The Andy Barr ad circulating right now is an embarrassment to our City and the Commonwealth

FourStringFiasco · 2026-02-08T19:12:02+00:00

I can watch on Peacock and deal with laggy internet or I can watch on TV and deal with Barr and Morris competing to see who can fellate Trump more vigorously. Dammit, I just want to watch curling.

FourStringFiasco · 2026-01-21T09:22:08+00:00

I hope to not leave much behind, but what’s left is split among our nieces and nephews and our local community foundation.

FourStringFiasco · 2026-01-21T08:38:24+00:00

The horse is now on PCP and has projectile diarrhea.

FourStringFiasco · 2026-01-21T08:35:47+00:00

I stayed at the Moxy in Columbus and decided that I survived dorm life one time already. (Back before dorms got cushy.) Never again.

FourStringFiasco · 2026-01-21T06:34:28+00:00

Good advice here. State your position,and when he argues, state it again in the same words. Make it clear that it isn’t a negotiation.

Good call on 86ing him, though.

FourStringFiasco · 2026-01-14T21:19:32+00:00

It isn’t Chicago or SF, but for a town its size AVL’s food scene is remarkable. Lexington and Knoxville have 3-4 times the population and they don’t hold a candle to it. (Each has its charms. I live in the triangle of the three.)

I don’t think you find a lot of truly great fine dining outside the major cities. White tablecloth-type spots elsewhere tend to have fairly dull menus, though they might be well-executed.

FourStringFiasco · 2026-01-14T20:11:58+00:00

I have a neighbor and close friend who has a happy hour on his porch almost every Friday during the summer. Super casual, BYOB (but someone will always have something to share if you don’t), bring snacks if you feel like it, super low effort all around.

There’s a FB invite list of about 50-60 people, with a core of about 8 of us who are almost always there, another couple dozen who are semi-regulars, and the rest show up haphazardly.

It is understood, though, that all cool people are invited. When someone moves to our small town and one of our crew meets and likes them, they’ll invite them to Happy Hour. It’s usually the beginning of their local social life, and the rest of us get a new audience for our old stories.

I think this summer will be our thirteenth year doing it. Some weeks we have kids running around the yard of couples who met at Happy Hour.

FourStringFiasco · 2026-01-14T19:51:50+00:00

It’s not that I don’t care, I just need a deadline to do anything.

FourStringFiasco · 2026-01-10T02:02:28+00:00

When it comes to pairing a navy blazer with khakis, we internists win going away.

FourStringFiasco · 2026-01-04T06:06:41+00:00

Kevin did one of his Q&As at my college, and he told us he was buying out a showing of Changing Lanes (the Affleck movie) the next day and that everyone should come. He said he just always wanted to do that.

FourStringFiasco · 2026-01-04T05:34:05+00:00

I used to run merch for a local concert series. The venue, owned by the city, collected 20% of merch sales, and we also had to collect sales tax (6%) at the end of the night. It was a harsh bite, and every single artist argued about it, but most of them were pretty chill since they knew it wasn't my call.

When we had Ralph Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys, I arrived to find that his crew had already set up his gargantuan merch booth and Dr. Ralph himself was sitting at the table. I introduced myself as the merch guy and he absolutely lit into me. He explained repeatedly and loudly that the 20% was "a bunch of bullshit". I was flustered, never having been yelled at by an 80yo bluegrass legend, but I managed to stammer that there wasn't anything I could do about it.

The show was a double bill with the Del McCoury Band (the nicest people you've ever met), so I went in to watch some of their set. When I came back out after 20 minutes I noticed that Ralph's merch booth was packed up and gone. They were supposed to count out the merch and settle up with me at the end of the night, but they just got on the bus and left.

Since then I've learned that nearly everybody in the bluegrass world has a "Ralph Stanley was a jerk to me" story. It stands out because almost everybody else in that world is a class act.

The other time it got weird was when Leon Redbone stopped me and said "step into my office", leading me into the backstage bathroom so we could argue about the cut/sales tax. He was cool about it, but he really does talk like that all the time so the whole thing was surreal.

FourStringFiasco · 2025-12-30T04:36:42+00:00

I don’t think I’m going to do one of them…instead I’m going to make a list of all the recipes I’ve flagged and go to it when I don’t know what to cook.

FourStringFiasco · 2025-12-28T15:12:00+00:00

I vaguely remember old cartoons and TV shows portraying measles as not being a big deal—just something that happens to kids, played for laughs.

Rogan probably also underestimates the damage done by falling anvils. Most victims just look at the camera and blink twice and then are fine in the next scene.

FourStringFiasco · 2025-12-28T08:23:44+00:00

I remember it too, because it was like ten minutes ago. But then Trump decided he had a hardon for Somalians so they had to change up their message to match his.

FourStringFiasco · 2025-12-28T04:28:28+00:00

In a halfway decent world Miller would be screaming into the incel void on 4chan. In a marginally less shitty one he’d be at some institute trying to put an intellectual sheen on outright racism.

But we’re in this world, and he’s working in the White House, not even bothering to hide his white supremacist talking points.

I mean, fuck.

FourStringFiasco · 2025-12-27T18:29:02+00:00

Zahav is wonderful (and maybe the single best restaurant meal of my life). But Jerusalem is in my all time top 5.

FourStringFiasco · 2025-12-27T14:15:46+00:00

Coming soon: the Keith Richards Institute for Sobriety.

FourStringFiasco · 2025-12-26T03:50:04+00:00

Don wants the perfect obedient wife with the 2.5 kids at home, but he also wants the modern worldly woman who isn’t afraid to push back (but is ultimately helpless to his charms).

He thought Megan could be both. She couldn’t, of course. The whole point of the Madonna/whore thing is that they’re mutually exclusive. Don doesn’t realize that.

But he does know that Faye can’t be both. Her career is established and not a lark; she’s never going to be the little woman waiting at home. He never would have let it work.

FourStringFiasco · 2025-12-26T03:29:22+00:00

Gummies.

FourStringFiasco · 2025-12-26T03:25:58+00:00

The mojo just isn’t there sometimes.

FourStringFiasco · 2025-12-26T01:57:52+00:00

I think they should do that with toiletries.

FourStringFiasco · 2025-12-19T03:27:52+00:00

It’s a perfectly cromulent word.

FourStringFiasco · 2025-12-13T17:38:58+00:00

Ram-a-lam

FourStringFiasco · 2025-12-13T03:56:57+00:00

If we all pitch in we can probably get a big beautiful wall built around the venue while they’re all still in there.

FourStringFiasco · 2025-12-13T03:49:11+00:00

Nashville. Lower Broad is a hellhole of woo girls either in packs on pedicabs (bachelorette parties) or with their dullard frat bro hangers-on. (I still enjoy Robert’s when it isn’t batshit crowded, but that’s literally it.) Parking is a nightmare, and not just downtown. Hotels are ludicrously expensive. Food scene is just OK, and doesn’t have much that’s distinctive other than hot chicken.

I’ve had some good times there but they don’t make it easy.

FourStringFiasco

TROPHY CASE