Buffalo New York! yup!!

Hey Everybody,

Here I sit in the Quaker Bonnet Eatery in Buffalo New York. I left Ithaca around 1pm yesterday after taking a swim, shower at 2nd dam, where local kids were hucking themselves off 50-70 ft cliffs, I not wanting to show off my central Massachusetts asskicking style I opted for the 5 footer! I drove through hours of back roads through mostly farmland and a occasional 4 corners with a gas station and a farm stand! I got a box of fresh strawberries and ate them listening to the Red Sox loose a nail biter on XM radio channel 177.

I rolled into Buffalo to take a break around 6pm and it just happened to be the taste of Buffalo. They close down a huge section of downtown and all the restaurants and bars are there. The first thing I noticed beside all the Buffalo Wings, Pizza and Elvis impersonater was the diversity. Ah sweet diversity, I've been craving it like I craved Christmas morning when I was 7. It's not just racial diversity it is sincere diversity. People waking up in the morning and just walking out their door being themselves, talking about nothing and everythingI have not seen one luxury condo, not one martini bar but I have only been here for 17 hours and those establishments have their place I just can't afford them.

Last night I hit this place called Nietzsche's (yup) they have music 7 nights a week, and their motto is: Life without music would suck, or something along those lines. This band Space Cakes was playing, I got to tell you I've been blessed to have seen a lot of music, but this band ripped. The Sax player was a cross between Skerik and Karl Denson and the guitarist, keyboardist, vocalist band leading freaker was 1/2 Wavy Gravy 1/2 Frank Zappa. At the break I rambled across the street where a poetry night was happening, the place was jammed and the readers were top notch it held my attention for a while until I followed a cast of Buffaloians back to the Space Cakes show. After the show I walked up and down Allen Street, people were all over enjoying the last moments of a perfect Sunday night, I brushed my teeth, did some push ups, ate a banana, smiled for as long as possible then crawled into my bunk. It reminds me of a verse from a Dan Bern tune:

Tourist towns are a drag sometimes
But in non-tourist towns you can get beat up
Just for lookin a little different
I guess the thing to do is just stay at home

Yeah but sometimes I think the thing to do
Would be to get a place way out in Missouri
Put down as many months rent as you can part with
Tell everybody else you went to France

Well I think I might be in Buffalo for awhile or at least till tomorrow. I did promise the owner of this eatery that I wouldn't tell anyone how cool this city is so please keep it down!

Peter