Urgent! This van and trailer stolen, last seen in Cayce

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Burl Burlingame, way off in Hawaii, sends me a heads-up on this dire situation right here in Cayce:

URGENT!! PLEASE READ!! Our van (Oregon license plate: 146 FRN, white 2010 Ford Econoline 350 w/tinted windows) and trailer (white 18’ double axel) were stolen from outside our hotel room last night in Cayce, South Carolina. We are stranded here in Cayce now and are figuring out how to proceed. Unfortunately we will have to miss the show tonight in Charlotte NC with Foxy Shazambut we want to carry on with the rest of this tour if at all possible. If anyone in the North Carolina or South Carolina area has a van we can borrow and return to you after this tour ends in Ohio on June 28th, we would be more grateful than you can possibly imagine.

And if anyone wants to DONATE any money in any amount towards helping us buy a van/trailer, you can do so via PayPal at larryandhisflask@gmail.com. Needless to say, we are deeply and humbly grateful for any help in any manner than anyone out there can provide. Thank you all so much for always supporting The Flask…we hope and pray we can get through this horrible situation and carry on.

If any friends or fans or other kind souls can possibly let us BORROW any gear (ESPECIALLY a banjo, an upright bass and a trombone) in each city for the rest of the tour, we would be incredibly grateful…this is the only way we can continue on this tour and we want to carry on for sure. If you can help in any way, please email us at larryandhisflask@gmail.com. You can see our upcoming shows with Foxy listed under the “EVENTS” tab here on our Facebook page, under our main photo.

Here is what was stolen in addition to our van and trailer, if you have any leads once again email us at larryandhisflask@gmail.com.

King trombone
Holton trumpet
1952 olds baritone horn
Pbone trombone
Palomino upright bass
2 Deering good time banjos
SJC Custom Drums drum kit
Phil Jones 1200 bass amp
2 Godin 5th ave. guitars
Breedlove Guitars acoustic guitar
Ampeg 6 by 10 bass
Carvin 600 bass amp
3 venue DI’s
Fender Guitar blues junior
Camp gear
A ton of Larry and His Flask merch (tshirts mainly)
Skateboards
Nikon d-50 camera
Sennheiser USA wireless systems
2 summit audio tla 50
DBX 1231 dual 31 band eq
BBE 4821 sonic maximizer
@Gator rock case

If you’ve seen the missing vehicle and equipment, or can help in any other way, contact the Cayce police, or these guys at their Facebook page. You can email them at larryandhisflask@gmail.com.

They were supposed to play tonight in Charlotte, so hurry.

Below is video of the band. They seem to have a sort of “Willy and the Poor Boys” feel about them…

30 thoughts on “Urgent! This van and trailer stolen, last seen in Cayce

  1. Burl Burlingame

    Alerted by my pal Michael, who plays the upright bass with Skinny Lister. The band was preceding them in dates ahead.

    You can tell by the list of stolen instruments they’re an interesting mix.

    BTW, Skinny Lister is playing Charlotte on June 10. Go if you like to raise a pint, mate!

        1. Brad Warthen Post author

          I actually posted about it twice. Once with a manual post to Twitter, and later with the automatic one. Sometimes the automatic one takes time, and I didn’t want to wait for it.

          I almost never post anything directly onto Facebook. What you see from me are things I post manually on Twitter, and my blog posts, which post automatically first to Twitter, then to Facebook.

          Anyway, they’re all there on my timeline, or wall, or whatever Facebook calls it. I find Facebook confusing. It’s not simple and direct like Twitter.

          I see the alerts I get on Facebook, and sometimes I look at them, but I have no idea how Facebook decides whose posts to tell me about. I have close to 1,000 “friends” there, but I only get notifications about a few. Thank goodness. But I’m pretty sure I did not choose which few. It just sort of happens.

            1. Kathryn Fenner

              I find Twitter inscrutable. I was trying to read NeinQuarterly’s tweets, which are supposed to be hilariously dark, and gave up after several screens. Maybe you had to be used to large family dynamics or something. Very confusing to follow.
              I checked, and I am following you on Facebook. I did not see any of your recent posts in my feed, which is set every time it is refreshed to be chronological, instead of Facebook’s choice of “top stories”. Check your privacy settings?

            2. Doug Ross

              Sorry, I should have said that your posts do not show up on my news feed. I can see them when I go to your page.

              As for Twitter, it’s too much, too random, too difficult to filter. The signal to noise ratio is about 10:1.

            3. Brad Warthen Post author

              Obviously, y’all are not doing Twitter right. Maybe I should hold a seminar to help all my blog friends get comfortable with it.

              Because to me, Facebook is mostly noise, while Twitter gives me the information I want when I want it. It is THE best news headline service in the history of the world — quick, to the point, relevant.

              I used to feel fairly well informed as a newspaper editor with the AP, the LAT/WP service and the NYT service streaming news through my computer. That was PATHETIC compared to what I have now. Just a few seconds spent with the latest Tweets, and I know what’s happening in the world right now, any time. It’s awesome.

              Of course, part of it is that I have all those years of training getting information exactly that way — skimming through the slugs and headlines quickly, and calling up the things that interest me to go deeper. So to me, it’s a very familiar cognitive process. Maybe it’s not that comfortable to people who haven’t done this for decades…

            4. Brad Warthen Post author

              The “inscrutable” comment is what gets me. Twitter is SO plain, so stripped-down, so lacking in extraneous features. Once you understand a VERY few basics — your feed, Tweets, reTweets, replies, and maybe a little about hashtags and favorites — you’re set.

              Whereas Facebook is positively rococo. It’s like a house that’s several hundred years old and there have been multiple waves of remodeling, each one of which has tried to do something different, and you can’t even find your way around in it well enough to get to the bathroom…

              I’m forced to use it a good bit because so many others choose to, but almost every time I get something I need via Facebook, I find myself wishing the person had found some other way to get it to me. Like, you know, some medium where you’re not constantly hounded to play “Candy Crush Saga,” which is about the most off-putting name for a game I’ve ever heard…

            5. Doug Ross

              I guess I just read faster than most people. I can review my twitter feed in about two minutes and the number of times I click through might be once or twice. Meanwhile, I get to read what beer someone just drank.. and then the next one.. and the next one.

            6. Doug Ross

              Here’s an example of the past eight hours from the Free Times twitter feed… some of these don’t offer enough information to give you an idea of why you would care to click thru… like I said, the signal to noise ratio is about 1:10

              Free Times @FreeTimesSC · 9m
              TALES FROM THE SCRIPT | “Divergent” castmates reunite in “The Fault In our Stars.” Is it a reunion to cry over? http://ow.ly/xLK8m

              Free Times @FreeTimesSC · 49m
              To inspire you to start voting on Wednesday, a look at #bestofcolumbia 2013. http://ow.ly/xKDEn

              Free Times @FreeTimesSC · 1h
              Don’t wait until July and August to explore outdoors. http://ow.ly/xKDkW

              S.C. abortion bills go nowhere. Plus, Vista wants Yellowshirts. http://ow.ly/xNGWm

              Free Times @FreeTimesSC · 2h
              The House Ethics Committee, a reader writes, “has about the same punitive power as a student council.” http://ow.ly/xKCRB

              Free Times @FreeTimesSC · 3h
              The newest brewery to come on to the rapidly growing Midlands scene @swampcabbagebru receives its licenses. Congrats. http://ow.ly/xKDLv

              Free Times @FreeTimesSC · 3h
              From @FTParentSC | Where are all the parents of young boys in the Bowe Bergdahl debate? http://ow.ly/xLK3u

              Free Times @FreeTimesSC · 4h
              From @FTParentSC | Ready, Set, Spend! http://ow.ly/xKDi4

              Free Times @FreeTimesSC · 4h
              Where to eat: Bites. http://ow.ly/xKCtz

              Free Times @FreeTimesSC · 5h
              One of these candidates could set the tone for statewide policies. Have you gotten acquainted? http://ow.ly/xKD1z

              Free Times @FreeTimesSC · 5h
              Grading the General Assembly. It’s worse than you might think. http://ow.ly/xKD6R

              Free Times @FreeTimesSC · 6h
              Who’s the best local philanthropist? Here’s your change to weigh in. http://www.free-times.com/events/event/best-of-philanthropy-awards-nominations

              Free Times @FreeTimesSC · 6h
              As the media and others speculate, has anyone considered: What if he was my son? http://ow.ly/xLJM1

              Free Times @FreeTimesSC · 6h
              The buses will keep running, but determining who will run the system long term just got pushed farther down the road. http://ow.ly/xKCFI

              Free Times @FreeTimesSC · 7h
              The races to watch during Tuesday’s primary elections in South Carolina. http://ow.ly/xKBQD

              Free Times @FreeTimesSC · 8h
              A highly anticipated vote on ethics reform legislation is delayed for two weeks. Plus, more SC news. http://ow.ly/xLKQU

            7. Kathryn Fenner

              Well, first off, the retweets and replies and the like are mixed in. Not a nice linear list like on FB. Then there’s the whole not in complete sentences….
              My FB feed is a mix of what my friends are doing, what my friends are reading, and what some favorite sites are posting. It’s more in paragraph form, than a stream of consciousness….

            8. Kathryn Fenner

              And you have to reset every time to most recent, instead of Top Stories or you miss stuff. I hide people who frequently post stuff I don’t want to read or who I am just not that close to but would like to have a sort of updated Rolodex card on.

            9. Brad Warthen Post author

              Doug, I find those as informative as any headline. Only the process to decide to read them or not can be accomplished much more quickly than in print — no turning the pages and laboriously folding the paper over and trying to find where the story jumps to, etc. — it’s just a click away.

              As to Kathryn’s comment… it points to what I think may be a key difference between Twitter and Facebook. As social media go, Facebook is more about “social,” and Twitter is more about “media,” in the sense of being more about news and issues. Twitter gives me much more of what I want as a journalist and as a guy who tries to be informed about the issues of the day. Facebook is more about chatting with your friends.

              I do two things with Facebook — share pictures of my grandchildren, and message back and forth with my daughter in Thailand. It’s social. It’s personal. It’s useful for those two purposes. (And if I’d better understood that’s what I’d use it for, I never would have approved those 900 and something “friends.”)

              But being informed is not a SOCIAL function to me (this blog notwithstanding).

              It’s like… There’s a group of guys (and occasionally a gal), some of them friends of mine, who gather at the round table in the corner at the Capital City Club at breakfast every morning and talk over the news (or, too often, sports) of the day. I used to sit with them sometimes, but that time is my time for reading newspapers and other sources of info, and it pretty much takes my full attention. So I sit at a table by myself, and try to get as much reading done as I can.

              I feel kind of bad for not being more sociable, but I’d rather be informed than socialize. I get enough interaction with y’all later in the day.

              So maybe that’s why Twitter is for me, and Facebook isn’t so much. Does that make sense?

            10. Brad Warthen Post author

              And here’s some stuff from the last 10 minutes or so of my feed that interests me:
              Foreign Policy ‏@ForeignPolicy 52s
              Many experts believe Afghan forces are no where near ready to handle the Taliban on their own. http://atfp.co/1qhOps5 pic.twitter.com/xQrAvOFZo5

              Nicholas Kristof ‏@NickKristof 2m
              OK, I probably wouldn’t admit it if I didn’t like the new @nytopinion app. But truth is, I find it addictive. (But not hallucinatory.)

              Scott Farmer ‏@ScottFarmerSC 11m
              #TeamGraham RT @KirkBrown_AIM: Sen Lindsey Graham says his campaign has called more than 25k supporters today urging them to vote Tuesday.

              Justin Evans ‏@scpolitico 4m
              ‘I’ve Had Enough’: When Democrats Quit on Obama http://www.nationaljournal.com/white-house/i-ve-had-enough-when-democrats-quit-on-obama-20140609

              Andy Shain ‏@AndyShain 5m
              Big enough jobs announcement coming to Greenville on Tue. to draw @LindseyGrahamSC & @SenatorTimScott on primary day http://www.greenvilleonline.com/story/money/business/2014/06/09/ge-plans-jobs-announcement/10248987/

              The Daily Beast ‏@thedailybeast 6m
              Meet the last U.S. soldier executed for desertion http://thebea.st/1lihhjg

              NPR News ‏@nprnews 11m
              Beijing Denounces Vietnam, Philippines ‘Farce’ On Disputed Islands http://n.pr/1l1GWYP

            11. Brad Warthen Post author

              And of those things, the first one I clicked on was the Daily Beast one about the last soldier executed for desertion. Why? Because I was just wondering about that this morning. I was thinking, “Who was the last soldier executed for desertion? Was it Eddie Slovik? Or was that for something else?”

              Yep, Eddie Slovik — who was played in the made-for-TV by… wait for it… Martin Sheen. President Bartlet!

              See, happy ending. A few seconds on Twitter, and it takes me right back to “The West Wing.” And that makes me a happy camper.

            12. Brad Warthen Post author

              There’s a lot about social media that leaves me cold. For instance, every time I load an interesting-looking free game on my iPad, the very first thing it wants me to do is go out and invite my Facebook friends to play it with me.

              Why the hell would I want to do THAT? I mean, if I’m going to waste time on a video game, I certainly don’t want anybody I know to know I’m wasting time like that! I mean, what’s SOCIAL about playing a game on a computer or tablet? That’s like… asking other people to watch porn with you or something. Why not keep your dirty secret to yourself?

            13. Pat

              @Kathryn . For posts on FaceBook I want to be sure to see, I put the friend in “Close Friends” and click on that. It will show me everything that friend does on Facebook. I separate every friend into a list based on my relationship with them – friends, family, etc. I don’t use my news feed much. Plus, I add some to notifications, like NOAA weather. Just thought I’d mention that in case it helps. For heavy posters, I do like you do. Brad, I could probably use a twitter course, but I don’t know if it’s important enough – for me – to bother setting up an account. I would have to see the advantage.

            14. Kathryn Fenner

              There’s such a high ratio of code-looking stuff to actual text on Twitter. I agree with Doug!

          1. Doug Ross

            Here’s the other problem with Twitter – I don’t want headlines. I want content. I can go to a blog like Andrew Sullivan and scroll through blog posts rapidly – the headline might or might not interest me but reading the first few sentences surely will give me a better idea as to whether it is of interest to me or not.

            I use Facebook for social purposes – to keep track of what my friends and co-workers across the country are doing. I also use it as my personal scrapbook to capture photos and videos or personal experiences.

  2. Doug Ross

    Thought I saw on the news that the van had been recovered but not the instruments.

    1. Brad Warthen Post author

      Here’s a link to that report. The instruments, worth about $24,000, are still missing.

      The band is going to try to continue the tour, and just borrow instruments from other bands and fans as they go. Which is, like, way existential, or something… Talk about being in the moment, and unencumbered by possessions…

  3. Bryan Caskey

    How are y’all using Twitter? Phone, desktop? What app? By the way, I’m @BryanCaskey.

    I’m with Brad on Twitter being far easier to manage than Facebook. I pretty much use Twitter exclusively through my phone, even if I’m at home. Twitter is so great because it’s only what you chose to have. My timeline is mostly politics, humor, Gamecock sports, local Columbia stuff, and a few other odds and ends. Brad’s is probably more geared to official news than mine, and he probably doesn’t get ANY sports stuff.

    The WWII twitter feed is neat (@RealTimeWWII). Twitter does take a little bit of a learning curve to get the hang of it, but we’re not building a rocket, y’all.

    Facebook is pretty much for posting/sharing fun pictures of my son.

    I don’t use the native Twitter app – I use a free app called Carbon, which is super simple and has all sorts of great features that I like better than the native app. Falcon Pro is also pretty good.

    Did you see the SC Supreme Court banned Twitter for anyone attending the Wilson v. Harrell oral arguments? I thought that was kind of silly.

    1. Kathryn Fenner

      I use Twitter on my iPhone when I am truly out of other stuff to read and stuck somewhere, and on my iPad Mini, again, when I am done with everything else…..

  4. Kathryn Fenner

    So, Brad, if you are just going to sit by yourself and read, why not eat at home?

    I cannot be sociable at breakfast. I hate B&Bs for that reason!

  5. Bart

    This is remarkable. Out of 28 comments, only 3 pertained to the theft of the van and musical instruments. It is another reason I like this blog so much. There are enough tangents to confuse a geometry class.

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