Anyone who’s ever thought about playing the blues or its descendants even half-seriously has listened to and “borrowed” a lick of two from his playing. You’ll hear a lot of guitarists go on about how they borrowed a trick or two from him, but I’d wager that at least a couple of keyboard players — me included — were inspired by King. A good number of my own organ, synth and accordion blues scale runs, pitch bends, and bellows shakes come straight from playing along to recordings of Lucille (both the song and the guitar after which it’s named). I used to own an Ensoniq EPS sampling keyboard with samples from King’s How Blue Can You Get?, and so did Primitive Radio Gods, because they used them in their 1996 single, Standing Outside a Broken Phone Booth with Money in My Hand.
Rather than go on about his life, I’ll simply point you to article on him in Wikipedia, The New York Times, Rolling Stone, NPR, and The Washington Post, as well as Javier Alor’s collection of 79 B.B. King YouTube videos. Pour a bourbon, crank up the volume, play it, and drink to B.B. King.
The gator was reported to be about 5 feet long. Students were gathered into the school’s gymnasium while a professional trapper rounded it up, taped its mouth shut (gators’ jaw muscles have great strength for snapping shut, but not for opening), and hauled it away.
Falling asleep during an event attended by Kim Jong-un
Not carrying out instructions.
Let that be a lesson to you millennials out there slacking off!
However, the most “North Korea” thing about the whole incident is the report that the execution was carried out by anti-aircraft fire.
Seriously, Kim, you’re already short resources as it is — a traditional firing squad would’ve saved time and money, and you could’ve billed Hyon’s family for the bullet after, Mao-style.
Until early this week, Shawn Simoes, pictured above, had a nice job. Note the use of the past tense. If you live in the Toronto area and have been watching or reading the local news, you likely already know why he no longer has said job.
Sadly, there were different groups of guys waiting to yell the magic “FHRITP” phrase (as it’s called in polite circles). One guy managed to pull it off…
…and others were quick to back him up with a “Well played, sir!”. Hunt then went to confront a gaggle of guys in the background who’d been waiting for the opportunity to strike:
Look at the background and you’ll see what sets Toronto apart from most places: it’s so multicultural that we even have douchebags of colour!
Mr. Vocabulary
Next came this douchenozzle, who attempt to justify the unjustifiable with a classic debating tactic: attempting to sound smarter by using highfalutin’ words that he doesn’t even understand:
I’ll leave it to Mr. Inigo Montoya of The Princess Bride to respond:
It was later found that Mr. Vocabulary works at the machine vision tech company Cognex, who released a statement as soon as that fact became known:
“While the individual was attending the event on his own time and was not at a Cognex activity, the views expressed are totally inconsistent with Cognex’s values, and we find such comments reprehensible. We cannot comment on employee matters publicly, but we take this issue seriously and will be addressing it.”
He’s probably having a bad time at work this week, but his troubles are minor next to the next guy’s…
The guy who just couldn’t keep his mouth shut
And finally, we come to the accidental douchelord, Shawn Simoes. He wasn’t even involved with the FHRITP and could’ve walked right by without saying a word and drastically chaging his life. However, using judgement so poor that it’s downright Floridian, he stepped into the fray to defend the actions of his fellow bros:
Here’s a transcript of their exchange:
Shawn Simoes: Fucking hilarious, I don’t care what you say, I am laughing!
“Quite substantial” guy: It has nothing to do with you, it has everything to do with everyone else.
Reporter Shauna Hunt: When you talk into my microphone and say that into my camera to viewers at the station I work at it is disrespectful and…
Shawn Simoes: I don’t care it’s fucking hilarious!
Shauna Hunt: Okay why is it so funny though? [directed at Shawn Simoes] Why is this funny?
Shawn Simoes: It is fucking hilarious! We’re not the only people, it happened in England.
Shauna Hunt: Do you know that it’s old? It’s really not funny.
Shawn Simoes: Oh my mom would die laughing eventually!
The employer who had to avoid more bad PR
Even though Simoes didn’t have the good sense not to be a boor with a TV news camera pointed right at him, he might’ve been just another dick on the internet if it weren’t for his employer’s current situation.
Simoes worked at the public electric utility company Hydro One (“hydro” being local shorthand for “hydroelectric power”). If you live outside Ontario, you might not be aware of these three factors that are crucial to this story:
Hydro One employees are public sector employees, and well-paid public sector employees have public salaries. Ontario has a law that requires that all public sector employees who make more than $100,000 a year have their salaries published in what’s commonly known as the “Sunshine List”.
Simoes made enough money to appear on the Sunshine List. As an assistant network management engineer (guys like Simoes are a big reason why women avoid careers in technology), he made CAD$106,510.60 (USD$88,620 at today’s rates) in salary and CAD$709.10 (USD$590) in taxable benefits last year.
Simoes’ actions and public salary would paint them as a bunch of well-paid douchebags, which is probably why they quickly fired him…
…and shortly thereafter, in a speedy and efficient manner that is oh-so-very-uncharacteristic of Hydro One, they excised his name from the Sunshine List. The Huffington Post managed to capture it before the deletion:
It’s likely that their move was based more on Machiavelli than morals.
Well, it looks as though Shawn Simoes will have plenty of time to discuss the supposed hilarity of this incident with his mom, who may laugh about it…eventually.
Updated Wednesday, May 13 to provide context for the photos, a transcript of Shawn Simoes’ exchange with reporter Shauna Hunt, and more background about Hydro One (thanks to Rohan!).
