Havoror here was kind enough to explain his name's Old Norse origin - something to do with "high" and "battle", I'm not kidding - and though his English is far clearer and more correct than mine (ain't it always, with these Scandoids?), I didn't get much of it, because I was stuck doing my retarded parakeet impression, staring at him goggly and tilt-headed. I swear he smelled of glacier. He and his marginally talented black metal horde were in town, and pre-show he wanted to be photographed ("snapped", as he put it, blackbless his heart) in old-school fashion in front of "the most California thing I can find". Hence the Corona endcap at Safeway. Well-chosen, I feel.

In the course of our conversations that evening, Havoror said that he'd gotten his corpse paint on a few hours earlier than usual to luxuriate in the relative safety, potential ass-kickingwise, of Berkeley vs. his neighborhood in an allegedly "very rough" area of OSLO. (Several Oakland residents snickered into their Burmese noodles upon hearing this, but c'mon, I'm sure such areas exist.) I was aghast. "Really? People are that shitty about it, in Norway? It's just part of the musical and visual landscape, though, isn't it, in the cities anyway? And, seriously, to the point of violence? Oh, that's crummy!" Really, I was crestfallen, my paradisiacal notions in jeopardy. My sneering beau drew himself at this, PSSHing in my direction, and muttered "It's like you think they've got guys in Parliament in corpse paint over there." Aww, meanie, isn't everyone entitled to some vision of Eden, worldly or otherwise? And while the Parliament bit was overstating it, we know that Norsepeople DO routinely carry on like this, so . . .

(I have that shirt, but not those balls.)