I don’t get Twitter.

I mean, I get it, insomuch as understanding it’s purpose and place in the world and why people like to use it. But, personally, I have no goddamn clue how to use it. Eric has tried to explain it to me, our co-producer-assistant-executive-best-boy Liam has mocked me over it, but it all just goes in one ear and just tumbles out the other in a pile of hashtags and names of pro-football players Liam tries to pick verbal fights with. Also there’s probably some movie references and a funny picture of a monkey or something in there.

So, being the crotchety old man that I really am deep down and also pretty much on the surface (skateboarding may not be a crime, but that doesn’t mean you should do it all over the fucking sidewalk, you puds!), I figured I’d drag BroCast News kicking and screaming into the bright, shiny futuristic year of 2003 and start us up a blog.

Will we have a schedule to our posts? Maybe. Will they stick to certain themes, or just be general musings and commentary? Sure! Will there be contributors other than my beloved cohost and my slightly less beloved self? Only if Dave and Liam answer my texts. Does anyone out there NOT want to see Iron Man 3? Al Qaeda! Have you ever heard the wolf cry at the blue corn moon? Reply hazy, try again. Regardless, I can guarantee that I will write funny things with swears and Eric will post photos from his Instagram.

Which I don’t fucking get either.

Moving on, in the spirit of firsts, today marks the first time a woman has been added to the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorists List. I’m sure Gloria Allred took time off from representing the ex-girlfriend of that guy who ate that dude’s face in Miami to celebrate.

Joanne Chesimard (aka Assat Olugbala Shakur), currently aged 65, was a member of the Black Liberation Army when, in 1973, she was involved in a shootout with New Jersey State Troopers after the car she was in with two others was pulled over. One trooper was shot execution style with his own gun, for which Chesimard and another passenger, Clark Squire, were convicted in 1977. She escaped prison in 1979 when two of her fellow BLA members took several guards hostage. She lived as a fugitive until 1984 when she fled to and was given asylum by the nation of Cuba. The US has continuously tried to extradite her back here, and guess how well that has worked out (for further information on Cuban-American relations dealing with extradition and major crimes, I urge you to consult the excellent Michael Bay documentary Bad Boys 2).

Now just like every other goddamn thing that happened decades ago dealing with racism, the whole shebang is shadier on both sides than a quiet, meandering creek with lovely willow trees swaying gentle o’er both banks. Buncha guns were fired, everybody was wounded, police officer got killed as did a guy in the car with Joanne (whom the prosecution also say she killed). Some radical political activists went to jail, one escaped, then went to Cuba. Will Smith drove a humvee with a hot girl and a shrieking Martin Lawrence through a village of drug shacks down the side of a mountain. What can I say, I wasn’t there. She denied having shot either victim, but couldn’t explain the three pistol magazines with a total of sixteen bullets in her purse. I can’t say for sure if Ms Chesimard/Shakur pulled the trigger, but the courts did. So I guess nobody can’t argue the fact that she’s a fugitive.

And so I end this with a verbal shrug. But there ya go, another first for the ladies out there. Holler.

Other less depressing “firsts” for May 2nd: Printing of the King James Bible (1611) and first jet airliner’s maiden flight (1952).

Also, in 1920, first game of the Negro Baseball League was played in Indianapolis. But that’s kind of a weird thing to talk about after that other stuff I wrote, right?

Right?

Shit just got real, didn’t it?