sguipe

Morning of unrest at the doughnut shop

Serious grumblings nearly escalated into violence at the doughnut shop this morning over excruciating wait times to get served. Witnesses report customers began to grow hostile after a series of large doughnut orders frustrated and enraged patrons waiting in line.

Tempers flared as yet another customer ordered enough doughnuts to feed a biker rally.

“Okay, I’m going to need eight dozen. Give me two chocolate frosted, one with sprinkles. I’ll take a cinnamon glazed, two double chocolate, one apple spice, two long johns…”

“With or without cream filling?” the doughnut lady asked.

“One with, one without. Okay, where are we at?”

“Nine down, only 87 more to go.”

Patrons let out audible groans as they glanced at their watches, mindful of the time left before the start of work. The next customer in line stepped up to the counter.

“How many please?” the attendant asked.

“I’m going to need an even dozen dozen.”

A chorus of protestations and curses went up from the waiting throng.

“For the love of God, man. Are you trying to feed every police and fire station in the county?” someone shouted.

Trying to be helpful, a man at the back of the line calmly asked the doughnut lady if they might open an express lane for people ordering 12 doughnuts or less. The request fell of deaf ears.

“Please, sir. Please think of my children,” a mother implored the gentleman ordering 144 doughnuts. “Their energy level is quite diminished and they need a chocolate frosted with sprinkles before they go to school. Could you please find it in your heart to stand aside for a moment and let them be served?”

“Fat chance!” the man grumbled.

After several more gargantuan orders, it became apparent that the stacks of trays that once contained a seemingly limitless number of doughnuts, rolls, and fluffy pastry now appeared mostly sparse. Panic set in as the realization hit that the day’s supply of doughnuts was close to running out. A number of patrons raced for the door, desperate to get to the next doughnut shop. Others pushed to the front of the line shouting out their last orders.

“Please, I just need a twister!”

Then the doughnut lady, who had been toiling since 2:00 in the morning, thanked her customers and closed up shop having sold all her doughnuts before 9:00 a.m.

Dean Jobb continues to promote a false true crime narrative

In a recent interview with the Crime Writers of Canada podcast, Dean Jobb, author of A Gentleman and a Thief, doubles down on his contention that jazz-age jewel thief, Arthur Barry, crashed a Long Island cocktail party in 1924, befriended the Prince of Wales, and whisked his new royal pal off on a secret tour of Broadway speakeasies.

The claim strains credulity, but Jobb provides the following defense:

“I lead off with him (Arthur Barry) meeting the Prince of Wales, the future Edward the VIII, who was visiting Long Island in the twenties. Barry crashes a party, because there were a whole bunch of Long Island parties for the prince and his entourage, and ends up meeting the prince, takes him on a clandestine tour of the bright lights of Broadway and the speakeasies.

“I mean, a writer has to go, really? Did this really happen? Well, start digging into reporters. I find memoirs or memories of reporters who covered the story, who vouch for it, who did their homework. The coverage makes it clear that the prince disappeared right at the time Barry says he was doing this. So, it’s a matter of digging as deeply as you need to in the record to verify for your own peace of mind. But you owe it to the reader, and if you’re not sure, you tell the reader that.”

As I’ve shown in previous blog posts, all the contemporary newspaper accounts of the party Jobb describes have the Prince of Wales dancing at the Cosden estate until dawn and returning to the Burden estate that morning. None mention Wales slipping away from the party to experience the nightlife of Broadway.

Rather than belabor that point here, I’ll address the following contention: “The coverage makes it clear that the prince disappeared right at the time Barry says he was doing this.” The “coverage” Jobb refers to involves an episode that occurred the night following the Cosden party. The “small but jolly” Cosden gathering described in Jobb’s book began late in the evening of Wednesday, September 3, 1924 and continued through the early morning hours of Thursday, September 4. The period of time when Wales went missing began in the afternoon or early evening of Thursday, September 4 and continued until the next morning, Friday, September 5.

Here is the passage Jobb quotes from to show “that the prince disappeared right at the time Barry says he was doing this.” The article was penned Thursday night, September 4, one night later than the night of the Cosden party, and appeared in the following morning’s Buffalo Courier.

“The whereabouts of the Prince of Wales were shrouded in mystery tonight. At midnight he had not returned to the Burden estate where he is stopping.

“He had dinner at the home of J.S. Cosden…It was reported that he left the Cosden home shortly after dinner, but since that time he has been playing a game of hide and seek with those who sought to check his movements.

“Some believe he went for a boat ride up Long Island Sound, others say he attended an all-night dance party at some nearby home, but others believe he went in disguise to one of the white light jazz palaces on Broadway.”

Not only does this passage describe a different night from that of the late-night Cosden party, it describes a completely different set of events. Wales had dinner at the Cosden home and he left, possibly by boat, and either went to a party or to check out the white light jazz palaces of Broadway. He’s not fleeing a late night party, he’s leaving after having dinner. How does Jobb not recognize that these are not only separate dates but separate events as well?

While the order of events may seem a little confusing to someone unfamiliar with the Prince’s 1924 visit, it isn’t to someone who has casually researched the topic, and it shouldn’t be confusing to someone who has researched and written a work of nonfiction where an alleged encounter between Arthur Barry and the Prince of Wales plays a central role.

The prince’s movements over the 24 hours in question go something like this: Wales attends a late night party at the Cosden estate and dances until dawn. He then returns to the Burden estate and sleeps until around noon. Then he goes to the polo fields for the afternoon. Sometime in the late afternoon, he returns to the Cosden estate where he either plays golf or takes a stroll around the Cosden’s nine hole golf course. Then he eats dinner, hops in a motorboat, and disappears off into the Long Island Sound. From there his whereabouts are unknown for the next 12-24 hours.

These events are widely covered by the newspapers of the day. Here’s a question the New York Daily News posed regarding the prince’s missing hours:

“What the folk down Long Island way wanted to know was where the prince passed the time from 2 p.m. Thursday until his reappearance yesterday.”

Does that sound like Wales stole away from a late night party with a stranger he just met, or does it make more sense that he went missing the following afternoon? How does Jobb miss that unless he’s intentionally taken the route of ignoring the truth and printing the legend?

Bookstore (No Books)

Recently the fam and I spent the weekend back in my old college town. Despite the fact that my wife and kids love it when dad shows them his old haunts and regales them with stories of his college days, I found myself alone again while the family unit was off making candles.

With football season right around the corner, and me still rocking fashion from a previous millennium, it felt like I was due for an update to my university athletic apparel. Pretty much every retailer close to campus sells it, but I thought in order to get the real goods maybe I should visit the campus bookstore for the officially licensed merch. Despite having three floors of t-shirts, hats, hoodies, sweats, jerseys, golf apparel, banners and bedding, nothing really stood out as a must have, so I decided to stick with my crummy old outdated shirts and sweat stained ball caps and left the bookstore empty handed.

However, after walking for about ten minutes, reflecting on how much the bookstore had changed in the last thirty years, it dawned on me that the university bookstore didn’t contain any books. In the olden days, the lowest level was entirely devoted to stocking texts for the current semester, while the upper levels featured merch and apparel. Now, the whole place was a massive gift shop superstore, yet they still called it a bookstore.

So where the hell do students get their books these days if not the campus bookstore? Do they even use books? When was the last time I saw a kid with a book in his hands? After all, that would necessitate prying the smartphone from fingers palsied by a constant and unrelenting grip on a smart device. “From my cold dead hands,” is the response I got last time I attempted to extract a smartphone from a young person.

Clearly, they have no need for books. They probably just sit down in class and the professor says, “Okay, class, open the internet to page blah, blah, blah,” and they go from there. Of course these days even looking stuff up on the internet has become so much of an imposition that we now have several versions of artificial impersonators that will do the research for us, summarize findings, and even produce scholarly works.

I know, there he goes again, the old man yelling at technology. Fact is, they probably download class materials onto tablets and computers, and it undoubtedly costs them a small fortune, as it always has.

Anyway, I could get to the bottom of this Bookstore (No Books) situation simply by asking a powerful computer brain for help, but I’d rather just ask a student when I get a chance. As for the brainiacs down there at the University of Science Bookstore, you probably ought to think about changing the name to Gift Shop.

The Hendricks County Grave Robberies Part 4

As the winter of 1987 rolled in, the reports of opened graves and disturbed cemetery plots in central Indiana ceased. It makes sense that snow and frozen earth would put the brakes on grave robbing activities. Finding it difficult to operate in the winter months, the fair-weather-satanists probably took their activities indoors as outdoor conditions became inhospitable.

With 15 graves robbed in Hendricks County and no suspects in sight, at least one expert voiced the opinion that the focus on satanists was misguided. Julia M. Corbett, Religious Studies professor at Ball State University, told the Indianapolis Star that the profile of a grave robber did not match that of a typical satanist.

According to Corbett these crimes were committed by “real ‘sickies’ out there who do things like animal sacrifice and grave robbing and things like that and say they’re doing it in the name of satanism.

“My impression of it… is that we have a collection of several incidents that may be tied together of people simply doing very bizarre things that are being labeled satanism. It’s very probably not associated with the Church of Satan.

“Legitimate satanists don’t break laws as long as they consider it’s for the public good. I’m quite sure the grave robbing wouldn’t be in the public interest. ‘Devil-worshipper’ is kind of a convenient catchbasket when something negative like this happens,” Corbett said.

Police did manage to apprehend at least one individual who was not acting in the public interest. A Hendricks County teen-ager was arrested for robbing the grave of a woman buried in 1865. Although the theft occurred three years earlier, the youth had only recently confessed his misdeeds to the police. When questioned by investigators, the youth admitted that he had removed the earth from the grave. Once the casket was exposed, he smashed the glass in the lid and searched inside for jewelry or other valuable items. Finding nothing of value, the youth removed some teeth from the skull and took them. The young man was charged with misdemeanor criminal mischief and theft.

As the calendar turned to 1988, stories about the Hendricks County grave robberies investigation began to fizzle in the local press, even as the news of satanic activity exploded in the national media. However, Lt. Michael J. Nelson did not give up the investigation, despite being told by Sheriff Roy Waddell to drop inquiries into alleged satanic activity in the county. Additionally, when national media outlets like the Wall Street Journal, People Magazine, and the New York Times came calling, Lt. Nelson gave interviews without getting permission from Waddell.

Sheriff Waddell was not pleased to see the local issue sensationalized in the national media. “In the 30 years I’ve been here, I’ve had no experience with satanic cults, before or since this. We try to investigate all avenues and that’s one avenue that could be considered, but nothing panned out. That’s not to say we don’t have any individuals who may, to whatever degree, be involved. I have no idea. But the bottom line is there’s no substance to think we have a satanic cult problem,” Waddell told the Indianapolis Star.

By February of 1988, Lt. Nelson found himself transferred from detective work to patrol duty, and in May he resigned from the Hendricks County Sheriff’s Department. “In a nutshell, without getting in a battle with him, I believe there is satanic activity and he believes there isn’t … .He just doesn’t feel it’s a legitimate investigation and there’s no basis for any satanic cult operating in the county,” Nelson said.

However, just a few months after Nelson’s resignation, three Hendricks County teen-agers were charged and found guilty of cruelty to an animal after they each confessed in juvenile court to participating in a ritual in which they cut out the heart of a live stray cat. The incident occured the previous October, around the time the grave robberies were discovered, and took place under the Avon Road bridge in Plainfield.

According to her testimony to the Hendricks County Circuit Court, the 16-year-old leader of the ritual sacrifice asserted that only animals are to be killed, not humans. ”In satanism, we believe that the human is the ultimate being – we don’t believe in violence or suicide. Murder of a human is wrong. But every religion has its own thing, and the cat (sacrifice) is ours.”

Apparently, they should have audited professor Corbett’s class before embarking on their satanic practices.

Another youth who admitted to stabbing the animal and cutting out its heart told the judge he became involved in satanism because he “just needed something to believe in. I can’t believe in anything anymore. I’ve had a rough life, your honor.”

While none of these incidents revealed a vast satanic underground in operation, they undoubtedly provided fuel for the paranoia that would grip Hendricks County and the entire state, making Indiana, in some respects, ground zero for the so-called satanic panic.

Sources:

The Indianapolis Star

The Indianapolis News

The Hendricks County Grave Robberies Part 3

While no vandals or cult members were apprehended by law enforcement on Halloween night, Hendricks County officials did receive a report of cult activity at a cemetery in Avon. Some adults allegedly witnessed a group of teens in black robes “holding sticks and dragging what appeared to be a body,” the Star reported.

Hendricks County Sheriff’s Lt. Stephen Golden offered his thoughts on the alleged cult activity.

“We are sure devil worship exists, but we don’t know if it is really going on (in the county) or if it’s teens playing a game or people out to steal things to sell. If it’s teens, a lot could have to do with movies they’re watching like Prince of Darkness or Nightmare on Elm Street. If it is teens, it’s a very small select group of teen–agers that are not representative of teens here in Hendricks County.”

Although investigators believed more than one cult was operating in the area, they could not determine whether the groups were involved in devil worship. Additionally, Golden clarified that in most instances the devil worship activity was not illegal.

“When they trespass on people’s property, dig up graves and when they kill or maim animals, then it becomes our business. That’s why we want to find out what’s going on and get to the bottom of it.”

Investigators reported discovering a ritual site in a densely wooded area near I-74 and State Road 267 north of Brownsburg. A tree spray-painted with a “666” and the word “Satan” marked the site. Attached to the tree were a pair of ropes with an ax handle hanging from one of the ropes. Also present at the site were two small platforms and a candle in a jar.

At the previously mentioned bonfire site northeast of Pittsboro, where an 8-inch bone was found, investigators also discovered candle wax drippings on a table. Tests performed on the bone showed it to be that of a large dog.

Then in the early morning hours of November 4, 1987, the night manager of a Brownsburg restaurant was driving home from work along a dark stretch of road outside Pittsboro. Near the intersection of County Roads 750 North and 475 East, the man suddenly came upon a vehicle parked in the middle of the road. Unable to stop, he was forced to drive off the road to avoid hitting the vehicle. Angered at the driver in the stopped vehicle, the night manager grabbed an ax handle he kept in his car for protection. (Apparently, ax handles were widely available and in heavy rotation back in 1987.) As the night manager exited his vehicle, a man wearing a black leather jacket, a black hood and a black glove with spikes or claws appeared out of the darkness. Additionally, two other men wearing ski masks emerged from another vehicle. The night manager was pushed to the ground, kicked and struck by the group, and slashed across the face and abdomen by the man with the claw glove. The men fled when the night manager lost consciousness.

The night manager was not badly injured and the assailants were never identified. Robbery was ruled out as a motive in the attack because the restaurant’s deposit the manager carried with him was not taken.

As highly bizarre as the attack appeared, it was not an isolated incident. Due to the popularity of the Nightmare on Elm Street series, assaults committed by individuals with clawed or studded gloves were not altogether uncommon back in 1987. But with fears already running high over reports of satanism and satanic crimes in the press, the attack only caused the paranoia to grow.

Sources:

The Indianapolis Star

The Indianapolis News

The Hendricks County Grave Robberies Part 2

As Halloween 1987 approached, reports of grave robberies in Hendricks County continued to pour in. On October 27, the remains of four people were discovered missing at the Weaver-Dillon Cemetery, bringing the total number of grave robberies to ten. A resident who lives nearby discovered the open graves while walking in the wooded area northeast of Pittsboro, Indiana. Lt. Stephen G. Golden expressed doubts about a Halloween prank, as the work involved in opening the graves required a great deal of digging and the location was very secluded.

The largest hole was marked by a headstone inscribed with the names Joeann F. Dillon, Judith M. Dillon, James W. Dillon, Abia Dillon and Flemingo Dillon whose deaths occurred between 1852 and 1919. Golden commented that the freshness of the dirt indicated the hole had been dug sometime within the previous two months. Another hole lay at the base of a headstone with the inscription “Emma V., wife of S. A. Surber.” Nearby another large hole with no headstone marking the grave had been dug and filled back in.

With no apparent motive and little to go on other than the profile of an extremely fit and prolific hole digger, the theory that the crimes were motivated by satan worship moved to the forefront. An 8-inch-long bone resembling a femur discovered at the most recent site, bolstered the satanic angle.

“What’s significant is that it was found near a bonfire site. In rituals, they usually have a bonfire near the cemetery,” Lt. Golden told reporters.

For Sheriff’s Lt. Michael J Nelson, who had been working on the grave robberies since they first began appearing, the satanic cult angle had always been at the top of his list. Investigators believed that almost anything found in the hundred-year-old graves would be of value to a group of satan worshippers. Items discovered in these ancient graves would bond members to the group, investigators thought.

Needless to say, residents of this part of Hendricks County were becoming very nervous indeed. Grave robberies and allegations of devil worship would send a chill down anybody’s spine in 1987. But Lt. Golden assured the public it was too soon to start worrying.

“Sure, it’s unusual, but people shouldn’t be scared. Hopefully, we’ll find out who’s doing it and they’ll be arrested,” Golden said.

However, the grave robberies continued. On Halloween 1987, an Indianapolis Star headline announced “5 more graves disturbed in Hendricks County.” According to the article, attempts had been made to steal the remains of five more people, but it could not be determined whether the thieves were successful in their endeavor.

Meanwhile, additional reports of graveyard malfeasance flooded into the Hendricks County Sheriff’s office. In Avon, a woman reported that a private cemetery on her property had been targeted. A four foot deep hole had been dug at the site of one grave, but no remains removed. Two other cemeteries in the Pittsboro area showed attempts to open graves that were abandoned after two feet of digging. In one instance, it appeared the robbery had been attempted several months earlier, as the hole showed signs it had been dug earlier in the spring.

“What is getting strange now is, for some reason, they’re digging part of the way into these graves and then quitting,” Lt. Golden told reporters.

Could there have been a copycat on the loose who didn’t have the stomach to finish the job, or could the older abandoned attempts show a grave robber who was just getting started but lacked the confidence to see the gruesome task through?

Whatever the case, Lt. Golden called up a number of local reservists to patrol the area on Halloween night in hopes of catching a grave digging ghoul in the act. After all, what twisted creature of the night or sick satanic cult could resist communing with the dead on Halloween night?

At the time and given the circumstances, Golden’s plan was necessary and had to be undertaken. But imagine being a local citizen called up to stake out a remote, ancient cemetery on Halloween night. In retrospect, it sounds like a movie premise with loads of comedic potential, something like Abbott and Costello Meet the Body Snatcher.

At any rate, with the level of weirdness in Hendricks County cranked up to 11, it seemed impossible that events could get any weirder, but as Hunter S. Thompson used to say, “When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.”

Sources:

The Indianapolis Star

The Indianapolis News

Artificial Impersonators

Used to be you’d turn on the old boob tube and watch some comedian like Rich Little, Dana Carvey or Darrell Hammond do impressions of famous figures that were so spot on they sounded like the real thing. Only they obviously weren’t because the voice was clearly coming out of a different person and the content was entirely farcical.

Recently, I was consuming content on the internet’s most prominent boob tube channel when I realized I was being taken for a ride by one of its artificial impersonators. I’ve been watching Bishop Robert Barron’s channel since way back when he was only Father Barron and his content featured movie reviews in which he’d insert some relevant christian theology. The other day I’m listening to one of his messages on a channel I’d never heard of before when I became curious about the YouTube account and the channel’s background. The thumbnail featured Bishop Barron’s image and the audio sounded like a message or sermon he’d possibly recorded privately or perhaps spoken publicly at some time or another. Here’s a direct quote from the video’s description:

“In this 21-minute morning message, Bishop Robert Barron reflects on the power of morning prayer, gratitude, and surrender to God’s plan.

“Through Scripture, prayer, and reflection, Bishop Barron reminds us that when we start our day with thankfulness and intention, we align our hearts with divine peace and purpose.”

I immediately wondered if this channel represented some new offering from Bishop Barron’s Word on Fire Ministries, so I read on. After scrolling through chapter titles, hashtags and descriptions of what I would learn from “Bishop Robert Barron’s Catholic insights,” I finally arrived at this disclaimer:

“This message includes public theological reflections and prayers inspired by Bishop Robert Barron.”

Because I’m not super bright, and I’m old and not very clever when it comes to the ways of technology, the internet and social media, I still did not get the hint.

The message included “public theological reflections and prayers.” So, Bishop Barron spoke these words publicly and someone recorded it and here it is, right?

If, at that moment, someone would have smacked me upside the head and said, “Do I need to spell it out for you?” I would have deserved it. Instead, there is this:

“Altered or synthetic content: Sound or visuals were significantly edited or digitally generated.”

As much as I wanted to believe that I hadn’t been duped by an artificial impersonator, it became abundantly clear that I had. Apparently, many others had been as well, because there were lots of comments thanking Bishop Barron for the message.

The channel is called “The Divine Motivation,” it’s on YouTube and it’s fake. It is not Bishop Barron, and it doesn’t matter if it has some ambiguous disclaimer buried deep within the show notes, it is deliberately deceptive. Some additional searching immediately revealed two other artificial impersonator channels: “Bishop Barron’s Motivations” and “The Faith Journey.”

I know I sound like an old man yelling at technology. I can imagine someone countering, “Where have you been, old timer? This is the world we live in.” Fair enough. But this old man can’t abide while dull-witted content creators harness technology to impersonate authentic, exceptional, thoughtful and inspiring human beings.

Using someone else’s name, likeness and voice to create artificial messages without being upfront about it is massively deceptive. And you can never motivate, inspire, reveal truth or instill hope through fakery and deceit.

The Hendricks County Grave Robberies Part 1

On Monday, September 28, 1987, Hendricks County Sheriff’s deputies followed up on a report of a recently reopened grave in a remote cemetery plot north of Plainfield, Indiana. A hiker discovered the disturbed area near a tributary of White Lick Creek while exploring the surrounding farm fields and wooded areas. A six foot deep hole had been dug at one grave site and the remains removed, while several inches of topsoil had been cleared from two other plots.

The site was an old family cemetery belonging to the Carters, an early pioneer family who in 1823 settled 240 acres in that part of Guilford Township. One grave belonged to Ruth Hadley Carter, who died at the age of 68 on April 24, 1869. Another grave belonged to a two-month-old infant, and the third grave was unmarked.

Regarding what would motivate an individual to remove centuries old remains from a remote and obscure settler grave, there weren’t many good theories. Hendricks County Sheriff Lt. Stephen G. Golden speculated that the robbers could have been looking for antique jewelry, or the disturbance was possibly just a sick prank.

Christopher S. Peebles, director of the Glenn A. Black Laboratory of Archaeology at Indiana University, was also uncertain of what the vandals would have found in the grave other than skeletal remains. “I don’t know what would have been left in this case, but it all comes down to thievery, pure and simple. It’s pretty sick for someone to dig up graves for no apparent purpose. I suspect it’s someone with a screw loose,” Peebles said.

There was one thing investigators did know for sure, the present scene of a recently looted grave in Central Indiana was not an isolated incident. Only a month earlier, residents of nearby Brownsburg and Greenfield, Indiana, went to clean up an ancient family cemetery near Brownsburg and discovered one of the graves dug up and the remains missing. Walker Cemetery, as it is known, sits along 56th street near Brownsburg about a mile west of the Marion County line. The missing remains belonged to Ann Walker, a member of one of Brownsburg’s founding families.

Whether it was someone with a screw loose, a thief in search of valuables, or some twisted, rogue member of the local historical society was anybody’s guess. However, in 1987 there was one theory that explained a lot of grisly and macabre behavior: devil worship. In the climate of the time, it was difficult to understand a series of grave robberies as having any explanation other than dirty deeds done in service of the dark arts. And as the discoveries of disturbed graves and missing remains continued, and tales of strange hooded figures deepened the mystery, the spectre of Satanism spread like a fever until all became infected with its delirium.

Sources:

The Indianapolis Star

The Indianapolis News

Celebrity owners left with only ‘seeds and stems’ after pot shop pilfered

It was a rude wake and bake for Bill Maher and Woody Harrelson after their Hollywood pot shop was the target of a smash-and-grab robbery over the weekend.

Witnesses say the pair arrived Saturday morning at The Woods WeHo to discover the shop had been looted and only a handful of seeds and stems had been left behind by the robbers.

Harrelson was heard to exclaim, “I think I feel something,” as the pair puffed away on what little cannabis remains could be scavenged from the carpet and between couch cushions.

The co-owners then attempted to brew some tea from the leftover seeds and stems. However, it is unclear if the pair were able to “catch a buzz.”

Surveillance video of the incident shows a vehicle struggling to parallel park moments before the robbers emerged from a smoke-filled SUV and staggered to the door.

According to KTLA5, “The video shows them shattering a glass window, rushing into the store, filling bags with merchandise and then fleeing within seconds.”

However, the video later shows the trio fleeing on foot after they realized they’d inadvertently locked the keys in the vehicle.

Local man backs out of Met Gala invite at last minute

City resident, Ed Brush, took to his favorite social media app, MySpace, today to explain his last minute decision to back out of Monday night’s Met Gala extravaganza.

“It is with great sadness and a heavy heart that I was unable to attend this year’s Met Gala event at New York’s famed Metropolitan Museum of Art. Ultimately, a number of considerations led to this very difficult decision.

“Firstly, I did not have time to make it to J.C. Penney to pick up my suit for the event. Organizers suggested I’d be fine wearing nothing more than a tasteful blazer. When I explained that I can’t get any of my old blazers to button anymore, they suggested I accessorize with a strategically worn white tube sock. When I realized that all my tube socks have holes and the elastic is worn out, I decided to ditch that idea,” Brush said.

Having settled on a blue blazer over a flesh colored bodysuit, Brush next set about arranging transportation to the event.

“The second thing that happened was I learned that I would not be able to catch a ride on AOC’s Fighting Oligarchy tour jet, and that if I wanted to rub elbows with the champagne socialists, I’d have to ride coach. Being a man of the people, I had no problem travelling coach. However, apparently wearing a flesh colored bodysuit through the airport tends to attract the attention of TSA, and they detained me for questioning. Strangely enough, telling them who I was and where I was going failed to hasten the proceedings.

“Anyway, sorry AOC, Kamala, Alex, Whoopi, Rihanna, Nicole, Lisa, I’ll have to catch up to you next year,” Brush concluded his message.