At the Anchorage Folk Festival (Alaska, that is) the traditional second-to-last act was "H. Ross Banjo" and his compatriots. The lead fellow told banjo jokes and did an excellent impersonation of Ross Perot in between songs. There must have been about thirteen (yes, that number sounds right) folks on stage, and I swear every one of them had a distinctly different kind of banjo. You should have heard their thirteen-part rendition of "Dueling Banjos." Right up there with Vogon Poetry, it was, but I rather liked it. Now that most of my time is spent near Seattle, the banjo jokes seem to have been transformed into jokes about bodhran players, i.e. Q: "What do you call a bodhran player with a beeper" A: "Optimistic."

Gabh spòrs,

--Cuilionn