There’s a 99% chance anyone who says they enjoy driving do so because it’s the only place you can cry and no one stops you to ask “Are you ok?” and sometimes you just want to drive between LA and Berkeley at night and cry your little fucking heart out. It’s ok. Punks have feelings too. But for that we need a nice soundtrack to get our pyramid-studded hearts in weepy mode. Every band you like probably cries to the sweet melancholy voice of John K. Samson in their tour vans but tell you they blast Hot Water Music or some other angry every-man American band. Truth is, Canadian’s are the real keepers of our emotions.
10. “(Past-Due)”
Samson and Co. are amazing at making you think about death. Others’ and your own. Which is something that should constantly be on your mind when taking a long-haul trip. Here we’re thinking about the faces in obituaries and who they were or might have been and if anyone will remember that. So make sure to tell your family which obituary picture you’d like. It’s your last chance at a memorable yearbook-style photo.
9. “Everything Must Go”
Besides corporeal mortality our Canadian heroes love to break our hearts with the death of a relationship. How about a yard sale to sell off any memory of someone? Fuckin’ bleak. Worse yet, it probably won’t work. So just keep that trinket your ex bought you or you’re going to sell a perfectly good unopened bottle of Curve cologne for too low a price.
8. “Anchorless”
You thought selling your past relationship in a yard sale was sad? How about your relatives scooping up all the shit you left behind because you’re dying and they wonder why you never left the only place you knew? Who’s going to take your Funko collection to their home and wonder why you cared more about that than living and dying in the only place you ever knew? Oof.
7. “A New Name For Everything”
How about some hopefulness with a side of misery? That’s pretty punk, right? If this line, “And the route you abandoned is always the path that you probably should be upon”, doesn’t make you slam on the brakes and bring traffic to a standstill because you might have taken it literally but also makes you wonder if you are on the right path then you don’t deserve to drive-and-cry.
6. “Left & Leaving”
Back to metaphorical death. Ever come back home and wonder if you’re a failure? Did you fail your last relationship, job, or other opportunity and it’s time to move back to the starting line? But this time with reminders of what once was with you and in your head? Shit, I hope you aren’t literally driving back home during this song.
5. “Sun In An Empty Room”
Throw this banger on if you’re pulling a UHaul and let the tears stain that questionable bench seat. How can a song about moving out of a physical place be sad? Because you’re also leaving an emotional place and now you’re questioning if the whole experience was worthwhile or if it was just a failed experiment. Tell your friends it’s also referencing an Edward Hopper painting and maybe they’ll help you load your next UHaul.
4. “Without Mythologies”
Breakups are sad. But now The Weakerthans go into overdrive and bluntly posit, “Well, what if the love of your life just straight up fucking dies?” Geez. Make sure to get some food and sit for a minute in your car to think about how you can experience as much as you can with your loved ones before they die.
3. “Plea From A Cat Named Virtute”
Here we go. If you’re a fan you know we’re entering some uncharted territory from The Weakerthans. What if your cat saw how much of a fucking disappointment you are? Even the cat feels bad for you. Maybe it’s a Canadian cat and they’re different but for an American cat to be disappointed in you? Your furry roommate wants to play but you’d rather drink and watch TV? That’s tragic, just like how much you’re spending on gas during this drive.
2. “Virtute the Cat Explains Her Departure”
You thought the cat feeling bad for you was sad? Shit, now the cat said “Peace out” and ran the fuck away because it saw a better future in traffic. After all the complaining the cat reminds us it did love its human. And by the end of the song the cat forgets its own name. Goddamn it, I can’t read the road signs through foggy glasses.
“1. Psalm For The Elks Lodge Last Call”
I know the cat ones are super downers but it’s a cat and as much as I can cry about a cat I can cry way more about my own mortality. Sure, we’re not all members of an elk’s lodge but it’s pretty much a club where you hang out with your friends and aren’t all our circle of friends just our own little elk’s lodge? But it feels like it poses the question, do you want your friends to remember you or do you want to be the last one? Excuse me while I pull over to this Love’s Truck Stop to bawl my fucking face off.
Grey aliens, or Zeta Reticulans for those in the know, are the iconic, old-school big-headed humanoids often depicted in science fiction. They represent the first rift Linda and I had in our approach to Ufology. I firmly believe that these beings are actually us from the future visiting and influencing the past, which accounts for their humanoid appearance. Linda firmly believed “This is all a lot of silly nonsense.” They rank low because they harken back to a time when she found my preoccupation with extraterrestrial theory “quirky.”
This region of the Atlantic Ocean has long been the site of so many mysterious disappearances and incidents of possible extraterrestrial origin it just begs for its own evidence board with tons of newspaper clippings and bits of red yarn. But no matter how meticulously I connected the dots, it was never aesthetically pleasing enough for Linda to let me keep it in the living room. I guess she thought it was more interesting to ponder the mystery of “Live, Laugh, Love.”
After a 2-day Adderall fueled deep dive into this Australian sighting, my wife asked me why I was putting so much effort into a case where it was likely a weather balloon and the only witnesses were children. “And their teacher” I corrected her. There was a strange look in her eye after that, and I now believe it to be the moment she first considered that she may have married the wrong person.
There’s nothing that bolsters a close encounter claim like multiple witnesses. What are the odds that 6 total strangers would report being abducted by greys at the same hotel on the same night? According to Linda “Considering they were at the hotel for a UFO convention, pretty damned likely you idiot.”
This is a term used by ufologists to describe various encounters with extraterrestrials in which the witness’s own behavior or sense of reality is warped, possibly the result of some interdimensional abnormalities related to the alien’s presence. Any time Linda heard me say this she would reply “I’ve got your high strangeness right here” and mime smoking a joint. It was hurtful and dismissive, but I almost miss it? Divorce is weird.
Another mass-witnessing, and a close encounter of the third kind to boot! In 1994, 62 students at a school in Zimbabwe saw a silver craft land on a nearby field. Then several creatures dressed in black (men in black? Note to self, update conspiracy board) emerged from the vessel and telepathically preached environmentalism to the children. When I would tell Linda about this case she would just get on my back about not sorting the recycling, which is not the point Linda! Besides, I think they sort it at the plant.
This series of UFO sightings in Florida between 1987 and 1988 gave us some of the most compelling photographic proof of extraterrestrial life to date. Then, in 1990 a styrofoam UFO model matching the craft seen in the photos was found in the home of a photographer and was used by skeptics to easily reproduce the photos. If you ask me, the discovery of the model is suspicious and reeks of a government plant. If you ask my wife, “Get a job.”
Could alien beings have taught early humans to build the pyramids? Were they the architects of Aztec society? Could they have used their technology to alter our DNA? These are the questions that eroded my wife’s love for me over time.
While unidentified flying objects are fascinating, I believe not enough attention is paid to sightings of underwater alien crafts. Linda disagrees with me. She thinks that not enough attention is paid to “anything besides this alien crap,” by me specifically.
When I surprised Linda with a trip to Chicago she was thrilled, but when I didn’t want to leave the airport in hopes of seeing the same saucer-shaped aircraft witnessed by a dozen airport employees in 2006, she was pretty crestfallen. Honestly, I don’t know what else she was looking forward to. Have you had deep-dish pizza? It’s disgusting.
In 1978 Travis Walton wrote a book detailing his alleged alien abduction, which was adapted into the 1993 film “Fire in the Sky.” Years later, I would date and eventually marry a woman named Linda, who habitually had zero input when I would ask “What should we watch tonight?” Apparently, I was supposed to psychically intuit that “I’m okay with whatever” meant “For the love of God, not “Fire in the Sky” again. Coincidence?!
One of Linda’s go-to dismissals of my “hobby” is the fact that sightings and abductions “always happen in small towns to bored drunk hicks.” My retort — Hudson Valley, a densely populated area of New England with over 7,000 reports of sightings since 1982. But she didn’t want to hear any of that. She was all “Wait, that’s why you moved us here?!” In my defense, they do have good schools.
With a slew of eyewitnesses and government documentation, this incident is so much more than its nickname, “Britain’s Roswell,” and much more interesting than my ex-wife’s stories about how passive-aggressive her manager was. So sue me if I’m preoccupied! Actually, technically she is suing me.
This incident is considered “The Roswell of Mexico,” and indeed it should have been, but apparently the boys at Majestic 12 don’t like international competition. They crossed the border, strapped the crashed flying saucer to a helicopter, and executed the Mexican recovery team. Now I ask you, who in the hell can be expected to help keep up with the dishes with that information sitting in their head?
Whether you believe these tall, Nordic-like beings to be visitors from another world or an ancient advanced hominid living underground, my ex-wife thinks she can do better than you.
In 1977, Terry Lovelace and a friend went on a weekend camping trip to Devil’s Den where they did not take mushrooms. At night, they noticed 3 bright lights in the sky forming a triangle and they were not on mushrooms. The lights approached them, and the center of the triangle became larger as if a chunk of the night sky itself were lowering down upon them and Linda they were not on mushrooms, stop it. Both men became oddly disinterested in the approaching vessel as if under the influence of extraterrestrial telepathy, NOT MUSHROOMS LINDA! GOD, JUST FORGET IT!
Skeptics chalk this British UFO crash sighting up to a combination of an earthquake and meteor shower, and after weeks of personal research I have to conclude that they were probably right. Unfortunately for me, those were weeks I was supposed to be looking for a “real job.”
To call this the incident that started it all is to confess ignorance of a mountain of evidence indicating that extraterrestrials have been visiting Earth since before the dawn of history. It is, however, the inciting incident that shaped ufology as we know it today. If this were a list of significant extraterrestrial events it would definitely be in the top 5, but Linda actually kind of dug this one in a detached “X-Files” fan sort of way.
Who are you going to believe, my killjoy ex-wife, or Barbara Lamb, a legitimate psychotherapist who treats personality disorders with past-life regression who saw a Lizard man for 2 seconds and coincidentally is terrified of reptiles?
One of the most detailed accounts of a close encounter of the fourth kind in existence. Raymond E. Fowler gives us the story of Betty Andreason, a woman who through hypnosis recalled being abducted by small grey aliens as a child and introduced to a being she considered to be God. It’s a compelling story, and certainly did not “ruin” our couple’s book club, as my now ex-wife would have you believe. The group merely disbanded because Tom’s wife kept getting headaches at the last minute.
