I ducked into my favorite little joint for lunch today. I shouldn’t have. It’s not so much in the budget these days, but there are times when you simply must be surrounded by a building walled with crackling wood, seated on a barstool, and you simply must have an attractive woman serve you comforting food, and you simply must breathe all that in and enjoy the music and emulsify.

I often kid myself, that I will go in there and order a club soda and a cup of soup in order to keep la quenta to a minimum cost. Then I walk in and there’s that white board seated on that old butcher’s block, and there’s the soup listed, but there’s also the beef on weck. And it was Friday. So there’s fish.

As luck would have it, the music queue was in blues mode today, and the song that was rotating the minute I walked in was Stevie Ray Vaughan’s “Crossfire.” I say as luck would have it wryly, I guess, because today is the 23rd anniversary of the day Stevie Ray Vaughn stopped refusing to die. Helicopters, man. Why not just put a rotating umbrella on a smart car and figure yer gonna be okay for flight?

I remember finding out while I was in a newsroom, my first newsroom, well really my second, but my first, the one at the Daily Kent Stater. My friend and colleague Greg, who made a persuasive argument for hating the living shit out of the Beatles, wore black for days, maybe months.

I betcha that Greg wore black today, too.

A little while ago where I work, an apparent former disgruntled employee took one day to pranking our help line. They called us maybe 40 or 50 times, I mean the weed they got hold of that day must have been freaking excellent. When I was fortunate enough to encounter this person, he asked me what I thought of an ongoing hip-hop feud between somebody named “Meek Mill” and somebody named “Drake.” I was relieved, nay, I was proud that I had no idea what in bloody hell he was talking about. But my co-workers, they are youngsters compared to me and a limited few old farts there are where I work, I am certain I can count the folks who are my contemporaries or older on one hand or maybe one of my hands and one of the hands of my middle school shop teacher. And they talk about music I have no idea exists, and they talk about it like it really matters. I think this is why when I was growing up I thought it was weird that my elders would squint so much and complain because I wanted to listen to Chicago. But that’s what happens I reckon. I mean Drake never moved my heart or made me gesture in the air spontaneously.

There’s just something utterly weird about all of that, and I can’t put my finger on it. But it makes me squint and pee a little. Maybe it’s just difficult to dig that you’re actually passing all of this on and eventually nobody’s actually going to give a care one way the other about Led Zeppelin.

Climate change is real.

Me, today, on the Maid of the Mist boat thing. New York side, of course, what, you think any of us haz our passports updated? I had just gotten soaked by Niagra Falls here, soaked in my hair, my face, my goggles, everything. These Falls are an awesome Falls. The boat, I had forgotten, as it’s been decades since I boarded it last, the boat sails right into the mouth of the Horseshoe, even from the Amurkin side. My party chose to be on the upper level, front, so we bore the brunt of the choppy waters and the rainy, thick mist. I can’t help but wonder if you get a better perspective below deck. How nice that the blue in my Bills cap and the blue in my disposable poncho so nicely match the blue on the ol’ 8WK here. How nice. Blue blue blue blue blue blue. So much blue you could barf.

Stalwart sailors. From left, my Uncle Mike and my Dad. Both soaked and awed to the gills. I think in the throng behind them is our token youngin, cousin Jordyn, who was a lovely travel companion.

So yeah, it was exactly like this.

We’d stopped in for lunch at the Pearl Street Grill & Brewery in Buffalo, where I had a lamb burger, which was delicious. After our adventure here, we returned home and watched Silence of the Lambs. So, accidental theme day. FTW.

Uncle Mike would have my hide if I mentioned him in a blog post and did not plug his Web site: Please visit sanders-warren2016.com and learn about candidate Bernie and you can even buy a bumper sticker. It’s one site started by one determined man and it’s become something of a big deal.

“Mr. Burns: your campaign seems to have the momentum of a runaway freight train. Why are you so popular?” (Lisa Simpson to candidate Montgomery Burns at a planned press event, 1990).

“So in June, right before you announced, you were at one percent. In July, after you’ve announced, in the last six weeks, you are in first place with 19 percent. Why do you think you’re resonating so quickly in the Republican field?” (Chuck Todd to candidate Donald Trump on Meet the Press, this morning).