deal with this other than to investigate and seek like cases, (that following the feeds seem to have multiplied - people directly confiding with the original poster/accusation). But it's important to indicate that Gibbs for instance was proven to not even be in the room; and a lot of people have not mentally given up that Oberst is an asshole - but not proven to have sexually assaulted someone. Another huge difference is that only Freddie Gibbs spent time in prison for the crime that was later vacated; these folks will walk the streets and terrorize others. It's important to take this seriously and give it some breathing room too.
My townie sister sent it to me, and said the guy went to the police as well and asked them to investigate it for grand larceny because it was "worth $5000". Mind you our state has a 6 plant per person, 12 per household limit.
My townie sister sent it to me, and said the guy went to the police as well and asked them to investigate it for grand larceny because it was "worth $5000". Mind you our state has a 6 plant per person, 12 per household limit.
They did not choose to investigate.
lol. smart decision.
aka to the confused: 1) you askin' on a platform: you have no information, no power, and no reasonable contact to your loss 2) An investigation on arresting two idiots with herb, in a slowly decriminalizing state is hilariously empty and is hours of desk work that isn't worth a shit. 3) Hahaha that herb is gonna be smoked in one month if they were robbed. lol 4) Cops as they rolled by: ""
Spurred by a question on Twitter, I started reminiscing about a music blog I used to read caled Regnyouth Archives (RYA). It was simple, hosted on Blogspot in the early to mid 2000s. This guy Benny would find Rapidshare and MegaUpload links to all kinds of albums and he would write about as many of them as he knew about, which was often a lot. For a teenager with not much money, the blog was indispensable for a few years. I learned as much if not more about music from that blog as I have from any other single source.
It was funny, in those post-Napster, mostly-pre-OiNK days. Pirating music was pretty out in the open but also not very concentrated, for the most part. Benny even used his real email address! bsparano@yahoo.com. No one would do that now.
At any rate, I was thinking about this blog and how crucial it was to me and I'm sure other people my age-ish during the early aughts and so I googled Benny Sparano. This turned out to be a decision that would occupy my next several hours with stories of drugs, sexual assault, organized crime, The Sopranos, and a video about the G-spot being a myth, among other things.
Benny, as it turns out, is dead.
As far as I can tell, Benny M. Sparano died at the age of 32 in 2015, in Garfield, NJ. No cause of death was listed in the obituary, which in my experience means he killed himself, either accidentally or intentionally.
More googling and searching led me to believe that he had an opioid problem, before it was in fashion (how befitting a music blogger to be ahead of the curve on something). He wrote some Oxycontin-related stories that were tied to his aforementioned email, and there were arrest records for Benjamin M. Sparano for drug charges and probation violations.
Then, in the spring of 2009, Benjamin M. Sparano was arrested and jailed over accusations from his girlfriend that he has sexually assaulted her 4-year old son. This and the previous arrests coincide almost perfectly with Benny's total disappearance from blogging and from having Last.fm scrobbles in late 2008/early 2009. I always wondered why it felt like he disappeared from the internet. It turns out he was in jail for 33 months following the arrest and up until things went to trial. Best I can tell, the charges were dismissed due to lack of evidence (this information may be somewhat biased, I couldn't find any official record of the trial, though I also didn't try as hard as I might have). What happened to Benny between late 2011 and June of 2015 when he died is not clear. His online life kind of dries up at that point. At the very least, it seems he managed to stay out of jail, though a post I found online from him in 2011 says that his "life has been destroyed," due to the accusations and his time in jail. A recent post from someone claiming to be his mom says that she believes the accusations ultimately led to his death, which seems to imply suicide to me.
During Benny's 33-month ordeal, however, another blog sprung up, this one protesting Benny's innocence and railing at the bad legal work allegedly exhibited by the police and court system. It was written, often in all caps, by Benny's father, Benjamin A. Sparano. Further research into the senior Sparano was no less interesting than researching his son. Benjamin A. Sparano, also of Garfield, NJ, died earlier this year, at the age of 80. His obituary says he was a "gutter salesman."
Here is a picture of Benjamin A. Sparano, who was also known in life as Benny:
It struck me as odd, and unlikely, that a gutter salesman would own a white-on-white three piece suit. So I kept digging. The blog he created to protest his son's innocence led to a Twitter account, which led to a mostly public Facebook account.
Benjamin "Benny The Hat" Sparano was in the mob. He was into extortion, bookmaking, racketeering. That kind of fun stuff.
He served nine years in NJ state prison, I believe. It didn't take away his sense of humor though.
The look was apparently timeless.
Furthermore, he claimed for the last ~20 years of his life that The Sopranos was based on his life, which his nephew Patrick (3rd from the left in the court photos above), who was, for years, his drug-addicted driver and right hand man, says is true, in a(n admittedly self-published) book he wrote. He says that some items - like Tony hiding guns in Livia's nursing home - are drawn directly from Benny the Hat's life (Benny hid guns in his aging parents' home), and that Chrissy Moltisanti is roughly analogous to him (though he notes that he never did heroin, something Benny the younger could have stood to learn.)
Late in life, Benny Sr. took to vlogging for a time, right around when Benny Jr. was in jail. In general, he seemed to develop an internet presence around then. Most of it he left behind - the blogging, the videos. Only his Twitter and Facebook (which had roughly identical content, most of the time) were active until he died earlier this year.
Here's one of his charming videos:
(If you look at his account, there's also one of him playing a wrestling video game with a created character called The Hat fighting Hulk Hogan, which is pretty entertaining considering he had to be in his 70s when he made it)
I didn't dig in any further than that, though there were certainly avenues to go down, because it was so late and I was so tired. It seems entirely possible that Sparano was part of the influence for The Sopranos (the similarity of names, geography, and on-the-record crimes is certainly compelling, if not convincing), but I don't think it's possible to know for sure, since clearly HBO is not interested in paying the Sparano family.
I haven't been on here much lately, but mine and Jack's "back to top" button doesn't work... idk if that's been a thing for a while, but I just noticed it and it's super annoying. You never notice how much you use something till it's gone.
Kinda like Dr. Pepper. They don't have DP here and I miss it. Along with Wendy's. But they have this place called Oporto, which has sorta become my jam. It doesn't replace Jersey Mike's though...
I haven't been on here much lately, but mine and Jack's "back to top" button doesn't work... idk if that's been a thing for a while, but I just noticed it and it's super annoying. You never notice how much you use something till it's gone.
Kinda like Dr. Pepper. They don't have DP here and I miss it. Along with Wendy's. But they have this place called Oporto, which has sorta become my jam. It doesn't replace Jersey Mike's though...
No joke, Gucci has been having such good time since he got out of prison it's actually a form of inspiration for me. I'll get overwhelmed about the nightmare hellscape in which we currently reside but then I see him grinning from ear to ear at a Hawks game and I feel better. He's living his best life right now and it's fun to watch.
I haven't been on here much lately, but mine and Jack's "back to top" button doesn't work... idk if that's been a thing for a while, but I just noticed it and it's super annoying. You never notice how much you use something till it's gone. Kinda like Dr. Pepper. They don't have DP here and I miss it. Along with Wendy's. But they have this place called Oporto, which has sorta become my jam. It doesn't replace Jersey Mike's though...
I haven't been on here much lately, but mine and Jack's "back to top" button doesn't work... idk if that's been a thing for a while, but I just noticed it and it's super annoying. You never notice how much you use something till it's gone. Kinda like Dr. Pepper. They don't have DP here and I miss it. Along with Wendy's. But they have this place called Oporto, which has sorta become my jam. It doesn't replace Jersey Mike's though...
Me if I moved somewhere without the Doc...
I've always preferred Dr. Pepper over most soft drinks, but living in Austin for the past two years definitely spoiled me by having it EVERYWHERE. It was amazing.