Took FlixBus up from San Diego this morning with Hannah at 10am. A treacherous bouquet of human excrement greeted us immediately upon entering the bus, immediately betraying the fact someone had broken the cardinal sin of long distance mass transit: never shit in the bathroom. In spite of the odor, nearly every rider on the packed bus decided they, too, needed to add to the stench, so every four minutes or so someone had to head to the back of the bus, opening the door and letting the aroma waft out and onto the unsuspecting passengers like an Aum Shinrikyo copycat.

Anyway, we made it to the Vignes Lot and disembarked for Union Station, where we attempted to use the bathroom only to be thwarted by the Homeric wait times. Deciding discretion was the better part of valor, we retreated to the Little Jewel of New Orleans, a Cajun restaurant and market up the street. Hannah ordered the fried shrimp po boy and I got the fried catfish platter with hush puppies, fries and coleslaw, followed by beignets and cafe au lait. Food was delicious and even up to Hannah’s standards, which is no easy feat for Cajun food.

Having finally made us of the facilities, we headed for the Last Bookstore, where I inquired about anything from Reza Negarestani and was told to look in the New Age section. I didn’t buy anything. Hannah did find a few excellent reads to add to the shelf tho.

We decided to look for a place to charge our phones and the laptop so we made our way to the Starbucks across the street, only to find they had bolted over all the outlets and built charging stations into the table. Naturally, they didn’t work.

Noah pulled up to the Starbucks and we drove to the Smell. It was still only about 7 so we headed to the conveniently adjacent Five Star Bar for a beer or three. A band was setting up to play by warming up their fog machine so we decided to split.

We made it into the Smell where, to our surprise, Corrvus was rocking a power electronics set. Apparently Lead had dropped off the bill so Nick jumped in.

Up next was Misery Ritual. Kyle crushed it as always but for whatever reason the PA system was bizarrely quiet? His set still slayed tho.

Noah sat in with Christian Lovers next, who also had Nick from Counsil drumming. I was worried he’d wear himself out before our set, which… may have happened! At least a little.

Our set seemed to go over well; some of the crowd had thinned out by the time we went on but there was still a solid mass and plenty of strangers approached me afterwards to offer their praises. Noah and I agreed the set wasn’t as strong as last month’s in La Puente but was still a success.

We headed to Denny’s as per usual, where I sampled the new Honey Buttermilk Chicken Sandwich with Seasoned Fries upgrade. Surprise: a new favorite. I see myself eating too many of these in the future, including tomorrow night in San Bernardino.

FlixBus Playlist:

Miguel – “Come Through and Chill” ft. J. Cole

Shia – “If I Ever Fall In Love”

Lloyd – “Lay It Down”

T-Pain – “Buy U a Drank (Shawty Snappin’)” ft. Yung Joc

Emarosa – “The Past Should Stay Dead”

Between the Buried and Me – “Backwards Marathon”

Teramobil – “Terahertz”

Mithras – “When the Stars Align”

Lera Lynn – “My Least Favorite Life”

Bon Iver – “33 ‘GOD’”

Einojuhani Rautavaara – Harp Concerto

Chris Brown – “Liquor”

Vanity Plates:

“DALLLAS”

“KIND BE”