Karma Can Be Ironic

“I spent the night in jail after spending the day feeding the homeless,” says Joel D. Mutch, aka Point Blank, of hip-hop trio Even Keel. On April 30, Mutch says he and other artists from the band’s label, Hatch It Records, brought a carload of food to O.B. “to spread happiness to kids in need and offer a decent meal while entertaining a group of O.B. street kids with beat boxes and freestyles.

“The day started out somber,” recalls Mutch, “when we arrived to find out that one of the street kids had been stabbed to death the previous evening. Some of these kids felt very uncomfortable about their living situation at this point.”

As the band performed, “One of the young ladies tried to pickpocket me while I was deep into an improvisational verse,” says Mutch. “Once I felt the weight difference [in my pocket], the music was stopped and I asked, ‘Why do you have my wallet in your hand?’ Apparently, some of the boys who were lurking in the shadows had put her up to this.”

After retrieving his wallet, Mutch says, “We decided to hit the road and avoid any further complications.” After departing O.B., “Lights flash and [a policeman is] pulling us over to the shoulder. The officer steps to the passenger side of the vehicle and explains that he has pulled us over because we had a San Diego Chargers lanyard hanging from the rear view mirror [an illegal obstruction].

“Inevitably finding a bench warrant, [the officer] placed me in cuffs and put me in the back of the squad car. The warrant was for a violation in which the court had not acknowledged my legal right to be in possession of [medical] marijuana. Sometimes knowing your rights isn’t enough when dealing with a system with so many loopholes.”

Mutch was bailed out of jail at 10 a.m. the next morning. “To throw salt in the wound, I was fired from my place of work because I was 10 minutes late...how’s that for irony and karma?”

Even Keel released their debut album Coming Up in March. They appear Sunday, May 31, at Brick By Brick.