Ed. – I got this rogue email from Dan one night. I’m not convinced it was borne entirely out of sobriety. It was prefaced with the following exposition: (This is the) first in a series I plan on continuing called “van conversations” where I relay actual conversations that happened in the van while on tour. The bands may change, but the dialogue is all true. Roll on, Dan. Roll on.

Van Conversations, vol. 1:

SCENE: It is late morning. Four musicians are in a 15-passenger van, on tour. They just played a show in Ohio the previous night and are winding their way toward Pittsburgh for the next gig. By coincidence three of the four are computer programmers of some sort or another. Eventually conversation turns towards day job-related activities…

Musician 1: So what’ve you been working on lately?
Musician 2: Ohhh, I’m working on refactoring part of this codebase I’m responsible for now, just a library that needs tweaking.
M1: Yeah?
M2: Yeah, it’s this big matching algorithm -
Musician 3: What language is it in?
M1: Python, there’s this —
M3: I’m surprised something that big isn’t in Java.
M1 and M2: What?
M3: Yeah, see, the thing I like about Java is –
M2: NO! Stop, okay, just stop. Nothing good can possibly come out of any conversation that starts with those words.
M3: But I…
M2: No! Stop. Let’s talk about anything else.
Musician 4: …My cat’s breath smells like cat food…