The Noggin Where I Talk About True Crime and the Justice System

On a long drive recently I listened to one of those podcasts about an innocent man arrested for murder and it had me screaming at my radio. It's the popular story where a District Attorney, and police Investigators won't back down in the face of evidence, violate the constitution and refuse to lose a case... all while facing ZERO consequences for it.  The incredible racism in this one didn't help either. Listening to some of these jurors in a case from just 10 years ago. It's like they don't even know they're racist they've been racist so long. 

So many of these cases where the supposed "good guys" get tunnel vision on a suspect they blatantly ignore evidence or any other suspects that come up.  Some who straight up admit it, or even when there's DNA proving they did it.  In one case like this the cops just said "oh well they must have helped [the original suspect] do it".  They just can't admit they're wrong no matter what happens.  And then when it's been proven they violated rights and falsely sentenced an innocent person there is no punishment for them.  They just get to keep on doing their jobs and fuck people over. 

In so many of those true crime podcasts and documentaries there's a situation like I described above; bad DA's, crooked cops, favoritism from a judge. In most of those cases there's often an overworked, underpaid defense attorney from the Public Defender's office busting their ass, pouring their heart and soul into a client who will probably not appreciated it.  The shit that goes down in those true crime stories; regular people in bad situations getting their rights trampled... that shit happens every day in every county in the USA.  I have joked before that you could make a Public Defender reality show or weekly podcast by just throwing a dart at a map, find the nearest public defender office and just take a production crew there for a week and you'd be guaranteed to have an entertaining show.   

A big part of what is wrong with the justice system, aside from the racism which plays a major role in this particular case is prosecutors basically having no penalty or punishment for violating innocent people's rights and for generally putting them through hell.  Many times ruining their lives.  Technically there is a way to punish them, but no one realizes it because they're part of the problem.

In our current system what's supposed to happen when a DA gets caught being shitty and breaking the law repeatedly, letting cases get retried because of mistrials or appeals finding prosecutorial misconduct, wasting tax payer money and wasting jurors time and keeping an innocent person in jail for lengthy periods of time is that they should get the blame for all of that. They should get publicly shamed and not re-elected to that position. But they don't because it happens every damn day there's no single case to focus on.  Ultimately the general public doesn't understand how it works. They don't see the elected prosecutors doing a shitty job, they only see a criminal getting to have another case and blame it on a tricky defense attorney, a slick Public Defender finding loopholes or the Judge allowing them to get off on a technicality.  And they feel sorry for the DA who has to try the case again. They see a dangerous criminal getting set back onto the streets.  What the average asshole doesn't understand is that the cases were overturned because of PROSECUTORIAL MISCONDUCT.   The alleged suspect was set free because the DA broke the law to get a conviction.  The everyday-stupids on the jury never saw the exculpatory evidence because they dirty cops destroyed it or the DA never turned it over.  So why are most people on their side?  If they cant get a conviction without being best friends with the judge or withholding evidence, then they shouldn't be doing this job.  VOTE THEM OUT.  They are after all elected officials.  But really if they get caught doing all of this shit they should get jail time or a sanction or a fine or something. We The People have this power that we seem to never properly wield. We have the ballot box and the public being educated on how the system is supposed to work.

No AI was used or has ever been used in my illustrations or writings.  

SkUnKeD!

my artist rendition of what it might have looked like. 

I'm sleeping soundly with the dogs. Cpap on, window open. woken up around 3:30 am with the half asleep memory of maybe hearing a woman shriek outside. I turn off my Cpap take a listen but don't hear anything and the dogs are not disturbed so I turn my machine back on and try to go to sleep. Then the overwhelming stench of skunk is being blasted straight into my nose through the Cpap. I get up to close the window and see my neighbors with their garage door open wondering what they're doing up and I notice they're frantically trying to wash their dog in the driveway. Must have been a late night pee walk and got skunked somewhere in front of my house and the shriek was my neighbor lady getting skunked.

My whole house smelled like skunk for an hour and I couldn't go back to sleep. Sorry, neighbors. That's gotta suck.

Also I'm not sure if I ever told this story here but I'm deathly afraid of skunks but not because of the above situation. It's totally irrational. I once had a dream where I was being chased by a wild pack of skunks through my old high school field. It was like 20 of them and they were angry. I was more afraid they were going to tear me up and eat me or something. Of course rationally I'm afraid of getting skunked too. I once hit a skunk with my car and my car smelled like skunk for like a year. Skunks, man. I hate em.

Apple Pencil Update. WTF, Apple Part 2.

Remember that free iPad I got from Optimum after they lied and said I wouldn't get it unless I paid for another month of service? Well it was cool using it to draw once I got the right Apple Pencil, and the right adapter and cord to make it work. I drew some stuff with it but haven't really had time to mess with it for a while.

I knew this would happen because I'm not one to carry a friggin tablet with me everywhere I go. That's why I love the built in sPen stylus of my galaxy phone. I've been using the Galaxy Note (now Galaxy S Ultra) line for like 10 years and now I hear they're going to discontinue the built in Spen. Fuck you, Samsung. But yea, since tablets are cumbersome it-along with the Apple Pencil have lived in a drawer for a few months.

I have a small project I wanted to use it on so I dusted it off. Of course the tablet was dead so I popped it on a charger. As expected the Apple Pencil is also dead. The iPad wont recognize it when plugged in and wont charge on a charger.

So I wen't to ask Uncle Google to see what to do. Apparently it needs a tiny amount of juice to tell the iPad it's plugged in but if the battery goes to full ZERO then it's basically useless and dead. Official recourse is to take it to an Apple store and they can repair it for $$. Great design, Apple. The answer Google AI search results is giving me is to heat it up. No seriously. Apparently someone made a video saying that if you wrap it in a hot towel for 20 mins it wakes up the internal battery enough to start charging. I haven't been able to try this yet and it's probably bullshit but.... What the actual fucking hot garbage, Apple? (Spoiler alert: it actually worked)

drawn with SPen on Galaxy phone.
(because it works)

Again, I'm trying to like you, Apple but you keep doing stupid shit. Why is Apple so god damn popular? So far in my experience it's overpriced trash.

UPDATE: OK so the heat 🔥 method fucking worked! 🤯🤯🤯 The bonkers part is that it had 20% battery when it finally paired.  What the fuck? I though it was totally bullshit. Holy crap.

PS:  this is still a piece of shit design. A $100 accessory shouldn't be disposable when you don't use it for 3 weeks. 

My Problem with Superman Part 2.

I saw Superman. I'm not a huge DC fan and an admitted hater of the concept of Superman. Read all about that in Part 1 if you haven't already.   I will say that other than the almost forced obvious parallels to present day geo-political situations I thought it was a perfectly fine Superhero movie. He saves a squirrel. If that's too woke for you, you have problems.

Another thing I noticed...Why do all the bystanders in Metropolis seem unfazed by all the monster/alien fighting action that is going on? He saves a little girl who seemingly doesn't even notice the giant monster fighting 4 metahumans in broad daylight. Are metahumans and alien invasions just passé and boring to them now?

Here's where I get into pissing of the nerds territory again.  Why does he have a cousin and a dog? They make such a big deal about him being the sole survivor of his dying planet.  His parents leave a message for him about how he's Earth's only hope or whatever but he randomly has a cousin and she has a dog. Did she come with him in the escape pod from Krypton? I dont get it. It cheapens the idea of Superman being this lone survivor who has a fortress of solitude. Because he's the only Kryptonian left. But there was ZOD and the bad guys who were if my memory serves also from Krypton.  I guess I dont know anything about Superman and I don't care enough to learn.  

Oh one update from Part 1. I made a big deal about him wearing glasses is a shit disguise and I'm not sure if this is something that's common knowledge to Superman nerds but in this movie they point out that his glasses are "hypnotic glasses" that trick your brain into seeing a different face when he's wearing them.  That's fucking convenient.  Did they come with him in the escape pod from Krypton just in case?  Did he invent them? I thought gadgets was Batman's thing.  Hypnotizing glasses.  pfft.  Not so super now are you?  

I fucking hate Superman. 

Old People.

I shouldn't talk shit because I'm almost 50 and I know we're supposed to respect our elders but sometimes there are people out there who have been the same shitty assholes for 50 years and they're just in a body that society has demanded that we respect. Been dealing with some really shitty boomers lately and it's frustrating because of this "respect your elders" shit.  You have done nothing but breathe for a couple decades longer than me while learning nothing about being a decent human being.  I don't like you. 

Not all boomers are shitty tho. Some are just weird. Maybe they were weird when they were younger or maybe they are losing their minds or maybe, which seems common too is that they just stopped giving a fuck what people think which I can fully respect. 

While I was taking a piss at work just now I heard this old guy whistling and humming a tune walking towards the bathroom. I didn't see him but he smelled old. Hard to explain that, but the old person smell, the crusty voice, the talking to themselves and the median demographic of the customers here I could tell he was probably in his late 60s to 70s. Anyway, I hear him clear his throat while he walks by behind me to the toilet stall and he hums part of a tune then whistles a part and then kind of grunts a "mm hmm" as he opens the bathroom stall. I hear him in the stall talking to himself. "ok...yup" and hum again dee dee da dum followed by more whistling the same tune again. He then grunts and clears his throat as he pre-flushes the toilet. Another whistle whistle hum hum as he sits down. while I wash my hands "uh huh, ok... daaa deee" whistle whistle. I can hear him still as I'm walking out of the bathroom.  Fuck yea, old weird dude. Way to not be an asshole. 

80s Memory Unlocked: Crocodile Mile Injury

After being heavily marketed to in the late 80s during cartoons and kid shows we begged and finally got our parents to get us Crocodile Mile.  I'm sure it was an attempt to cash in on the popularity of Crocodile Dundee.  It was a crocodile themed slip-n-slide with an inflatable part at the end that formed a bump to launch off and a pool of water you splash into. The "Splashdown Pool"  was way to shallow and the "Boomerang Bump" didn't really launch you into the air at all. The whole thing ended up being 80% less cool as they made it look in the commercials but it was still a slip-n-slide.  At the bump at the end that "launches" you into the pool had a curtain of thin plastic sheeting with the mouth of a crocodile printed on it that you launch through. The curtain was held up with a tube of rigid plastic bent in a hoop which was inserted into hard plastic cups that had stakes that also held it all in place which you pushed into the grass like a plastic tent stake.  

Here's the TV spot that had us so excited. This song is gonna be stuck in my head all day now. 

The hoop fell off every time you went through it so we just left it off. The fun was starting to wear off after using it for about an hour and for one last go at it my younger brother got a running start, slid down the slide but veered off course slightly missing the Boomerang Bump and slid his bare, wet chest across one of the cup stakes that protruded up at lease 3 inches from the ground. He ended up getting a 10" gash across his chest and was bleeding everywhere. I'm sure parents were summoned and friends went home but I don't have any recollection of the rest of that day. 

 I guess getting attacked and drawing blood was more realistic to being attacked by a crocodile than the part the kept falling off.  What's funny is that I found a commercial for something I didn't remember existing but it was "Super Crocodile Mile". What's so super about it you ask? It came with an inflatable surfboard mat thing you used to slide down on.  While marketed as a way to go faster, I wonder if kids were getting cut by the stakes and they had to put something between them and the dangerous plastic parts.  

PYMYM: The Gnar-Maiden

Back in 2008 I drew a couple versions of a mutated Narwhal for no reason.  It was around the same time I had drawn this full-figured skateboarder for a skateboard company and sort of merged them together in my brain and created this bit of silly fiction. Mostly as an excuse to fuck around in photoshop at work. 

 Which brings us to this installment of "Posts You Might Have Missed" from April of 2008.  

The Tale of the Gnar-Maiden

There once was a beautiful skateboarder named Lisa, who loved to ride her skateboard. She also liked to swim in the Arctic seas. 

Lisa knew of a magical sea creature that liked to swim in these waters but was never too concerned as it was mostly just old stories told by the local people.  The North Alaskan Mutated Narwhal or "Gnarwhal" to the local Inuit tribes was said to be a docile creature known for it's giant tusk and tasty secretions. As the story goes the secretions were once harvested by the natives in the olden times and used for medicinal and ceremonial purposes.



One day while swimming in the frigid waters Lisa got caught in a freak storm that carried her out to sea. She nearly drowned when her body sank to the depths. Deep down with the Gnarwhal.

In this same storm, a military cargo ship carrying top secret government radioactive material took a phantom wave and cracked its hull spilling gallons of this experimental substance into the sea.

The substance made its way down to the depths with Lisa who was struggling to swim to the surface and –the Gnarwhal. As the glowing ooze made contact something miraculous and strange happened. Lisa suddenly was able to breath under water and a giant tusk started to grow and came out of her forehead! She then realized that her and one of the sea mammals of lore were starting to meld together and become one.

Once the transformation was complete she, in her new form made her way back to land.  Like the Gnarwhal, Lisa now secreted this rare and delicious jelly. A special gelatinous ooze now imbued with special energy increasing properties from the toxic spill.  

Leaving out a ton of really important stuff here but long-story-short, she went on to market and sell with the help of her marketing exec. brother, Joaquin and became a very successful business woman/mutant sea creature hybrid.  The End. 

Sorry, Kids.

I was thinking the other day about kids growing up in the Internet age.  When i was a kid there were things- Cultural things that only existed in the adult world.  Office culture, locker room culture, after work culture... That all happens more or less on the Internet. On social media. Tiktok creates cultural language now. And kids see all of it.  If anything what ends up being in the zeitgeist of the week, kids picked-up on it first.  

Not a care in the world other than trying to ollie more than 4 inches.
Me and my skate crew 1986 probably? 

Grown up things were like another world to me.  The News was boring and I avoided it.  But now I wonder how much of that is part of kids' media. And now that I'm a grown up I know it sucks.  Being ignorant of politics, bills, stress and everything else was magical.  I just saw a thing about giving toddlers a credit card or not... And kids having debit cards is a real thing.  I guess this is normal now? Is that just the equivalent of giving a kid a $20bill before not seeing them for 7 hours? I guess it's hard for me to wrap my head around. I don't have kids and I'm not around kids very often so if this isn't some revelation then color me out of touch.  

Pepsi: the choice of the new generation. 
Very little me. 

Now kids have mini computers with a shopping mall and video arcade in their pockets.  You used to have to leave the house and depend on adults to get to these places. 

rock candy and confederate war money.  not a cell phone in sight!
Me and Jeremy at Fort Point San Francisco probably around 1989  

I dunno where I'm going with this.  I just kinda feel bad for these kids who have to grow up so fast because of technology putting real life in their faces 24-7.  To never truly be free.  To be blissfully ignorant of reality for at least a few years.  My earliest exposure to social issues and real life problems was probably from the thrash metal bands I listened to.  Their lyrics were more informative to my stupid kid brain than anything the morons who voted for Trump are getting from Fox News.  

At The Bottom Of The Sea... (OceanGate Sub Implosion)

Anyone watching the OceanGate sub documentary? There's one on Max/Discovery and a new one on Netflix but they both pretty much tell the same story. Even my homeboy Josh Gates did an episode of his adventure show on the sub and talked to Stockton Rush about how it was all going. Josh had to go to Discovery brass and tell them to not air the episode because he felt it was dangerous to promote this guy and that he thought people were going to get hurt. Boy was he right. Everyone around him with a brain and an ounce of courage told him it was gonna fail and kill people and he fired them or they quit because they didn't want to be responsible for killing people. Holy shit what a dick that guy was.

Anyone who didn't kiss his ass he fired. And then he was crushed to death in his little stupid submarine.

Stockton Rush: Certified asshole

I wrote some lyrics about this after it happened.

You paid to see

 Where the wealthy lay deceased

...At the bottom of the sea 

I find it hard to think

 This was a tragedy

...At the bottom of the sea. 

People struggle to be 

While you struggled to breathe

...At the bottom of the sea. 

You built a submarine 

Ignored their expertise 

Now you're dead.

Crushed to death.

...At the bottom of the sea.  

Just a tarnished legacy

and a pile of debris

...At the bottom of the sea.

It sucks those innocent people fell for his bullshit and died but fuck that Stockton Rush and people like him forever.
Almost like an allegory for what's happening in the White House... just a matter of how many of us he takes down in his death submarine.

Some Stories About Me and My Butthole

Dramatic artistic reenactment 

I'm sure I have had to have mentioned my poop stories in the past here but I don't think I've shared these stories here.  I could have sworn I had but I searched and couldn't find anything.  So for your entertainment: 2 new poop stories and one old one.  Well, they're all old but 2 are new to you I guess. 

The Quiche Incident
This was at my new at the time girlfriend's aunt's house for a party with her aunt's neighbors. She lived in a cool but not huge house in a nice little neighborhood and had cool but kind of hip/snobby friends/neighbors. Or at least that was my impression because I was a young bad ass and insecure.  

There were various plates of fancy foods to much on. There was a plate of mini quiche that were fucking delicious. I wolfed down several of the mini quiches because all of the other food frightened me.  I wrote a whole post about foods I wont eat. You should go check it out.  Now, I am lactose intolerant but it's not like shit-my-pants-if-I-smell-dairy intolerant. I can eat pizza and ice cream most of the time and I'm fine but there was something about these mini quiches that fucking destroyed my guts. I felt it coming and tried to wait it out. I didn't want to take a shit in her house. It wasn't a huge house and she only had one bathroom. I went outside and let out some farts to relive the pressure. Then I went to my car to try to let it pass. It didn't. I had to go. I tried to be sly. The bathroom shared a wall with the open concept kitchen. I casually ducked away into the bathroom when people weren't looking and proceeded to fucking unleash hell on that toilet. I felt better immediately but I had to deal with the smell. I opened the window. I sprayed anything I could spray. I lit the candle and thought it was ok. I mean it smelled but it's the bathroom. I felt bad if someone was waiting for me and used it right after me but for the most part I felt I was in the clear. I went back to the party and had the typical awkward time with people I didn't know. Went home and other than my girlfriend making jokes about me not being able to eat quiche, I mostly forgot about it.

Almost 20 years later I'm still with the same woman and have had many, many visits, vacations and good times with the very same aunt of hers. While on a recent trip with the aunt and girlfriend the quiche incident comes up in conversation. Her aunt laughs and says something about how bad it smelled. Wait what? You knew? You could smell it? Still laughing she informed me that everyone at the party could smell it and wondered what it was. At one point there was concern of a sewer or gas leak. It ended up just being a funny moment for her and her guests but NO ONE EVER TOLD ME.  For 20 years I thought I had gotten away with it. I thought the window and candle and spritzes covered up the smell. Oh well. I haven't eaten quiche since.

The Panamanian Shuffle
Not long after moving to a small rural city 5 hours away from the bay area a neighbor we had made friends with was flying out of Oakland Airport the same weekend we were driving down to see family.  On the way to the airport we stopped at Chili's for dinner.  Normal, safe mediocre Chili's.   I should note that this friend had never been to a real "city" before and she was excited to be flying out of the Oakland. The airport isn't' in the best part of Oakland. It's not all bad along the normal route Google tells you to take,  but a traffic detour... or should I say, the police closing a whole-ass major intersection for reasons we could only speculate on, took us through a part of East Oakland that people passing through on the way to the airport don't usually go.  And since it was after dinner the sun was starting to go down and it was becoming– well it was getting to be night time in the hood. I was driving and while our friend was "ooh"ing and "ahh"ing at things happening out the windows she'd only seen in movies and TV, my guts were starting to bubble. It came on quick and I tried to play it cool. There was nowhere to stop and find a bathroom so I kept quiet and clinched. hard. Once we got closer to the outer airport area there were gas stations and fast food places. I blurted out "I gotta shit bad" and abruptly turned into a gas station that had a Starbucks on one side of the parking lot and a Wendys inside of a gas station situation on the other side. I parked haphazardly kind of in the middle next to the air and water station and carefully glided to the Starbucks. The one bathroom they had was occupied and I waited for like 10 seconds and looked up - the brightly lit Wendy's sign across the parking lot came into focus. I then, trying to be casual and not shit my pants booked it past my car and to the Wendy's/Gas station. The Men's was occupied but the women's was open and I said fuck it. While I was in there my GF was texting me that they saw me fly by them in the parking lot and later made fun of my butt-clench, straight leg waddle at hypers peed.  Since I'm 1/4 Panamanian for some reason they coined it "the Panamanian Shuffle"  Now any time I have to poo or am running to the bathroom she says "Panamanian Shuffle"  
Fucking Chili's.

Friday Night Poops
This is kind of a PYMHM but it fits the theme.  
Late December 2006.  This is an old one folks from the glory days of the noggins. Italics is 2025 me talking about 2006.
We got this new heater/ceiling fan thing for xmas that wasn't working so my dad and I switched out the light switch and checked all the breakers to make it work... it still doesn't work. The whole time we were rushing because it was Celeste's 12th birthday and we were supposed to meet at the Mexican restaurant down the street. We got there just in time. I got a carnitas burrito which was hella good but had more cheese in it/on it than I expected. I didn't take a Lactaid (here's that lactose intolerance again) but didn't think it would be a big deal. (because it never is right?) after I finished I started to get the bubble guts and knew I needed a toilet fast. No one at the table realized how serious my situation was.They kept saying "were almost ready we're leaving soon" but they hadn't even got the check yet.
So I'm sitting there with a crazy stomach and bubbling insides, in a cold sweat ready to shoot hot shit all over the place. Finally we pay and get up to leave. My ass is clinched tighter than a nuns cunt on Easter as I try to walk to the car. (pre-Panamanian shuffle!) we only live 2 blocks away thankfully. We get to the house and before the car stops I'm halfway to the stairs. Running trying hard to keep the shit in. I must have taken too wide a stride while running and about three of my steps were accompanied by a squirt, squiiiirrrt. oh fuck "Meg I think I shit my pants" she only laughs. before I could think about the implications of shitting myself I get on the toilet and unleash like Eisenhower on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I was in there for a good 30 minutes. and another 15 cleaning myself. After that, exhausted, I joined the rest of the family just in time for present opening and cake.  I passed on the cake.

After all hullabaloo from the party we went back up to our room to call it a night. Meg walks in first and hits the newly installed light switch. At that split second the lights turn on then we hear a pop and then everything goes black. Our first thought was oh shit we wired it wrong and it blew the power to the whole house. Then meg saw a blue flash and we turned around then realized the power was out on the whole street.. Then after we walked around in the moonlight realized that it was all of down town. I talked to my dad the next day who lives on the other side of town and he said his power was out too. It was out for like 2 hours. Pretty eerie when everything is off. It was complete silence other than the sirens of EMT's and Ambulances going to the old folks home down the street. Thats gotta suck. We tried to read a book by flashlight but Meg kept talking about shadow people and freaking me out. Then all the sudden zzhhhhhoooom everything came back on. still haven't heard what caused it...maybe a squirrel chewed a wire or something... I guess it happens tho.  I think this actually ended up being a possum that got fried at the power station.  I also have a memory of hearing what sounded like a raccoon dying in the bushes across the street during the silence when the power was out. Maybe that was another time.