A drink

Song of the day, 2 September 2026

Pushers

Song of the day, 1 September 2026

Scenes, 1 September 2026

On my walk to the bus stop, I discovered that the park was covered in an eldritch fog.

At the BRT stop, the sky looked wonderful.

The new apartments at Hill Farms are getting there.

It's hard to believe that it's September already.

Upside down

Song of the day, 31 August 2026

Steve Earle! Los Lobos! New tune!

Ecce serrano!

I finally have a serrano chili that is ripening.

The tomatoes aren't looking too shabby either.

Coming soon, 30 August 2026

When I approached the young woman at the box office about buying a ticket for the matinee of Buddy, I did not expect to be told that there was but one ticket left. But that is what happened.

Glad to see a movie that isn't a comic book superhero CGI fest getting some love.

Buddy was a fun, thrilling way to spend an hour and a half. The titular character is an orange furred unicorn host of a kids TV show. Underneath the Mr. Rogers-like sentiments of love and getting along lurks a heart of darkness. We learn that the cheerful host is rather sinister as he kills off the other inhabitants of the idealistic world of anthropomorphized mailboxes, backpacks, couches, etc. 

A hug brings the gory episode which saw one kid get impaled against a fence with Buddy's unicorn horn as his three friends flee over a fence and into a forest to a close. We cut to a family with mom, dad, and two sons. One evening at dinner the wife, Grace, looks at the empty chair across the table from her and screams. She has had a brief inkling of a gut feeling that perhaps things are not as they seem. Reminded me of Ragle Gumm's predicament in Time Out of Joint.

Not to be deterred, especially by her highly skeptical husband, Grace pushes deeper into what happened during that episode at dinner. Eventually as she slumbers on the couch, the Buddy show appears on the TV and she gets pulled into the world of the TV program - literally into the TV itself. On the plus side, a Japanese woman with really long hair does not crawl out. Once in the fictional land of Buddy, Grace assumes the role of the nurse, her predecessor having been brutally murdered.

The 3 kids attempt to make their way to Diamond City where they will seek help. Along the way they meet an insalubrious marionette and his human, um, partner. The kids find that the city is something of a chimera. Their long, perilous journey ends with the trio coming up on a model filled with Christmas lights. Buddy is on their trail and he eventually catches up with them. One hug later, the show resets and they're back where they started.

Things go down and the kids effect an escape. The lead kid, Freddy, makes her way to what appears to be a school but finds no one around to help her as Buddy draws ever closer. Instead she finds a room with a couple neural headsets sitting before a TV showing Buddy's show. In another she finds the program being projected onto a large screen across the room from a bank of CRT TVs showing kids of varying ages sitting on couches staring at the camera, presumably their TV sets. They are to be the next children pulled through their boob tubes into Buddy's horrific world.

This ending had a vague Backrooms vibe to it as we get an explanation to events that, in turn, requires an explanation.

When those 3 kids flee, they take with them the friendly Mr. Mailbox who, normally talkative, has been recently silenced by having his door ripped off. Mr. Mailbox was still attached to a post with a pointy end and I kept wondering when someone would get impaled on it.

Buddy was good, bloody, off-kilter fun. I loved that everything was just like the kids' TV shows of old - full of puppets and practical effects. The child actors did really well with only the odd look into the camera. Let us hope that we don't hear that any of them die of an overdose in 20 years.

I came in late and may have missed a trailer or 2.  Here are the ones I recall.

This trailer was really annoying and made me want to avoid the movie at all costs.

Then we got one for another video game movie. Oh joy.

 

Hey! Something I really want to see!

 

Just one drink

Yesterday I went down to Orton Park for the festival, specifically, to see Loving Cup, Madison's premiere Rolling Stones cover band. I talked to their bassist last month after a Los Lobos show so I wanted to hear some good tunes and show my support.

Despite a persistent drizzle, the crowd grew to be sizeable by the end of their set.

They apparently do Stones tunes from 1967-1978, in this case, from "Ruby Tuesday" to "Miss You". I used to work with singer Cat Capellaro and hadn't seen her in ages. Madison Latin jazz hero and political hopeful Tony Castañeda played all manner of percussion. I didn't recognize the dummer and it occurred to me that Loving Cup must be one of the few Gex X aged bands in town that Geoff Brady doesn't drum for.

"Ruby Tuesday" had real recorder!

It was a load of fun and, if I see them again, I think I'll yell for "Silver Train".

How much is that face in the window?

I dunno if this belongs to someone who works at BMO or Senior Helpers but it was a bit eerie regardless. I appreciate that someone cleaned the window for him.

Practicing brekkie

Today's breakfast was practice for England. I started by heating up some baked beans. (Hey Woodmans. How come you no longer carry the curry beans in the UK section of the international aisle?)

Once hot, they were lovingly poured over toast - sourdough Polish rye - and served with some HP sauce for dipping.

Breakfast dessert was some Cadbury dark chocolate.

Sorry Manchester. I know Cadbury is a Birmingham company and that HP sauce was popularized by a Birmingham company but Midlands fare it's the best I can do. Perhaps I'll find Mancunian equivalents when I'm there.

Song of the day, 30 August 2026

Valerie June has a new song out called "Smokestack". The music is "Smokestack Lightning" while the lyrics are some of "In the Pines", "Mystery Train", and perhaps more. She is rockin' here - great stuff!

The first pumpkin beer of the year

Normally I wait until September before drinking fall seasonal brews such as Lakefront's Pumpkin Lager but A) there's no sense in letting it fester in my refrigerator and B) it is an excellent beer. So I had one yesterday.

Willow Likes Her Tunnel

She especially likes to jump on top of it.

The Pineapple Plunge: Topanga Blonde Ale by Big Lug Brewing

Sadly we didn't get a hotel downtown for Gencon. Instead we were out in the boonies by the airport. The past few years we've stayed downtown and I would make a stop at a Big Red Liquors to find some Hoosier beer to bring home. Since I had no interest in schlepping beer around for 12-14 hours, I settled for a small beer outlet in a gas station near our hotel. Aside from a ton of Sun King, the selection of Indiana brews was rather small.

There were a lot of IPAs and American light lagers which I think says something about the state of craft brewing these days. I settled on Topanga, a hoppy blonde ale, by Indianapolis' Big Lug Brewing. And I did so with trepidation.

"Hoppy". My fear was this was just going to be another Hawaiian Punch beer but hope spring eternal and I gave the Big Lugs the benefit of the doubt. Maybe it would have more Noble tasting hops applied with a heavier hand than normal. Or perhaps it would have fruity hops but not that much fruity hops. Or a nice mix. Or just be drinkable.

Topanga was very hazy and deep yellow, but not the gold you see in the photo, at the wide part of the glass but was a light yellow at a narrower part. At the bottom of my snifter I saw dark flakes. Uff da. The head was a lovely loose, white layer of foam that disappeared quickly. There were some bubbles to see through the haze. Taking a sniff, my fears came true. It was really, really fruity with pineapple at the front which was backed by a general tropical fruitiness including hints of citrus.

Apprehensively I took a sip. Light body, not much fizz. Pineapple plus that general tropical fruitiness and a touch of pine. A fair bit of honeyed sweetness. My nightmare had come true.

This was not my kind of beer and it ended up going down the drain. 

It was like someone had poured me a bowl of cereal that was half Froot Loops and half Trix. Then, instead of milk, they topped it off with Hawaiian Punch Pineapple Plunge. I don't doubt that someone out in the world finds this dystopian breakfast to be temptingly delicious but that person is not me.

Since I don't have much to say about this beer beyond I did not like it at all, I will note that I got together earlier this week with a friend that works at Karben4 Brewing here in Madison. He told me that K4 had merged with Young Blood Beer Co., also of Madison. That I hadn't heard this was probably due to a couple of things: 1) I don't pay strict attention to local beer news and 2) the news wasn't widely reported as beer news is in decline.

Robin Shepard's beer coverage at Isthmus ended with Covid but eventually returned, albeit sporadically. He's been more active lately - perhaps he can be now that he's done with his book. Is the Beer Baron column in the Wisconsin State Journal around? I thought it ended last year.

Beer consumption is down and craft beer isn't a hip, cool cultural phenomenon anymore, I guess.

Speaking of Robin Shepard, in his latest column he sings the praises of Delta Beer Lab's Salty Dog, a "grand" Gose. I had one recently at Atwood Music Hall and can report it's 8% and tastes like the Dead Sea. Salt licks at Farm and Fleet are less salty. I think I got high blood pressure from drinking it. I doubt there was even a nanoparticle of coriander in it.  You'd need a forest of coriander to produce enough seeds to cut through the salinity.

Now, Delta's unadulterated Gose is great and I give AMH credit for carrying whatever version of Delta's Gose they happen to offer. But this...this is not for me.

Soon I will start drinking Oktoberfests (that have been sitting around since July) and a pumpkin beer or two. Before that, however, I shall be sampling the ciders and brews of England. Hopefully Manchester has some good breweries.

Rage, rage against the dying of the desire for new tunes

Having seen the NOFX documentary 40 Years of F***in' Up, my music doc watching buddy and I retired to the Weary Traveler for a post mortem and to BS in general.

During the course of the conversation my interlocutor revealed that, as he has gotten older, it has become harder to get into new music and finds himself enjoying the familiar comforts of music tried & true.

I feel his pain. The struggle is real. Ha!

But I endeavor to seek out the new to fight that impulse.

This morning I checked my email and was reminded that Son Volt's new album is out today as is the long-awaited collaboration between the Steve prog heroes Hackett and Rothery. What a wonderful day to have 2 new albums now available for my aural delectation. Bobby Hussy at MadCity Music is no doubt expecting me today.

Last weekend I bought a couple CDs at a thrift shop that were both choral music from locals.

I never even knew there was a Philharmonic Chorus of Madison. The other album will be in season soon. It's by the UW-Madison Concert Choir.

Our teens and 20s may be romanticized for all of the music and the central role it played in our lives, but, arguably, it's never been better for music fans.

Especially if you love reel-to-reel. I see that Jethro Tull's Aqualung is getting a R2R release.

But they're not alone. Rhino also has reels of Grateful Dead, Black Sabbath, and probably others too. How long before the day's biggest acts start putting new albums out on R2R?

Yooper coffee

They roast a mean bean up in the UP. Big roasty flavor with hints of bitter chocolate.

Willow on a late summer morning

Song of the day, 28 August 2026

Buzzcocks are from Manchester so they get the nod today.

Sage advice: Do it!

 

Nature Grows the Seeds

It's getting late in the season but my tomatoes don't seem to care. One is finally turning red!

And I've got serranoes coming out of my ears.

Sunday morning coming down

As expected, I awoke on Sunday before anyone else so I set about lighting a fire and getting a percolator primed and ready. It was another gorgeous morning. I felt thankful that the mosquitos hadn't put in much of an appearance and that the rain had held off. We were truly lucky on those counts.

My friends slowly awakened and joined me by the fire. Ere long we witnessed the percolating of a second fully armed and operational coffee pot. Tents were taken down between cups of coffee and a copious servings of bacon that were fried using a schwenker that one of my friends had inherited from a family member. The griddle has a raised rim and so it can hold a goodly amount of liquid fat.

The newest amongst us had brought their hound and he was tired from all the attention he had received the past couple days.

After breaking my fast I took one last stroll down the road to the boat landing to bid the Black River farewell until next year.

I wasn't ready to leave. If only we could have had a couple more days - of fellowship & laughter, of the peace & calm of the forest. The weekend had been restorative for me. On the drive home I felt stronger, more resilient to the slings and arrows of my outrageous ex-wife. I felt like I belonged, like I was part of a web of friendships.

Though I must admit that I was looking forward to getting home first to Willow and then my ladyfriend.

I wish we would do this more often.

Now with flag!

My ladyfriend and I ate at El Pollo Rumbero last night with a friend of mine. It makes me happy that she is getting along with my friends.

The roasted chicken there makes me happy too. Now with flag!

Disconcerting