I once stayed at a bed and breakfast in France.  Dinner started at eight.  Twelve guests dined at a long table.  Every 30 minutes a new course was passed around.  No dish was particularly special, but they were all good.  Dinner ended at midnight.  Midnight!  By then, we were all pretty buzzed.  (France=wine)  It was the greatest meal of my life.  I didn't know anyone at the start of dinner, but I felt connected to everyone by the end of the evening.  The result of alcohol?  Maybe.  But it happened one other time, sans alcohol.  I took a thirty day trip around the U.S. on Amtrack.  Dining car meals meant sitting with three strangers.  We would ignore each other for a few minutes, and then give up.  Within an hour the four of us were like old friends.  I'd pay large sums of money to go to a restaurant that could pull off that feeling of connecting with a group of strangers.  This kind of shit is so anti-American.  What the fuck happened to Americans that has made us so confined to our own comfort zone?  Maybe it's a white thing.  When I used to ride the "L" in Chicago, I was always jealous of the way black strangers talked to each other.  It was as if they were part of the same family, even though they had never met.  Screw this shitty white American culture.  I've got big plans to change things.  Stay tuned.

Ike Reilly Assassination - Edge Of The Universe Cafe.mp3