One day in Dublin , Ireland......

This is Pat Ingoldsby, a poet, and a Dublin icon. He was siting on Westmoreland Street, surrounded by his books and busy finishing a poem in his notebook when I approached. The self made sign above his head read "Dublin Poet - anywhere else I'd be a god."

"Howrya Pat", I said " I want to buy a book from you". " Ah, howrya", he said, "and I've just finished one - can I read it to you? Tell me if you can relate".

He proceeded to recite a poem recounting his difficulty with math and his love of words as a young boy. When he was done he looked up at me and inquired earnestly; " well - can you relate to that?". Indeed I could and I told him so, and after he had lamented the presence of letters in mathematical equation, I suggested that perhaps it's just the words trying to invade and overthrow the math world. He liked this idea and a warm smile spread broadly from under his hat.

Pat is at once whimsical, sincere, biting and curious in his observations of the world he sees around him.His poems reflect the  people he meets as he sits peddling his literary wares on the streets of Dublin, as well as reflections on the natural world as he sees it from the strand in Howth where he lives. In his life he has known both fame and obscurity and  I would hazard a guess that he has little time for either.

As we chatted, he picked up a book and signed it to my wife and I in a large, looping deliberate hand that , when he had finished, read "thanks Patsy and Heather for saving my day". before we parted he recited one more poem that  came to him; a few lines pondering whether the pursuit of wealth is as valid as the value of natural beauty.

And with that , we said our goodbyes - warm handshakes, broad waves and smiles and a mutual wish to enjoy the rest of the day.

"What the world needs now is love, sweet love".  Burt Bacharach wrote that.

" - and a few more Pat Ingoldsbys". I wrote that.

Good morning

In Dallas TX, The  Cafe Brazil offers a spinach omelette with Rosemary potatoes and grilled thick sliced white bread that sets a body up for the day. The help-yourself coffee bar is music to this guy's ears, and the lady beside me at the counter offers me the morning paper with a smile. I thank her, thinking to myself that this is a good start to a new day in a strange town .
I come across an article on a border control snafu in Brownsville, south Texas, where US citizens are finding themselves at odds with the new  fence - rivers bend, but it would seem that fences don't, and residents are left with questions about what land is theirs and and what the government owns.

Baseball season approacheth, and as I wash down the omelette with my umpteenth bottomless cup, I read news of a scuffle in the Cubs dugout, and the Twin's Joe Nathan "feeling fine" after surgery.
The wind picks up a little outside, and it's time for my 3 block walk alongside the highway buzz back to the hotel. The Cafe Brazil offers an antidote of coffee aroma, great food,  and all the color, rattle  and hum that human traffic has to offer . remembering Oscar Wilde's line about being able to resist everything except temptation, I grab a coffee to go.

Columbia SC

What's Columbia got to do with Egypt?

I know - what kind of dumb question is that, right?. I hear you , but there I was , strolling along a meandering country road on the outskirts of Columbia South Carolina, taking in the afternoon sun, and hearing the sounds of the far off State Fair wafting across the September breeze, when I follow the road around the tree-lined bend only to be met with a 20 foot fresco of the ancient Pharaoh Rameses, or someone who looks just like him, peering down from his throne, and surrounded by heiroglyphs of due respect, his face weatherd away by the elements. I was left with only one thought - "What the....?"
Maybe I had some preconceived notions about what traveling in the Carolinas might be like, and maybe it's my own fault for not being open minded, but Pharaohs?
The image is painted on a concrete slab which is clearly the remaining wall of some considerably less ancient structure than a pyramid or catacomb, but has a few seating benches and tables set at its base for the casual wanderer to sit and enjoy their diet coke and fritos, safe in the knowledge that the ancient gods of Egypt are watching out for them.
The jarring visual stimuli didn't stop there.Carrying on my stroll and slowly recovering from my impromptu date with a Pharaoh, I was soon met with a white two story building that boasted the painted image of the Incredible Hulk (sure, why not?) punching his way through the wall and snarling at me. Over his left shoulder near the corner of the building , was the word 'GROW' in grey letters and groovy script.

At the green super hero's feet, a small table soaked up the sun, with an arrangement of blackened and burned engine parts resting on top, and beneath, between it's legs and in the shade, a burned out bird cage. You heard me. Wondering if maybe I had wandered into a Terry Gilliam movie, I dedided to head back to base, and quiz my host - a Columbia native - about these odd sightings.
My host, Davey, at the Redbird School of Irish Music, assured me that I wasn't losing it just yet, and that the white two story building was an artist's collective, once known as the Grow Cafe - a coffeehouse and venue/artist space, now just a studio , although still it would seem very much inhabited by the ghosts of it's former glory.
As for the Pharaoh, Davey could shed no light.......hmmmm...

The Mississippi Mud House

The above picture is just to get your attention and has nothing to do with the following post - just something spotted in O'Fallon MO.
Speaking of MO....

The Mississippi Mud House

....in St Louis MO, on Cherokee and Illinois, is one of the coolest coffeehouses in the mid west : great menu (check out the Portabello Rueben) , great coffee (duh) and a very hip ambience. The salad greens are grown out back, for the most part, and the emphasis is on local produce.

A back wall houses books for sale while surrounding brownstone walls are adorned with local art and retro advertising, and it's WAY easy just to sit back, put it all off 'til tomorrow, and just while away the hours with a hot coffee or three, watching the local Cherokee Street traffic as they stop in for lunch, meet a few buddies, chat with staff, or just sit back and watch you watch the local.....well you get what I mean.

Oh yeah, the French Toast is also top notch.

I first wandered in there with my buddy Kevin after a hard morning recording. Two coffees and a lunch hour later, we found ourselves wandering back to the studio saying, " wow, cool place". We dont say that too often. When I was back in town about a year later, I headed down for breakfast, and ordered the aforementioned  French toast. Hot syrup. Bananas. Hot coffee. Mmm. 
Me and Kevin headed in for lunch  after a morning gig , and man, they did it again . I reacquainted myself with the Portabello Rueben ( we're an item now) while Kevin inhaled the Club Sandwich with emphatic nods of approval.
I'm telling you. You should go. Really cool place.

Knoxville TN

Knoxville stood there waiting for us to have lunch somewhere in it's quiet clean downtown while we wasted time just soaking up the sun and stretching our legs along Gay St ( insert obvious jokes here ). We sauntered as far as the river, and back onto market square where we finally decided on a place to satiate our growing appetites.

Cafe 4, we figured was as good as any , feeling a little o erwhelmed by the array of choices the square spread before us - pub grub, Thai and strictly vegetarian being among the many options. Sensing a slight chill in the air, but still enjoying the cloudless sky, we opted for outside seating with a hearty grilled cheese and tomato bisque, refered to on the menu as The Grilled Cheese Dip and dip we did. Mmmm. Also, the fried green tomatoes with goat cheese and balsamic reduction ( dont know what that means) pretty much rocked our world. Service was super friendly and the hanging out stretched long until we finally decided it was time we explored some more.
Ok, Knoxville, what you got?
The Sunsphere (above), to give it it's proper title ( more respectful than my own description of "big goldy thingumee" ) was designed and built by a local architectural firm for the 1982 worlds fair, and offers a 360 degree view of the city and provides the skyline with something unique and instantly recognizable to the approaching tourist, incoming college kids And conference goers, all of which dominate knoxvilles human traffic .



Old city seems to be on the cusp of a Renaissance , with new bars and cafes nestled into the turn-of-the-century buildings, with an eye firmly on the college demographic; coffee shops, vintage clothing stores pepper this growing area, and somewhere we found ourselves popping into The Crown and Goose for refreshment. Finding the place virtually empty, we sat at the bar and tried their own house IPA, brewed for them by the smoky mountain Brewing Company.
The IPA was light and refreshing , and with a spring in our step , it was time to mooch on......hmm, we thought, so far so good. I'll bet the student area is SUPER- cool... Right?

Well, not really. The strip through campus where we expected to find the head shops , hookah bars , vintage clothing and killer vinyl was actually populated by all the major franchises and peddlers of plastic food and shaky tables. They were all here in a line, so if that's your thing, you just roll out of your dorm and into a bucket o' chicken for just SOMETHING 99!!! YEAH!!
underwhelmed by the over abundance of colorfully packaged nothing, we headed back into downtown for a stroll through it's oak lined streets and maybe half an idea to come back and say hi again sometime soon. Not least of all , to check out the Blue Plate Special. - a free concert from local and touring acts at the visitors center, hosted and broadcast every afternoon by WDVX . If acoustic music is your thing, check this one out, preferably live, but you can always catch it online.



From here we headed west through the Smoky Mountains to ......

Asheville NC

This, my second trip to Asheville, luckily allowed me a little more time to soak up the atmosphere and charms of this mountain town which has become synonymous with the arts and local artisans, as well as touring artists eager to put Asheville on their schedule.
As such, Asheville feels like a very mellow sleeping Gulliver, unphased by us langouring Lilliputians running along it's limbs, admiring the galleries , browsing the bookstores and slurping from the coffee houses along it's winding streets.
Actually , Asheville has an embarrassment of coffee houses, enough to inspire my wife to utter the words " man, if you can't find a coffeehouse here , there's something wrong with you." So true. I guess in such a throng of choices it pays to stand out , and arguably the most memorable coffeehouse is The Big Bus, the appropriately monickered London Double Decker forever parked and catering to all your caffeination needs on the first level, with ample seating on the top deck, just a thin spiral staircase away. "How long have you been here?" I asked the Barista, to which she replied "'Me, or the bus?", clearly a comedian. Once I'd sewn my sides back together she informed me that they'd been in business since 1996. Not bad,
And the coffee is pretty durn good.


After a leisurely noodle around the "Downtown Books and News" Bookstore - one of the best we've ever seen, we thought we should hook up with my bandmates; The HiBs. Hannah Flanagans sounded like a good spot, situated as it is close to downtown.
Once again , we walk into an empty bar, so with elbows on bar , we inquire of the barman, what's local and what's good? He points us at what is , in his opinion , the best IPA on the east coast , the Highland IPA from the Highland Brewing Co. Taking him at his word , I had to sample , and indeed found it to be most tasty. I wondered if our friendly barkeeper recommended everything this highly , as some might do in the name of dedicated salesmanship, but my suspicions were swiflty quashed when a girl came inquiring about a particular beer available on tap. " How is it?" she inquired. " it's crap." replied our dedicated bartender, without blinking an eye.
We basked in the honesty, quoffing at a leisurely pace, me on my Highland IPA, my wife on another local brew ; Pisgah Pale Ale, completely organic - even their trucks run on vegetable oil, a factoid I believe wholeheartedly as I heard it from - you got it - our honest barman.
It would be impossible to leave the subject of Asheville without mentioning some of it's many eateries . Every bit as numerous as the coffee houses , the streets fill with a variety of aromas from around the globe . Caribbean , Indian, Thai, and in a town populated by so many hippies, artists and loveable leftys of every stripe , a fine array of vegetarian options.

We grabbed a late breakfast at The Early Girl Eatery, who use all local produce and, man - the banana walnut pancakes blew my mind. Great food In a great atmosphere.

The next day , lunch at The Laughing Seed, a completely vegetarian restaurant served me a veggie Sloppy Joe that, according to my carnivorous buddies, beat the 'real thing' hands down.
Sometime after lunch , it was time to hit the road......

DEADWOOD SD

It was August 11th. We rolled into Deadwood on the way east from a gig in Montana, and in that neck of the woods at that time of year the road is heavy with swarms of Harley Davidson owners heading to or coming from Sturgis; Harley Mecca, whose summer festival draws Harley owners in the hundreds of thousands.
Deadwood sounded like a good place to brush some road off just like so many ranchers, pioneers and gunslingers of the old west had done before.
The horses had been replaced by minivans and bikes, but the roadside pastimes of drinking and gambling are still intact, albeit in a more generic form ; the gut rot that once passed for whiskey has thankfully been replaced by a cold beer, and the sometimes violent poker games the like of which brought Wild Bill Hickock to meet his maker in this very town are only reproduced in museums. If you want to lose or win money here, your options are slot machines in the bars, slot machines in the hotels or , across the street, slot machines in the.......ummm......slot machine......place.
The town itself is laid out on old cow paths, lending a relaxed, ramshackle feel as you mooch around the winding streets of historic buildings, shop fronts of western memorabilia, and bars boasting exhibits and some or other claim to various snippets of Wild West legend: "here's where Wild Bill was shot" , "Here's where the guy that shot him got shot", "Here's where he had his last drink".

Although that might be a little too hokey for some, for anyone with even a passing interest in the lore of the Wilds West, there are plenty of opportunities as you browse the crumbling photographs and artifacts to revert to the wide-eyed days of childhood, when The Lone Ranger not only saved the day, but rode the coolest horse ever.

It was a hot summer night, and after a cold beer to ease the saddle sores, me 'n' my pardner tipped our hats to Wild Bill and the town of Deadwood, and hit the trail........

New York Mills, MN

New York Mills in North MN is small, quiet and interesting - a truly blink-and-you'll-miss-it, kind of place, it is the home of the ANNUAL GREAT AMERICAN THINK-OFF. Now in it's seventeenth year, the Think-Off ooccupies one summer night to pose one question for debate to three rounds of debaters. The audience chooses the winner. The 2009 Question: "Is it ever wrong to do the right thing?"

The Think Off is the brain child of the New york MIlls Cultural Center , and more specifically it's founder John Davis. The center is responsible fror bringing touring musical acts into the community as well as art exhibits and crafts from the surrounding area, and acts as a sort of Arts Oasis in this heavily agricultural town with vast expanses of corn fields in every direction, and at the time of my visit in October, huddled groups of deer hunters in flatbed trucks were either hitting the town's one bar for a beer on the way out to the woods, or hitting the town's one bar for a beer on their way back in. We watched them come and go from our bar-side perch, and as the cheap beer flowed and the loud '80s hair metal blaired from the jukebox it was hard to imagine that just around the corner on the main street stood the home of the GREAT AMERICAN THINK-OFF, but there it is. The competition logo is Rodin's "Thinker" sitting atop a tractor. It's motto:
"bringing philosophy from the ivory towers of academia into the lives of thinking americans."

I enjoy a place like New York Mills for the peace and quiet and the pace of life, where the main street is quieter than my back yard, and given that the town has one bar , two coffee houses and a bowling alley, with little else protruding from the landscape, not to mention a place to hear music and absorb art and craft, i'm guessing the locals enjoy it for pretty much the same reasons.