Today is Sunday, April 16, 2023. Another day in the life of “Bloodbath USA” in that yet another mass shooting has occurred, this time in the state of Alabama, or more precisely, Dadeville, Alabama, in which four people were shot dead at a Sweet 16 party on Saturday night. There were 28 people who were left injured by this moment of madness. This new American tragedy is covered in an online CNN article by Isabel Rosales, Holly Yan, Chris Boyette, and Emma Tucker entitled “A beloved high school athlete was among 4 people killed and 28 injured at a Sweet 16 party in Alabama.”

The deadly rampage transpired in downtown Dadeville around 10:34 p.m. Saturday, the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency said today.

Sergeant Jeremy J. Burkett said, “There were four lives tragically lost in this incident, and there’s been a multitude of injuries.” During a Sunday afternoon news conference, Burkett indicated there was a “wide variety of injuries that were sustained” during the incident and some of the victims remain in critical condition.

One of the victims killed was Philstavious Dowdell – a stellar high school football player and the brother of the birthday girl, said Ben Hayes, the football team’s chaplain, and Keenan Cooper, who was the DJ at the party when the gunfire broke out.

Earlier on Sunday, hospital officials said at least 15 teenagers were treated for gunshot wounds – including several who are in critical condition. So we don’t know if the four killed will be the final figure of individuals who succumbed to gunshot wounds.

Of the 15 teens taken to Dadeville’s Lake Martin Community Hospital, six have been treated and released, hospital spokesperson Heidi Smith said. The remaining nine have been transferred to other medical facilities. At last check, five of those teens were in critical condition and four were in stable condition.

Police have not released any information about the assailant or a possible motive.

The slain athlete, Philstavious Dowdell, was about to graduate from high school next month and earned a scholarship to play football at Jacksonville State University in Jacksonville, Alabama, Cooper said. Now he will never be able to play because of a person with a gun.

Jacksonville State Head Coach Rich Rodriquez issued a statement Sunday mourning Dowdell’s senseless death.

The setting of the latest American tragedy is about 45 miles northeast of Montgomery and has a population of just 3,000 individuals.

With this latest shooting, this puts the number of mass shootings suffered in the first 15 weeks of 2023 at 163, according to the Gun Violence Archive. This amounts to an average of more than 1.5 mass shootings every day so far this year.

The Alabama shooting happened the same day that shots were fired into a crowd at a park in Louisville, Kentucky. Two people were killed in that incident and four others were wounded. This incident marked the city’s second mass shooting in less than a week. Last Monday, a gunman shot and killed five people and injured several others at Louisville’s Old National Bank – about 5 miles away from Chickasaw Park.

I would be remiss as an avid Broadway theatergoer and native New Yorker not to mention the end of an era happening tonight, with the final performance of one of Broadway’s most enduring musicals: The Phantom of the Opera. This is Andrew Lloyd Webber’s sumptuous theatrical production of Gaston Leroux’s 1910 original work of fiction that has been playing for the past 35 years at the Majestic Theatre on West 44th Street and has spawned multitudes of “phans,” as they are called, throughout the world who have seen the show countless times. The show first opened in 1988 and I have to admit that I’ve seen it only once way back in the 90s, I believe. After 35 years and nearly 14,000 performances, the show will take its final bow tonight.

There are two articles about the show’s closing; one is written by a loyal ‘phan,” for an op-ed in today’s Daily News and the other is an online CNN article by Scottie Andrew who writes about the iconic show’s closing and the meaning it held for so many viewers. He writes that news of the show’s closing stunned musical theater fans who believed that the production would last forever. The main reason for the show’s final curtain tonight was its expensive cost. The show boasts an organ-heavy score, elaborate costumes, and sumptuous sets to recreate a Paris opera house and the sewers of Paris where the mysterious Phantom lurks in the late 1890s. Some of those “phans” have seen the show dozens or even hundreds of times. They’ve followed the show around the country and world, and some have even grabbed tickets to its final performance tonight. Many of these ardent “phans” have even formed lasting bonds with their fellow theatergoers throughout its run.

All I can say then is long live the memory of The Phantom of the Opera.

I will end with another show coming to town rather than closing, but I sincerely wish it were closing before it even began, and that is the circus enveloping Dumpf lackey Jim Jordan of Ohio who has the audacity to open up hearings on New York’s crime rates right here in our city tomorrow. If I didn’t have a pulmonologist appointment at 10:30, I would have offered to demonstrate in front of where clown Jordan is having his ridiculous hearing. This man is rapacious in his quest to defame Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan District Attorney who is prosecuting the Orange Moron, and he will be drowned out by vociferous New Yorkers who are keenly aware of his grandstanding action here. He should get the same welcome that MTG and George Santos received when the Orange Idol was indicted in Manhattan about two weeks ago.

At this hearing, I would hope that some pugnacious Democrats bring up Ohio’s crime statistics that actually are worse than New York’s and even raise sordid details of Jordan’s own past involving a sexual scandal at Ohio State in which he witnessed sexual assaults and remained quiet about it when he was a wrestling coach there. If he even tries to portray Bragg’s New York as lawless, demonstrators outside and Democrats inside should hit him with the ugly truth. The truth is that Columbus, Ohio, has three times the crime rate that New York City has. Even Jordan’s hometown has a higher crime rate than us, and that eight of the top ten crime rate states in America are red states, not blue. I hope this fucker is shown the door and that his “hearing” fails to convince anyone of what this ugly guy really intends to do, which is to pull a fast one on Americans. I want to see someone carrying a sign that says, “Jordan, go home – we don’t want you here!” And for his hearing to crumble under the weight of the truth and its exposure as a sham inquiry.

Anyway, it’s late here.

Another week to enjoy.

Stay safe and be well.