Friday OT Thread: Historical sites and ruination

1. While caring about the NBA seems to have become increasingly hard for me, watching Inside the NBA tonight reminds me how much I love that team in the studio. The weird thing about this is that I couldn't stand Charles Barkley or Shaquille O'Neal when they were in their prime. Whose first shot at a career did you dislike only to do a 180-degree turn on them on their second time on the stage?

2. Travelling to historically significant places is an pastime of which I am quite fond. The best ones are the sites that you don't expect to be interesting, like Iona or Holy Island or the first Washington Monument in rural Maryland on the Appalachian Trail. What historical site (this excludes a museum) was most pleasantly surprising to you?

3. Last week's Sonic Highways was about Austin, the city in which I've lived for the past decade. As is often the case when seeing the place you call home depicted in popular culture, the picture of Austin seemed incomplete. More importantly, aside from The 13th Floor Elevators segment, which still probably misses its mark as to just how influential they were, the episode was the dullest of the installments. What is the most irksome portrayal in popular culture of a town you've called home?

4. The Royals were in the World Series. Seriously. Wasn't that weird?

5. I went to a Justin Townes Earle show Tuesday night, and in addition to the sound being way off (too much drum and lead guitar, not enough vocals, acoustic couldn't even be picked out on full-band songs) there was a bizarre couple that was a huge distraction. The man--a roughly 50-year-old bald man with a shaved head, a Van Dyke, a leather jacket--was dancing demonstratively and without inhibition, much to the shock and horror of anyone who could see him as he was the closest thing to male Elaine that I've ever seen. And it wouldn't stop. His female companion--I'm going to go out on a very sturdy limb and assume that they were swingers--who was in her late 30s thought that every thing JTE said in between song banter was done so in conversation with her. At one point, she repeated "I love you" three times, each to no response. Even weirder, she said, "I respect you so much." Clearly these two fuckos picked a weird time to try ecstasy together. When is the last time some random person ruined something for you?

Boner #1: Bob Newhart or Woody Allen?

Boner #2: Harry or the Hendersons?