An Irish reader out of Boston, who has descended the Leased Coast from the Puritan Plantation to the bowls of Philadelphia had this to say today as he picked me up from a Jersey Shore Dunkin Doughnuts, “People think that people from New York and North Jersey are assholes based on all of the movie and TV depictions, and it may be true, but people from Philly are the worst!”

The fit young fellow with his canvas C4 satchel filled with a gift for me, smiled slightly with a self-effacing grin creasing his neatly stubbled chin as the author mentioned the IRA literature no doubt plastering the walls of his South Philly apartment and the kind visitor admitted, as he tried to keep his eyes off the bikinied bodies besides the Soprano pool:

“I’m a Myth of the 20th Century listener, that and the Crackpot Podcast. I’ve noticed your computer has been giving you trouble. I know how to get good prices on new computers. This only weighs two-and-a-half-pounds. It’s an HP, a good computer with a two-year warrantee and one year of free windows.”

It occurred to this writer then, that this young man had purchased him a new computer and a rambling conversation concerning the means and ways of their coming together was punctuated by a heroic admission of the Raritan Samaritan’s Irish nature:

“I once stayed awake for five days—a five-day-bender. Seeing the video of you fighting in the drunken agon reminded me of it. On the fifth day I played a game of basketball, and while I couldn’t hit a hoop for shit, I was like Dennis Rodman under the boards, crushing it on the defense. It was great. Eventually though, you realize that if you don’t go to sleep and face the fact that your skull is going to feel like its peeling when you wake up, that you have to stop drinking.”

I could not thank this fellow sailor on the savage seas of bad thought enough and felt somehow that we would be in a better world if we had just stomped out a British pig together and he said, “With you using this for word documents, fully charged, you can expect this to last for twelve hours, maybe even more.”

Soon I’ll be drinking a shot of Buffalo Trace under the Big Skies with Ishmael up on the Flat Iron to 5DBender as I write a star sketch on this magic carpet he brought me in the July heat.

Thanks so much, My Friend.