Alan, who plays pipes at the Irish jam session

Alan, who plays pipes in the Irish jam session,

and looks like a hard-time living man, raisin-wrinkled

face, white and nicotine stained beard, blue

overalls, says his home is the oldest

log cabin left in Raleigh, and collects original

Irish records, recorded in the early 20th Century, lived once

in Sarasota, Florida,

where he said he'd "do"

a red headed girl who

was "something.

She

was really something else."

-- Raleigh, NC

9/25/2011

In Raleigh, listening to

Those bands playing

the alt-country music

in the bars downtown, who

were young once, not

long ago. Today, they

play not a desperate

song, or a youngman's

song, but a cool PBR

song, or a Budweiser

song, or a Coors -- Banquet beer! --

song, yes, a song about all of a man's many

wrongs, sounding like a

long and winding drive into the mountains

of Appalachia and into Tennessee and further

and further into the rest of the west.

-- Raleigh, 9-11-2011