- The three, buff, fifyish, ball Ukrainian men filling up their trucks at a gas station in New York State, staring us (Finom) down (friendlily?).
- Learning (from my dear friend Elijah) that high school students have been using DALL-E 2 AI technology to synthesize homework and college applications.
- Playing with Finom at TV Eye in NYC.
- Waiting thirty-plus minutes for fried food from a bodega in Queens at 3AM that turned out to be some of the worst food we’d ever eaten (surprise), but which nonetheless gave us life.
- Eating a block of cheese at a gas station in Aberdeen, Maryland.
- Playing with Finom at Comet Ping Pong in Washington D.C.
- The kind and skilled sound tech, training a young woman sound tech.
- The families playing ping pong in the venue room in the time leading up to our sound check. (Turns out Comet Ping Pong really has ping pong. But no basement.)
- It’s not decadent to be loved!
- Getting half off our hotel stay in Richmond, Virginia, because there were huge flakes of human skin and hair on one of our beds???
- Tearing up at Armand Patoine’s story in Rumble Strip. So worth your time.
- The sandbags still in place for Hurricane Ian in Columbia, South Carolina.
- Playing with Finom at New Brookland Tavern in Columbia.
- “Leverage Points: Places to Intervene in a System” by Donella Meadows: “Leverage points are not intuitive. Or if they are, we intuitively use them backward, systematically worsening whatever problems we are trying to solve.” Fascinating terminology and concepts in that article. I’m interested in learning more about “systems analysis.”
- The Finom fan who drove five hours from Florida for our show in Atlanta.
- The Pilot Light in Knoxville, Tennessee, a wonderful, old-school-legit venue.
- Sitting in on our friend Chloe’s honky-tonk set on Broadway Street in Nashville. Maybe the most raucous environment I’ve ever been in. Bachelor partiers everywhere, nine-dollar Bud Lights. God bless the musicians who make that strip tick.