Lightning - a little bit of lightning goes a long way in England. Not so in LA - apparently, every third day is grounds for a spectacular electrical storm, which separates us from the locals in as much as we're there going 'Whoa - what the fuck?!' and trying to take photos, whilst they are all so used to it, it barely registers on their conscious.
Accordions - after the jam at Deckbar on Wednesday we stopped in at the Bayou Park Tavern to see Lynn Drury on the recommendation of Sam, the bassist. Three or four songs in, I heard an accordion, but because there wasn't one on stage, I just assumed I was imagining it. It wasn't till I mentioned it to the Boy Wonder that he pointed out a guy playing accordion from a seat at the bar. Apparently spending any time in southern Louisiana makes 'hearing an accordion' the default position, and the presence of an actual accordion player is only marginally more likely than the alternative.
Gun and ammo shops - I'm not sure if you have to be born in a country that enshrines the right to bear arms in its constitution to find the regular sightings of gun shops commonplace, but I'm pretty sure I will never get the the point where I stop being surprised to see them along the highway. Massive ads for gun shows are also pretty common place, as are otherwise normal people telling you they have a gun.
Brass bands in the street - the first time we went out in the quarter and saw a 10 or so piece brass band just playing in the street, we were kind of enthralled and stopped for a look. Yesterday we went down to Frenchmen St, where there was a brass band playing in the street and we thought 'I hope everyone standing around gets out of the way before we run them over'.
