• More mountains.
  • How old-school, state-run rest stops include portraits of their administrators or state officials on the wall.
  • Listening to Aretha Franklin’s funeral on the radio.
  • Mom demanding that someone hand her a (proverbial) joint every time a song from her teenagehood came on ‘70s radio.
  • The attended gas pumps in New Jersey (still weird to me after the Rubber Band Gun NJ/PA/NY tour in March).
  • The Red Lobster employee in line at Chipotle.
  • Watching parts of John McCain’s funeral on C-SPAN, and the contrast between its somber, joyless tone and Aretha’s funeral earlier in the day. Each is an okay way to honor someone depending on their wishes, but I couldn’t help but feel like Aretha’s was more in touch with something fundamental about humanity, based on the parts I saw of each.
    • The frustration of Aretha’s legacy being entangled with McCain’s, at least in the press. People inappropriately drawing equivalency between them.
  • The error on VH1 TV that placed a historic civil rights photo over the audio for a Papa John’s commercial.