The Famous Musician, The First Stringers, & The Not-So Famous Musician

Note: We're not using any names in this blog. If you know who these people are, fine; if you don't, that's also fine. Please refrain from using names in any comments.


A number of years ago, a very famous musician was arrested in Sheffield for Public Intoxication. Some cities call this Drunk & Disorderly. Whatever you call it, it's a misdemeanor, so it's hardly the worst crime anyone could commit.

The only local news outlet to cover this arrest was the Quad-Cities Daily. As we perused the arrests that day, we were somewhat amused to see this famous man's face, so we included the arrest in our blog later that day. No one uttered a peep...at least to us.

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Now let's talk about Public Intoxication. It would seem many think police wait outside bars with a Breathalyzer to arrest those who exit. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Those arrested for this crime are causing some kind of disturbance; perhaps they started a fight, perhaps they've removed some or all of their clothing, perhaps they've climbed the nearest flagpole. Whatever they've done, they are a danger to themselves and others and they are taken in to sober up.  

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Now on to the First Stringers. Yes, the UNA football team has had its problems, and a few years ago the star quarterback and some of his fellow players caused a row in a quiet residential neighborhood. For whatever reason, these arrests did make the TD, along with a couple of online news sites, along with this blog. 

The story continued for several weeks when UNA athletic director Mark Linder failed to drop these fine examples of American youth from the team just after canning some third stringers a few weeks before. Yet we never heard one word about how these arrests should be private.

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Now two online news sites have mentioned the name of a local musician. We're not even sure whether to call him semi-famous or not since we've asked around and no one could identify him. We did get some "oh, yeahs" after we mentioned the name of his band. 

This is at least the second recent arrest for this performer; he was arrested on some serious drug charges in June. Yet we're reading online that it's unfair to mention this poor beleaguered soul. Why? Isn't he just as guilty, or even more so, as the famous musician? Isn't he just as guilty, or even more so, as the UNA football players? Why would anyone owe him a pass?

The humorous thing is that most who read online news probably wouldn't have noticed this little man's arrest if his misguided friends hadn't stepped in to complain. Are we surprised? No. We've seen family and friends of cold-blooded murderers complain about news coverage of their loved one, so why shouldn't the mediocre musician have the same irrational support?

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Speaking of online news, the Shoals Insider in a November 7th article is advertising next Saturday's UNA game with West Florida. We're going out on a limb and predicting that UNA will lose 30 to 7.