I WILL FOREVER BE CRAZY ABOUT THAT FREAK

Sorry I meant to say “indifferent” about that “character”

happy mother’s day to that mom who sold y/n to one direction

watched rio

Not how autism works. Explode and perish a thousand deaths.

"laios is autistic and agender" agreed! This is one of my two favorite interpretations!

"laios cannot be a woman because he's too autistic" go in the hole. The scary hole.

Thanks for the question, Anon!

MOST BASS ARE JUST FISH BUT LEROY BROWN WAS SOMETHING SPECIAL

Leroy Brown has been haunting me, so I looked into his backstory and it's wilder than you could possibly imagine.

Leroy Brown was about one pound when he was caught in 1973 in Lake Eufala, Alabama, by Tom Mann, who is absolutely legendary in the world of bass fishing. Instead of releasing or taking him home to eat, Mann decided he recognized a spark of something special in the fish, so he took him home and popped him in his backyard pond. Later, he moved the fish to a giant aquarium in his workshop. He was an aggressive fish, so he got named after the song. And Mann loved this fish. He trained him to jump through a hoop, he hand-fed him, he would talk about him to anybody. The fish became internationally known, with publicity in Russia, South Africa, Australia, and other countries.

Then, in 1980, the fish dies- probably of old age. So what to do? Have a funeral. Various sources say between 500 and 1,200 people came (there was a very large bass fishing tournament that weekend), and the local marching band was there to play "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown" as the fish's tiny casket was lowered into his grave.

But then things got really wild. On the day of the funeral, it was eventually decided that the ground was too wet and muddy, so Mann put the fish and his casket (actually a satin-lined tackle box full of one dead fish and the lure he was caught with) in the freezer.

That night, somebody stole the dead fish and his tiny casket.

Seriously. This was not a taxidermy fish, this was just. Y'know. A dead fish, with all of the smells that entails.

Three weeks later, the tackle box turns up at the Tulsa, Oklahoma airport. A baggage handler found it, and it was decided that the box full of three-week-old decaying Leroy was too nasty to ship back to Alabama. The statue remained at Fish World, which is where the public could visit Leroy during his life, until 2005, when Tom Mann died and the facility was closed. (Fish World was like... a weird museum/facility to learn about bass fishing. Mann wasn't just an expert angler, he also designed some of the most popular lures that are still used in bass fishing, as well as the Humminbird depth finder- still the most popular depth finder brand on the market. So he had this workshop/lure lab there and people could come see his stuff but also learn about how to go bass fishing and how to do bass fishing as a sport.) The statue went to another bass fisherman, until the city of Eufala asked for it back in 2016. Now it sits prominently on Main Street, reminding everyone that most bass are just fish, but Leroy Brown was something special.

LEROY BROWN UPDATE

I found a picture from his funeral!

From left to right: Tom Mann, Leroy Brown (deceased), Ray Scott

Ray Scott was the president of the Bass Anglers Sportsman Society, and was the person who had the Leroy statue from 2005-2016.

I am still trying to track down images of Leroy when he was alive. There should be some, as the fish had editorials in Southern Living and a couple of other magazines, but those may take longer to find. For now, enjoy this image of Leroy laid to rest, covered by the only artificial lure he ever struck: Mann's coveted strawberry worms.

Tom Mann's memoir, Think Like A Fish, is up on the Internet Archive. While it doesn't have any photos (or at least, the edition that's online doesn't), Chapter 11, which is about Leroy, implies that there may be video evidence of this fish!

I really hope I can find some old commercials. Leroy was the only small fish in the entire tank, so if these commercials still exist, and if there's a small largemouth bass in them, we'll have moving images of this fish!

FOUND HIM

I couldn't find any of the old TV spots, but I did find this ad for Mann's Jelly Worm, featuring the legend himself!

There he is! In the four pictures to the left, that's Leroy Brown! Look at him, being extremely suspicious of that bait! Mann notes in his memoir that while Leroy Brown would hit plastic bait, he'd never take it- in other words, he'd bite, but if it had a hook, he wouldn't swallow. Instead, he'd swim with it:

I am officially declaring this investigation into the life and times of Leroy Brown complete. We've seen his memorial, we've learned about his life, we've marveled at his post-mortem kidnapping, and now we've seen pictures of him both dead and alive. The only thing I have left to show is this: the merch.

Oh yeah, there was merch. Specifically, the Leroy Brown crankbait and the Leroy Brown belt buckle:

If you want to see more about the lure, including watching a guy fish with it, there's a youtube video from a fella who does a lot of fishing with vintage/retro lures.

I feel enriched for having learned so much about bad, bad Leroy Brown.

note to self: do NOT double the chocolate chip cookie recipe. the mixer can’t handle it. I can’t handle it. my knees hurt. I’ve been rotating cookie sheets since I was born and I will be rotating cookie sheets until I die

help

I was born under an old board and I ate loam to grow to 1 inch long

lord grant me the serenity to do my laundry, the courage to do my laundry, and the wisdom to do my laundry

i always have to clarify that i am disabled and can't use the self-checkout before anyone thinks i'm valid for not using them but also. do you have any idea how much those infernal things are designed only for able-bodied people with two hands they can use while standing?