Accused Banjo Beater Allowed To Tour

Subject: Accused Banjo Beater Allowed To Tour
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 05 Jan 10 - 07:16 PM

Accused Banjo Beater Allowed To Tour

Police: Denver Man Involved In Bus Stop Argument

POSTED: 8:19 am MST January 5, 2010

ASPEN, Colo. -- A banjo player accused of assaulting another man with his instrument will get to keep playing while awaiting his trial.

Thirty-three-year-old Joseph Stancato, of Denver, faces second-degree assault charges after allegedly hitting another man on the head with his banjo on New Year's Eve. Authorities said Stancato got into an argument with two men at the Rubey Park bus stop in Aspen.

District Judge James Boyd, on Monday, approved Stancato's request to be allowed on the road to tour with a band while awaiting his next court date on Feb. 6.

The banjo is considered "a deadly weapon" under Colorado law, so Stancato could face prison time, the Aspen Daily News reported.

Subject: RE: Accused Banjo Beater Allowed To Tour
From: olddude
Date: 05 Jan 10 - 07:18 PM

ONLY DEADLY WHEN I TRY TO PLAY IT

Subject: RE: Accused Banjo Beater Allowed To Tour
From: astro
Date: 05 Jan 10 - 07:22 PM

Some would say that the crime continues until he goes to jail, some would say....not me...


astro (beating lovingly my mandolin right now)

Subject: RE: Accused Banjo Beater Allowed To Tour
From: Charley Noble
Date: 05 Jan 10 - 08:12 PM

Banjos do not maim or kill! They need not be outlawed.

It's the occasional banjo players who needs to be locked up.

I wonder what kind of banjo it was?

Charley 5-String Noble

Subject: RE: Accused Banjo Beater Allowed To Tour
From: autoharper
Date: 05 Jan 10 - 10:21 PM

If we live in fear of the banjos, then the banjos have won.

Subject: RE: Accused Banjo Beater Allowed To Tour
From: bseed(charleskratz)
Date: 05 Jan 10 - 10:28 PM

Stancato must be a bluegrass player; we old time pickers are much too laid back for that kind of activity. In addition, our banjos weigh a heck of a lot less and are less likely to inflict deadly injuries. But historically, it's blues harmonica players ya gotta watch out fer.

Charles (both a banjo and a harmonica player)

Subject: RE: Accused Banjo Beater Allowed To Tour
From: Artful Codger
Date: 05 Jan 10 - 10:40 PM

I wonder if the banjo was in worse or better tune after the cranial adjustment.

Subject: RE: Accused Banjo Beater Allowed To Tour
From: Ebbie
Date: 05 Jan 10 - 11:07 PM

Who knows? *g*

Subject: RE: Accused Banjo Beater Allowed To Tour
From: GUEST,Roger Knowles
Date: 06 Jan 10 - 04:55 AM

So there it is! Proof beyond doubt that banjers is vishuss!!
Licencing the under a new law, the 'Vicious Banjos Act of 2010' may help.
Having worked professionally with several banjo players in my musical career, I can say I lived in fear most of the time that a banjo case was opened in my presence.
Nights were worse than days.

Subject: RE: Accused Banjo Beater Allowed To Tour
From: Will Fly
Date: 06 Jan 10 - 05:02 AM

Banjo players are tolerant and responsible members of society. I had a wooden resonator fitted to mine so that, when I walloped anybody with it, they were only being hit by wood - not the metal pot.

You can't get much more caring than that.

Subject: RE: Accused Banjo Beater Allowed To Tour
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 06 Jan 10 - 05:14 AM

I query the wording of the original report, & of the title of this thread derived from it. A 'wife beater' beats his wife, he does not use her as an offensive weapon to hit someone else with: ditto a 'child beater'.

So a "banjo beater" must surely mean someone who beats, or over-frails, or kicks out at becoz it won't stay in bloody tune no matter what he does, or in some other way abuses or misuses, his banjo. I don't see how the term can be used, as it appears to be here, for someone who uses his banjo as an offensive weapon with which to assault someone else.

Moderators, may we have a more accurate title for this thread, please?

MEtheGM aka Mike-the-Pedant

Subject: RE: Accused Banjo Beater Allowed To Tour
From: Will Fly
Date: 06 Jan 10 - 05:18 AM

A 'wife beater' beats his wife, he does not use her as an offensive weapon to hit someone else with...

Now there's an interesting concept. Must have a word with Mrs. F. and see what she thinks about the idea.

Perhaps not - the banjo's much easier.

Subject: RE: Accused Banjo Beater Allowed To Tour
From: eddie1
Date: 06 Jan 10 - 05:30 AM

Many moons ago, in a previous incarnation when I was one of the very few Scottish singing cowboys in the USA, I bought a guitar from Baltimore Bluegrass (an institution I have been led to believe is sadly no longer with us?)
While having some adjustments made, I was allowed to enter their workshop to find, proudly displayed on the wall, a newspaper clipping about a man accused of beating his wife with a banjo. When the banjo neck broke, he continued beating her with a second banjo.
Whilst condemning the whole concept of domestic violence, I have to admit the man showed class!

Eddie

Subject: RE: Accused Banjo Beater Allowed To Tour
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 06 Jan 10 - 05:49 AM

Pick your weapons, for Duelling Banjos. I don't recommend a Deering 'Good Times' it's too light.

Subject: RE: Accused Banjo Beater Allowed To Tour
From: Young Buchan
Date: 06 Jan 10 - 05:52 AM

"Banjos do not maim or kill! They need not be outlawed."

But did not the sainted Blair say we must be tough on banjos, tough on the players of banjos?

Subject: RE: Accused Banjo Beater Allowed To Tour
From: Will Fly
Date: 06 Jan 10 - 06:41 AM

But did not the sainted Blair say we must be tough on banjos, tough on the players of banjos?

He did indeed. And has there been a reduction in banjos, or their causes? Not one whit - the buggers are still as plentiful as ever. Complete policy failure, in my view.

Subject: RE: Accused Banjo Beater Allowed To Tour
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 06 Jan 10 - 06:58 AM

Was it a 'weapon of man's destruction?'

Subject: RE: Accused Banjo Beater Allowed To Tour
From: Will Fly
Date: 06 Jan 10 - 07:27 AM

LOL - good one, John!

Subject: RE: Accused Banjo Beater Allowed To Tour
From: Charley Noble
Date: 06 Jan 10 - 08:07 AM

"Banjo player's rage"?

After reviewing this thread I think I'm feeling some symptoms.

And some of you I've marked down for further attention.....

Charley 5-String Noble

Subject: RE: Accused Banjo Beater Allowed To Tour
From: Will Fly
Date: 06 Jan 10 - 08:09 AM

All in fun, Charley.

Will (tenor banjo) Fly

Subject: RE: Accused Banjo Beater Allowed To Tour
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 06 Jan 10 - 08:20 AM

Weapon of mass distraction?

Subject: RE: Accused Banjo Beater Allowed To Tour
From: Mark Ross
Date: 06 Jan 10 - 09:43 AM

They did find WMD's in Baghdad, turns out Saddam Hussein had a banjo!

Mark Ross

Subject: RE: Accused Banjo Beater Allowed To Tour
From: TheSnail
Date: 06 Jan 10 - 11:13 AM

From http://www.ghost-story.co.uk/stories/alcatraz3.html

"After more than three years on the Rock, Capone was on the edge of total insanity. He spent the last year of his sentence in the hospital ward, undergoing treatment for an advanced case of syphilis. Most of the time he spent in the ward, he spent playing his banjo. His last day on Alcatraz was January 6, 1939. He was then transferred to the new Federal prison at Terminal Island near Los Angeles. When he was paroled, he became a recluse at his Palm Island, Florida estate. He died, broken and insane, in 1947."

Let that be a warning to you.

Subject: RE: Accused Banjo Beater Allowed To Tour
From: bill\sables
Date: 06 Jan 10 - 12:12 PM

I have a photograph of Saddam Hussein playing his banjo. it seems he was part of a Baghdad Bluegrass band

Subject: RE: Accused Banjo Beater Allowed To Tour
From: olddude
Date: 06 Jan 10 - 12:30 PM

Can't stop Laughing, this is priceless. My 5 string is too heavy to swing properly

Subject: RE: Accused Banjo Beater Allowed To Tour
From: open mike
Date: 06 Jan 10 - 12:49 PM

did the guitar player tune thusly: BAGDAD?

Subject: RE: Accused Banjo Beater Allowed To Tour
From: kendall
Date: 06 Jan 10 - 12:59 PM

Banjos done assault people...People assault people.

From my cold, dead fingers....

Subject: RE: Accused Banjo Beater Allowed To Tour
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 06 Jan 10 - 01:04 PM

Maybe Kendall - but the question remains, as I said above: Do people assault banjos - which is all that "Banjo Beater" can possibly, idiomatically, mean?

Subject: RE: Accused Banjo Beater Allowed To Tour
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 06 Jan 10 - 01:16 PM

You may go blind, if you beat your banjo

Subject: RE: Accused Banjo Beater Allowed To Tour
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 06 Jan 10 - 01:36 PM

Until I find and transcribe my newspaper clipping (of unknown date) this will have to do. (I have a photocopy of the clipping and I THINK I have a transcription on another computer and in an incompatible format -- give me a bit of time.)

Meanwhile --

WEST MILTON, Ohio (Reuter) -- A 63-year-old man who played in a bluegrass band has been charged with murder after beating his wife to death with a pair of banjos, police said Thursday.

"I've been an officer for 30 years, and that's the first banjo killing I've seen," said Charles Price,
chief deputy of the Miami County sheriff's office.

Police said Edward Benson bludgeoned his wife Katie with one banjo until it broke and then grabbed a
second and continued the assault until she died Wednesday at the couple's home of massive head injuries.

Subject: RE: Accused Banjo Beater Allowed To Tour
From: SINSULL
Date: 06 Jan 10 - 01:48 PM

Must be the same clipping Eddie1 mentioned.

Subject: RE: Accused Banjo Beater Allowed To Tour
From: TheSnail
Date: 06 Jan 10 - 03:04 PM

Can't find the lyrics anywhere, but Tim Lyons' "The Grisly Murder of Joe Frawley" is pertinent to the case.

Subject: RE: Accused Banjo Beater Allowed To Tour
From: katlaughing
Date: 06 Jan 10 - 03:15 PM

Mike the Pedant (we've a few of us around here), good catch, but as you will see, if you follow the link, that is the same wording used by the Aspen newspaper quoted. I know that is not a reason to perpetuate the mistake, but perhaps an email to the editor of the paper would be a good idea? In the meantime, I think we will leave the title alone. We are fairly informal about such things and it has engender a good spate of repartee, wouldn't you say?:-)

kat - mod

As far as I know, my dad never had to use his banjo as a weapon..he had a six-shooter behind the seat of his truck for that!

Subject: RE: Accused Banjo Beater Allowed To Tour
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 06 Jan 10 - 07:02 PM

Indeed, that's the headline in the link, and I thought it made an interesting twist in the story...

~ B in T

Subject: RE: Accused Banjo Beater Allowed To Tour
From: catspaw49
Date: 06 Jan 10 - 07:20 PM

If I hadn't read the article, I'd have to go along with MtheGM and so would start referring to the penis (have to be correct here for MGM) as a "banjo."   I have a long neck one myself...........wait............ohmygawd.........................................Maybe they've used that term for years! Maybe I just missed it.................................yeah.............that's it...................................sweet jesus in a diaper....That Andy Devine was really a sick fuck with that "Pluck your magic twanger Froggy" bullshit........probably a pedophile..............damn, what a preeevert!


Spaw

Subject: RE: Accused Banjo Beater Allowed To Tour
From: Dead Horse
Date: 06 Jan 10 - 08:14 PM

Good job he didnt play pianna then!

Subject: RE: Accused Banjo Beater Allowed To Tour
From: Seamus Kennedy
Date: 06 Jan 10 - 09:39 PM

When banjos are outlawed, only outlaws will play banjos...

Subject: RE: Accused Banjo Beater Allowed To Tour
From: Artful Codger
Date: 06 Jan 10 - 10:13 PM

Mike-the-Pedant: If a banjo-beater must be one who beats banjos, how do you interpret "ax-murderer"? I don't think it refers to Pete Townsend.

I also question that "banjos don't assault people." Ever hear one? If a person didn't have a banjo, he could only beat you with his fists.

(Yes, I dabble with the banjo, too, but responsibly--at home, alone.)


P.S. I've heard the Republicans want to pass a law making it illegal to possess more than one ounce of banjo strings. It's the first step in their "War on Banjos"--finally, a war they might win.

Subject: RE: Accused Banjo Beater Allowed To Tour
From: Charley Noble
Date: 06 Jan 10 - 10:55 PM

I don't know why people are always picking on banjos when they don't know a thing about banjo picking!

To paraphrase the New Lost City Ramblers:

It ain't right to beat your wife with a banjo on Monday, when you got Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday too --
It ain't right to beat your wife on Monday!

Charley 5-String Noble

Subject: RE: Accused Banjo Beater Allowed To Tour
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 06 Jan 10 - 10:56 PM

I have suffered numerous banjo assaults, sustaining damage to my ear drums, my sensibilities, my psyche, and my soul, and the assailants have walked free every time.
I have tried restraining orders to keep all banjo players at least 50 feet away from me, but that's not far enough.

Subject: RE: Accused Banjo Beater Allowed To Tour
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 07 Jan 10 - 12:44 AM

Artful Codger - It just happens to be the linguistic fact that, in the case of murderers, the weapon is idiomatically linked to the deed, as in 'axe-murderer'; whereas, in the case of assault or corporal punishment, this is not the case - nobody would have called an old-fashioned schoolmaster a 'cane-beater', but a 'caner', or a 'caning teacher'; because it was not the cane that he beat, but his ill-behaved pupils, using the cane as his instrument.

Maybe the language is inconsistent in this; but I insist that such is the idiomatic or colloquial fact of the language nonetheless.

Subject: RE: Accused Banjo Beater Allowed To Tour
From: Artful Codger
Date: 07 Jan 10 - 02:09 AM

Still not buying that linguistic "fact". As in many cases in the language, there is a referential gap, and consequent ambiguity, when one couples a verb and noun into a single term because the relationship between the two is no longer clear. The noun may be either the agent, the recipient or the instrument of the action. The language is not consistent in the case of either murderer or beater (or many other such words); consider child-murderer, where child may be either the agent or recipient, but is unlikely to be the instrument, contrasted with ax-murderer, where it is naturally understood as the instrument. With "beater", all three are possible (though agent is least likely), and context is what determines the sense, not some fictitious linguistic rule.

Hence, "banjo-beater" may be either one who beats banjos or one who beats using a banjo, given the limited ways English provides for combining such elements. Without further information, you might leap to one meaning over the other (after all, what is more natural than wanting to smash a banjo?), but the original reporter is not wrong in his choice of the term. You would have it that the miscreant could only be labelled a "wife-beater", but spousal abuse is fairly common, whereas inflicting pain (physically) with a banjo is not--for this reason, "banjo-beater" is not only correct in this situation, but rightly places emphasis on the more newsworthy aspect of the story.

Subject: RE: Accused Banjo Beater Allowed To Tour
From: GUEST,999
Date: 07 Jan 10 - 02:16 AM

Lest we confuse an egg beater with a banjo beater, allow me to elucidate. If you crack the shell and a yolk comes out, that's an egg. If you beat the egg with a banjo, that's just plain foolish. A REAL banjo beater uses an axe. And there you have it.

Subject: RE: Accused Banjo Beater Allowed To Tour
From: Artful Codger
Date: 07 Jan 10 - 02:22 AM

Brilliantly expounded! LOL

Subject: RE: Accused Banjo Beater Allowed To Tour
From: GUEST,999
Date: 07 Jan 10 - 02:27 AM

The following is listed on Google Images as a "Plastic Egg Beater". WHY would one want to beat plastic eggs? Obviously to find out where the hyphen went to.

Artful Codger: I was encouraged by your paragraphs. LOL too.

Subject: RE: Accused Banjo Beater Allowed To Tour
From: Artful Codger
Date: 07 Jan 10 - 03:40 AM

It might be a machine that pelts distant objects with plastic eggs.

Does this qualify as thread creep or thread galumph?

Subject: RE: Accused Banjo Beater Allowed To Tour
From: GUEST,999
Date: 07 Jan 10 - 03:49 AM

I think I had galumph in the 1960s.

Subject: RE: Accused Banjo Beater Allowed To Tour
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 07 Jan 10 - 03:55 AM

I personally call it a load of old banjo — a phrase I dredge up from my long-ago youth to mean a load of old nonsense. Was it a widespread usage or simply common to my circle of friends? Not in Chambers English Dict nor Partridge's slang dict, nor readily confirmable on Google - anyone else remember it?

Subject: RE: Accused Banjo Beater Allowed To Tour
From: Sugwash
Date: 07 Jan 10 - 04:13 AM

Did not 'banjo' used to be a term for giving someone a beating. The last verse of Barney Rush's 'The Crack was 90 in the Isle of Man':

The Isle of Man woman fancied Whack; Your man stood there till his mates
came back
Whack! they all whacked into Whack, and Whack was whacked out on his back.
The police force arrived as well, Banjoed a couple of them as well,
Landed up in the Douglas jail, until the Dublin boat did sail,
Deported every man, The Crack was Ninety in the Isle of Man.

Subject: RE: Accused Banjo Beater Allowed To Tour
From: Will Fly
Date: 07 Jan 10 - 04:27 AM

So, if someone is "banjaxed" - are they hit with a banjo-guitar? (Or is that guitar-banjo?) Either way, that's one weird instrument.