One of the things I love about the 'Web is how it creates unexpected connections between people, places, and things. Just the other day I received a pretty humorous e-mail from "Metal" Mike Saunders of the Angry Samoans. He found my old webpages while doing a Google search on Joan Jett, read my short story about the early emergence of punk in LA The Poseur Chronicles on my talk.bizarre webpage, realized that he'd actually been present at the Whiskey a Go Go gig that features prominently in the story, and knew several of the characters I'd written about.

I became disenchanted with LA punk pretty early on when the club scene devolved from innocent pogoing into violent skinhead slamdancing. Consequently, I never saw the Samoans play live, but they sound like a boatload of fun. I mean, how can you not love a band that has songs like "They Saved Hitler's Cock" and "I'm In Love With Your Mom"? Wait, don't answer that question...

UPDATE: The strange loops continue. Thanks to Metal Mike, I connected yet another dot to my distant past when he pointed me to the website of a long-lost compadre, X-8. When I knew him, X-8 was rather dark, talented, and possessed of an evil sense of humor, all qualities which he appears to have nutured and developed over the years.

Although he was deeply involved in punk back in the day, I suspect that he really had more of a proto-Goth sensibility, which appears to blossomed into a full-blown corpse flower; beautiful, with the unmistakable stench of decay surrounding it.