www.2river.org
Summer in the city

It looks like it's going to be a pleasant summer in the hood this year. I was just sitting down at the computer when I heard the most beautiful guitar playing outside. It turns out my neighbor Steve owns a guitar with a gorgeous tone and plays it really well. We had a nice chat through the window.

Yesterday I ran into my neighbor Nikolai who was planting a garden with plants he started himself. We had a nice chat in the back yard. This afternoon the pinks started blooming in my own little plot and I had a nice chat after work at the bar formerly known as City with Pat Fennesey.

I met him when he worked on our building. This was the first time we really talked. He's taproot Hamp. I'm Noho, I'm surface roots. His family founded this place. His grandmother was rescued from the big flood when she was thirteen years old and his own mom is now eighty. Irish Catholics I think because he's not that old. I didn't ask, but I'd bet fifty cents he was the baby of the family but he's a good man. I wish I had taken his picture...

And speaking of music, the Drunk Stuntmen are spending the summer in town so I'm certain to actually catch a gig at the Elevens on some sultry night soon. I was happy to run into Al Johnson on his kickbutt bike a week or so ago. He tells me I alarmed someone in North Carolina by reporting Bow was leaving the band to become an Christian Evangelist. I swear - that's what I thought I heard him say, but he doesn't remember (as if he would have - it was at the end of the last set.) I was sober but then again my hearing is not what it once was. I think it's a draw.