I told my cat he's racist and he just ignored me. I don't think this insult is working anymore.

She left the toilet seat down again.  Gonna need to remind her that she's the one who's oppressed.

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May 3, 2026

In 2023, Guns'n'Roses was sued by Katarina Benzova, a photographer for the band.  The main point was that the band claimed ownership of her photography with no written consent, but also the sexual harassment by Fernando Lebeis, the band's manager.  The band has countersued and on January 29 and 30, Axl and Lebeis testified in court.  That testimony was released to the public recently.  I have barely glanced at Fernando's testimony and am only partway through Axl's but there are some interesting things to note here.

The lack of written deals is the most surprising and disturbing.  Never mind the tours and marketing, or any other deals made by the band, Axl's mansions would require too much maintenance, written contracts would be required just to keep track of all the money being spent.  This means Benzova will win regarding ownership of her photographs.  They can pay her as much as they want, if there's no signed paperwork giving them ownership, there's nothing to go on.  This is why sane companies require written contracts, saying 'we own this.'

Since they have no defense, I assume the band will give in or, more likely, offer her tons of money to get complete ownership.  I don't know how the sexual harassment part of the lawsuit will go, most likely they'll pay her off there too to shut her up, but we'll see.  But all of this is making the band look more like a cult surrounding Axl than anything else, especially since they can't be bothered to put down written documents.

I've read roughly a third of Axl's testimony and he seems almost proud of announcing how ignorant he is on basic business details.  In 1998 - I can't find a specific date but it seems to have been around then - he founded Black Frog, a company to handle managing the band.  He is listed as the CEO, the CFO, the secretary and the director.  You'd think that would provide a lot of knowledge about how the business works, or at least the business he's in charge of.  You would be wrong.

He is asked about various companies falling under the Black Frog name.  He is testifying under oath and his answers show how little he knows.  I have simplified the text for convenience but it is copy-and-pasted from the official release:

Q:  Are you the principal of Gundam Productions, LLC?
A:  I believe so.
Q:  Are you the director of Waterhead International, Incorporation?
A:  I believe so.
Q:  Are you the manager of Gundam Marketing, LLC?
A:  I believe so.
Q:  Do you own the company?
A:  As far as I know.
Q:  Are you the chief executive officer of Black Frog Touring, Inc.?
A:  Possibly.
Q:  Are you the chief financial officer of Black Frog Music?
A:  I don't know.
Q:  Are you the holder of Guns N' Roses trademark?
A:  I believe so.
Q:  Do all the entities, Gundam, Waterhead, Black Frog, Gundam Touring, do they share the same principal place of business at 5950 Canoga Avenue, Suite 510, Woodland Hills, California 91367?
A:  Can I ask a question?  Is that my accountant's? [address]

He is then shown a copy of the California Secretary of State document listing him in charge of these companies at that address.  He's not even bothered by this, he simply has no reason to pay attention to things like this.  Yet he's in charge.  Fernando is the official manager, Axl has no clue if or how Fernando is paid for this job.  He's asked who owns the Guns'n'Roses catalogue and has to guess.  Might be him and Slash and Duff, might be them with Geffen Records or Geffen may own it all.  Because ownership of the Appetite for Destruction songs isn't worth keeping track of.

I'm less than halfway through Axl's testimony but what I've read so far is just more of this.  This is the first real "interview" Axl has done in public for decades.  He did some minimal internet chats for the Chinese Democracy release - going on 18 years ago - that's the last I'm aware of.  He doesn't see any problems here and probably doesn't see why anyone else has a problem here.

That's why I mean about the resemblance to a cult, Axl has been surrounded by sycophants for nearly 40 years.  Their job is to keep him happy and ignoring reality works very well for that.  It also means they don't need to write anything down, that way no one else can read it.  And keep in mind who else handles Black Frog and how they all got this far.

As you may remember, Axl was obsessed with a girl.  He wanted to make obsessive videos about her so he hired another girl as lead actress and became obsessed with her.  It didn't last long but the new girl hired a Brazilian nanny for her little boy, Beta Lebeis.  When they broke up, Axl kept the nanny who brought her own son along, Fernando.  And that's who's ran Guns'n'Roses for over 30 years.

It's why the sexual harassment accusation is quite believable.  Fernando's spent most of his life surrounded by people who get applauded for saying "turn around, bitch, I got a use for you."  Benzova was reportedly the only female on the G'n'R tour crew, of course she'd be a target.  I assume he uses actual written contracts for his part of the business - couldn't set up an international tour without it - but all of that is kept far away from Axl and probably from his mother.  So now they're in a bit of a mess because Axl is the only one who gets attention and he looks like a worthless figurehead.

It's not clear if he has the slightest clue what his vocals sound like, he's probably told by everyone that he just gets better every day.  It's not like he's had any reason to hear anything else from his followers.  I'm pretty sure Slash and Duff have no contact with him unless they're going on stage.  They're here for the money and to protect their own legacies.  Everyone else in G'n'R history who had a reason to speak up was fired and they're all just employees of Axl's corporation.

I'm guessing they'll try marketing, that should help fool the public.  They need this and not just for legal reasons, sales for their upcoming US tour aren't good.  Yesterday I saw a short video on youtube of Axl and it's quite recent.  Dated from last month for a concert in Brazil, it's mostly just him walking around backstage, looking happy.  He's probably talking to people but no sound is included.  One or two bits on-stage during the show - Duff is in one - and I think the only spoken words are when he's calling out thanks to the crowd and especially Fernando.

G'n'R was never my favorite band but they were usually high-up on the list of favorites.  If nothing else, they're my only favorite whose career started after I was born, which is probably why I still pay so much attention to them.  But this also makes me very curious how many other rich celebrities are facing this, or will be shortly.  Fernando could loot every penny Axl has and escape, there'd be nothing to use against him.  As the cult gets old and weak, that becomes the best option.

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May 3, 2026

When looking into the origins of Spider-Man, Jack Kirby's role creates more questions than answers.  The official story is fairly simple.  Whatever the basic idea was, Kirby was the first one Stan Lee turned to.  He did several pages - it's unclear how many - which did not meet what Stan wanted, so he turned to Ditko who established the Spidey we know.  Ok, that makes sense.

Kirby's pages have never been seen by the public.  All we've been told is that it involved a teenage boy with a web-shooting gun who fought a mad scientist that lived in the neighborhood.  After all these decades, it just seems strange that nothing has ever been done with that.  Marvel puts out books celebrating Spidey's latest anniversary, this would certainly make a novel contribution, 'what might have been.'  Yet there's nothing.

There's also a valid question about what happened to Kirby's art.  In the mid-80s, Marvel finally gave him bake a large percentage of his finished pages.  Kirby had many accomplishments in his career, this wouldn't be a major one, but again there would be the novelty.  Even if Kirby and his estate never showed off the art, at least they would list what they received.  So far I can't find on the internet that they even did that, and there many errors with what Marvel did give back, so his version of Spider-Man would be a dead end.

Marvel did not keep the storage of artwork secured so a lot of it had been stolen over the years, with Kirby as probably the biggest victim of the crime.  Maybe that's what happened to the pages.  Still seems a bit weird though.  Did someone just grab them all or did several people check out the storage unit and decide to loot this?

But then there's another problem.  If the thief or thieves aren't already dead, they're very old.  Their family would look into what property they've left behind and someone would notice the old comics art.  They wouldn't recognize it of course but if it's listed as Marvel, they'd have a reason to see if it's worth anything.  If they don't know Jack Kirby's name, they'd find it when they start checking the internet for possible value.

The only other options I can think of are that the art was stolen by someone for nefarious purposes.  They would keep it safe for whatever their evil criminal schemes require.  This sounds ludicrous but the only other possibility is that when Kirby's Spider-Man idea was turned down, they decided it was no good and threw the art in the trash.  But then how do we have even that brief description of the story?

That's not the only problem with no explanation.  As noted, Marvel had problems with distribution in the 1950s.  First publisher Martin Goodman tried to set up his own distributor and it immediately failed.  Then he joined the large distributor, American News Company, which was busted by the Justice Department immediately after he signed up.  That doesn't remotely sound like a coincidence but I can't find any info on that.

So Goodman's final option was to use DC Comics as the distributor for Marvel.  DC would go along with that but didn't want to help a competitor too much so Marvel was limited to eight comics a month.  Since Marvel had been publishing a lot of titles up to that point, they'd already paid many artists and received finished pages to publish.  Goodman wasn't going to waste money on new art pages until they'd used the old ones so virtually everybody working for Marvel was fired, except Stan Lee.  Eventually new stories were needed so people like Kirby and Ditko were getting work again.

This is the other problem for this alternate version of Spider-Man.  If Kirby was paid for those pages, Goodman would have every reason to get them finished and printed.  Ok, it's not the Spidey they were looking for but they've still got to fill up eight books a month.  It's not like Marvel always expected to publish work of the highest class and quality.

Or, if Kirby wasn't paid for those pages, he'd have a lot more to complain about.  In the 70s and 80s when he was fighting Marvel to get his art back, he flat-out said he created Spider-Man.  This would give him every reason to add "and they didn't even pay me for it."  Yet he never did and always gave Ditko full credit for the character we know.  So it's pretty safe to assume he was paid but then we still have all these questions.

Otherwise, maybe he dashed out the 'web-gun kid' as stick figures on one piece of paper and was told it's no good so he threw it away.  That's believable, I guess, but then why turn to Ditko?  Kirby would just say call him tomorrow and he'll have another idea.  The more we look into the origins of Spider-Man, the more questions there are about the history we've been told all these years.

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May 3, 2026

□ [“Pennsylvania Democrat Senate Candidate Arrested for Threatening to Kill Trump"]

But Republicans are the violent tyrants who want to kill people.  Considering they're the side that supports gun ownership, it looks like they could take care of a lot of problems very quickly if they were just willing to follow the Democrat example.  Putting it that way, it's kind of a shame we aren't willing to do something about it now.  If violence is the only way to fix the problem, why should the left have all the fun?  Instead we're waiting for something bad to happen first.

It's still very vague and undefinable but I think there are hints that some on the left are trying to stop the disaster they're bringing on themselves.  That's probably a reason why the most-insane are pushing this even harder, they're responding to the doubters on their own side and need to start killing the enemy.  I still can't think of anything in the way of precedents for this, historical or even any fictional examples.

Politicians and their media allies are just pushing this.  A California politician posted "86 47" on a Republican facebook page.  A black woman running for Congress in Pennsylvania insists that ICE be abolished.  She's asked who would enforce the laws on immigration and it takes her a while to come up with an answer, "Congress."  A trans substitute teacher posted a list online of planned victims for a massacre at the school he/she/it taught in.

I suspect we're all seeing things like this in our personal lives, people getting shakier and shakier.  Maybe it's just a general effect on everybody, maybe it's some people we've always been wary of who are just looking worse.  Anything that's not infinite must come to an end and we are getting very close to the end of this line.  We'll probably all be surprised by what happens next.

Illegal Alien Working for Wendy’s Stabs Two Long Island Women to Death
May 3, 2026

□ [“Trump’s New Strait Plan Kicks Off Monday"]

This fight with Iran is getting even weirder.  We passed the '60 days' mark where Trump has to inform Congress of what's going on, which I had mistaken as 90 days, so he's declared the conflict over.  A ceasefire started a few weeks ago and, as far as we know, it's been followed.  The negotiations aren't going anywhere but Trump has followed the War Powers Act.

But here's the twist, since the strait is still a problem and no one else is willing to do anything, Trump has announced that the US will protect ships passing through.  That does put more pressure on Iran.  If they do anything about it, they'll be attacking us and thereby ending the ceasefire.  That gives Trump another chance to do his thing.  Notice that Congress isn't complaining about any of this.  They've all been informed of the plan but can't admit it to their own voters who would never understand any of this.

We're also being told that Iran's economy is getting even worse and they'll be out of space to hold oil any day now.  We have not heard that the populous is in revolt, not sure if that's good or bad.  Trump is still focused on getting rid of Iran's nuclear program, I'm sure there's no accurate information on how that's going.  Everything about this *seems* to be going in the right direction but there's still no solid proof.

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May 3, 2026