When I was young I would blast Human Cannonball by the Butthole Surfers. The last time I just went flyfishing. So I guess it was a normal day.

The only thing that can intimidate a conservative attack dog is an Alaskan.

That is what they say, though I was already pushing 40 when I met these people and it was like someone yanked away a dark cloud I hadn't known was there. Maybe experiences like that have set the bar too high for normal interactions.

There is a Mission Burrito here and one in Oxford, which is notable because it's one of the few places you can get a root beer in England. We recently did an American tour as well; Dad in Charleston WV, Mom in Roanoke VA, and friends/fun in Anchorage AK. We visited my daughter's best friend and her mother who is one…

Gotta be doing something up there, since the sound quality on the SNL stage was so poor. I remember watching that performance though and being embarrassed for him.

To say that this show is less awful than its source material reads like the worst book review ever.

If anyone wants to keep up the Strain reviews I'll be happy to read them. I'm sure as hell not going to watch but I'm still mildly curious. But maybe no one else wants to bite that bullet either.

Belated crash course of the week: the Leicester music scene. One of the first things I noticed when I got to Leicester is that bands don't come here, which I find strange. It's not like the city's not big enough to be worth the stop. Comedians don't skip Leicester, and neither do circuses. Most of the music flyers…

Been losing sleep because I can't put 1Q84 down. I was already pretty much hooked on the two stories happening even before things started getting weird.

A lot of times in Charleston a band would be booked to play above this art gallery and someone would convince the cops or fire dept to come shut it down over some technicality. The band would end up playing somebody's stepdad's basement with all of us crammed in and maybe fifteen bucks between us. If they couldn't…

Obey the call.

It's still good.

A relative of mine plays on Mountain Stage, which as far as I'm aware is known but not a huge deal outside of WV, but when they took the show to Fairbanks AK a few years back the folks there flipped. I think the idea was the same.

Bands from the punk scene had very little trouble crossing the border. I think when you knew you weren't going to be played on the radio, it just made sense to keep going and play everywhere you could. I saw SNFU and Nomeansno in Charleston WV, and DOA in Norwalk CT; . Not that they would have made more than gas…

DOA

You forgot the Molestics. So much fun.

That makes sense. Brazilian nicknames have some unfortunate language crossovers too.

The word fede means "it stinks" in Portuguese. Never heard it as a name before.

It blows my mind how many people think surgical masks are intended or even remotely useful for protecting the wearer. But then maybe she was being uncharacteristically thoughtful.

Either way, it's time to run.