There was live music, vegan pizza, and a version of Jolene that sounded suspiciously like Cake had wandered into southern Utah.

The Riff

I’m in Kanab, Utah.

Which is one of those places where you expect dinner to involve a cow. Possibly one you met earlier in the day.

Instead, last night I somehow ended up at what I can only describe as:

A cowboy vegan restaurant.

Those are three words I wasn’t expecting to put together.

Cowboy. Vegan. Restaurant.

Individually, I understand all of them.

Together, it feels like somebody hit Randomize on Yelp. It’s a crazy fun Mad Lib.

I didn’t deliberately seek out vegan food.

I didn’t arrive in southern Utah and announce:

You know what this cowboy town needs? Less cow.

I was looking for someplace interesting to eat, have a drink, maybe hear some music.

Apparently the universe heard that request and said:

I have something very specific for you.

And then I looked at the menu.

Pizza.

An assortment of pizzas. At the cowboy vegan restaurant.

Now we’ve added a fourth word to something that was already struggling structurally.

Cowboy. Vegan. Pizza. Restaurant.

Pizza, of course, being a food traditionally constructed around cheese.

Cheese being one of the fairly significant things vegans have decided not to eat.

It’s not a garnish.

It’s kind of load-bearing.

At this point, I became genuinely curious about what else they could remove while still legally calling it pizza.

No meat.

No cheese.

Somewhere in the kitchen there’s just a tomato sitting on a piece of bread, wondering how its life came to this.

And yet they had an assortment of them.

Not one emergency vegan pizza tucked into the corner of the menu for somebody’s girlfriend from Portland.

Choices.

Apparently this wasn’t their first rodeo.

Which, come to think of it, probably doesn’t involve animals either.

There was also live music.

A duo playing guitar and singing while I’m sitting there eating food that presumably had never met an animal, surrounded by enough Western atmosphere that I kept expecting somebody to challenge me to a duel.

Then the drummer pulled out a saw and a violin bow. At first, I thought it was a Theremin. But that wouldn’t go with the Cowboy theme.

And then they played:

Jolene.

I’ve heard Jolene approximately eleven thousand times. And probably most of them have been in the last week.

Everybody has.

Dolly. Miley. Country singers. Rock singers. People at karaoke who absolutely should not have been given access to Jolene.

But this version was different.

It sounded like Dolly Parton had invited Cake onto the stage.

Not cake.

There was definitely no cake.

Probably eggs.

Cake.

The band.

That slightly detached, rhythmic, almost spoken thing where you’re half expecting somebody to suddenly yell:

SHORT SKIRT. LONG JACKET.

Except we’re in Kanab.

At a cowboy vegan pizza restaurant.

Listening to Jolene.

There are moments when you realize your evening has taken a direction you could not possibly have predicted at breakfast. This was one of them.

And the strange thing is…

It was really good.

Not “good considering I’m eating vegan food in cowboy country.”

Actually good.

The music was good. The atmosphere was good. The whole bizarre combination worked. Except for the food, but that was probably my fault.

Which is annoying because now I have to reconsider some things.

Apparently cowboys don’t require cows.

Apparently pizza doesn’t require cheese.

Apparently Jolene doesn’t require country music.

And apparently occasionally something that looks completely ridiculous when you describe all the individual pieces…

actually works.

Which brings us naturally to sports gambling.

Because if there’s anything Bertie and I specialize in, it’s assembling several individually reasonable ideas into something that looks completely ridiculous when finished.

The Autopsy

Yesterday:

2-1

Rays ML ✅
Tampa built a 7-2 lead, Texas hit a grand slam and turned what should have been a relaxing evening into cardio. Rays held on 7-6.

Yankees ML ❌
The Yankees took a 2-1 lead in the tenth. Three outs from cashing it, Luis Campusano hit a two-run walk-off homer. Baseball happened. Move along.

Ben Shelton -1.5 Sets ✅
Shelton won three sets to one, meaning the most alarming scoreboard in this entire operation now reads:

TENNIS: 1-1

Who the hell bets on tennis?

Apparently we do.

The Giant Scoreboard

ALL SPORTS: 1,044-1,075-7

Today’s Picks

No baseball today.

Not because Bertie and I suddenly developed self-control.

The football bets were already placed.

Clemson/LSU Under 50.5

Two defenses I trust more than I trust either offense to turn this into a track meet. We’re asking them to keep the fireworks in the parking lot.

Pitt -16.5

We’re laying a pile of points, which is always a wonderful way to spend several hours questioning your decision-making abilities.

But we liked the mismatch enough yesterday to put it on the card.

I should have bet against Stanford last night but the daughter would have killed me, and I’m driving her car up there next week.

I don’t want to risk being beaten to death by Andrew Luck’s Flip Phone.

UNLV ML

The bounce-back play.

No points required. Just win the football game.

That’s it.

Three football bets.

No baseball additions because the betting board looked lonely.

No recreational tennis.

No guy named Zebby.

The kitchen is closed.

Tomorrow

Today I’ve got to get from Kanab to Page.

I’ve already eaten at a cowboy vegan pizza restaurant.

I’ve listened to Cake-adjacent Jolene.

And I’ve apparently reached a level of personal growth where I can look at an entire day of baseball and say:

No thank you.

Frankly, I’m not sure which of those is least believable.

Tomorrow we’ll autopsy the football.

And maybe by then I’ll have figured out exactly how a cowboy vegan pizza restaurant works.

Although I think the answer may simply be:

But different.

Bad Picks. Better Stories.

This isn’t called Pick What I Pick.

It’s called Don’t Pick What I Pick.

Please wager accordingly.