(EDITOR’S NOTE : yesterday marked the 24th anniversary of the death of guitar virtuoso Stevie Ray Vaughn. In keeping with memorial notices around the world, your  favorite barely extant blog is republishing the following entry from December 24, 2005, “Stevie Ray Vandalized”, though you might want to visit the original to revisit some of the pithy reader commentary – GC)

Time-Warner Cable’s News 8 was on the spot early this morning, spicing up an otherwise slow local news day with the story of the 8 foot statue of Stevie Ray Vaughn being defaced.

A local correspondent who will remain nameless (in case he or she ever wants to do the weather at News 8 ) comments below :

Subject: My new hero(es)
Body: Some beautiful person and/or persons defaced the Stevie Ray Vaughn statue at Town Lake in Austin last night.

This ugly, overbearing, bronze statue has been a blistering eyesore for the tasteful masses for years now. News 8 (Time Warner’s sad 24 hour news station) covered it early this morning, revealing that the word “POSER” was painted on the front, “See you in Hell” at the base, and some unnamed profanity on the reverse. Some passerbys’ quotes include a woman in her late 40s with fashionable jogging gear: “I’m an artist, too, and I appreciate what that is, and everyone does, and — well — obviously some don’t.” (Um, what “real” “artist” is jogging at 8am?) An even older fellow, looking very confused: “I don’t know what they’re protesting against.” (I would wager that they were drunkenly protesting against mediocre, Hendrix nutsack-swinging, drug-fueled GARBAGE that is pervasively revered by the small “c” local celebrities who speak for Austin.) And finally, a random, ugly, bearded tourist from Florida: “No respect for the dead…All he did was make good music and make people happy.” (Many people take exception to this — people like myself, who, as a sign shop employee, was forced to hear his poisonous aural carrion day after fucking day on KLBJ-FM.)

I’m not glad the motherfucker’s dead, but bitches, please, this is the most overrated guitar player of all time, a product of a pissant city that thinks so highly of itself to call itself the “Live Music Capitol of the World.” His wanky, artless garbage encouraged many other morons to pick up an axe and continue the suffering he started, and make places like Antone’s be able to book filth like this 7 nights a week.

I love the Blues. I love these drunks who did this in the middle of the night. I love News 8 Austin for getting their cameras down there to shoot and record it before the City sent out their underpaid minions to wash it off around 10am. It shall live in eternity on my DVR (until I get it burned to DVD, at least).

This shall be the best Christkkkmas ever. My heart races with joy.