What do Jerry Springer, guitar tuners, answering machines, and real estate purchases have in common?

Years ago while I was away in California my house in Philly was robbed. As a result I called the Jerry Springer show to cheer myself up...proposing an outlandish story in which I was sleeping with a bunch of my friends from San Diego including Justin Pearson from The Locust. You can read all the details here: http://www.lostfilmfest.org/jerry-springer-episode-debacle/

One thing I don't really detail in the story about the Springer episode is that when my house was burglarized, the thieves stole all of my amps, powertools, and a bunch of other stuff...Here's where it all gets interesting...

Yesterday I was over at my former neighbors house who is an elderly woman, helping the kids clean up a ton of garbage (the place is wall to wall clutter). Her kids were there looking for heirlooms and other familial artifacts. Lo and behold, as I was throwing trash into bags, I found a couple of things that made me laugh.

I found my guitar tuner that was with my SG that was stolen all those years ago, my clock radio, and my answering machine (with my outgoing message still on it). (There were 25 other answering machines there too...probably stolen from other people as well)

I don't think for a second the elderly lady stole the stuff. What I do think happened is that these neighborhood thieves who used to come visit her would brought these things by as gifts.
I decided not to tell her kids that I found the stuff. There's no point in creating schism over something that happened almost 10 years ago.

Overall, I'm laughing about it in good spirits, and it does help to make a little bit of closure. It's just funny to think about when my house was burglarized all those years ago, and how that shifted my entire paradigm from being a west philly activist, to getting involved in the film industry.