Today

I was down by the Connecticut River in Hadley walking and strumming on a guitar.



The Hadley farm fields are plowed and ready to burst forth their bounty.



Later we stopped in downtown Northampton for lunch. The media was all around the courthouse for the arraignment of "the bullies."



Nearby life juggled on.



I also ran into my old roommate Shane walking his dog Zeeper.



It was too late to have lunch at my friend Zak's new restaurant Eclipse but we stopped in anyway to see the beautiful new mural he put up.



This is the view of Main Street from Zak's restaurant.



We crossed the street to Sam's and had delicious broccoli and cheese pizza.



Then Damon sat on the steps and sang songs as I watched the world pass by.


I rang a silent bell
beneath a shower of pearls
in the eagle wing palace
of the Queen Chinee

Wilbraham Cop

Tells his Tragic Tale.

Wow, listen to this shocking video about what went down in the Springfield suburb of Wilbraham, Massachusetts.



Thoughts

Bumperstickers I would put on my car if I had one.










Eclipse Plus

Hey my buddy Zak has opened his new restaurant called Eclipse. Here he is working in the kitchen this morning.



It's a real classy joint. Dig this artistic shiny wooden eclipse embeded in the floor.



Here's the bar area. Ya gotta check this place out for yourself! It is located in the heart of downtown Northampton by City Hall.



A biker observes a painter at UMass yesterday. Things are quiet while the students are on Spring Break.



When I was young you could always tell the upper class kids at UMass from the scholarship kids because the ones with money came back to campus from Spring Break with tans while the rest of us were still winter white because we had to stay in the area to work jobs.

The Music Section

Too cool.



Beyond cool.

Happy Saint Pattys!

More From the Vault

This is a day for the Irish to get drunk and sentimental. Personally I'll forego the drunk part and go straight to the nostalgia trip with these gems from deep in the catacombs of my legendary vaults.

Here's a photo strip of my Grandmother Devine in 1906.



Here is my Grandfather White at Five Mile Pond in 1930.



My father in his scout uniform in 1940.



My father's boyhood friend Doug Ariel ran against Stanley Zarod for State Rep in 1972. When he ran for mayor of Springfield the year before it was my first exposure to a political campaign.



This is a bus ticket. They used to pass them out at school every Monday in strips of ten, and God help you if you lost them, since you couldn't get on the bus. The Springfield Street Railway Company was the private firm that ran the busses before the government took over as the PVTA, and the prices rose as the service declined.



If you lost bus tickets and had to walk it might very well take you so long that you would need one of these.



Marc Walker in a picture taken in 1979. Marc was a member of Destiny's Defeat, the Point's first real rock band. He died five years ago of an accidental drug overdose. In fact of the five members only one is still alive. I guess destiny really did defeat them.



It's hard to believe that in two weeks it will be a mindblowing thirty fuckin years since this Martian Highway concert at UMass.



Me and my bike in 1982.



Neal Under Pressure



Congressman Richard Neal found his Milford office under seige from angry Tea Partiers yesterday. Read the full account here.

Assorted Shots

Bruce Adams photo of the Springfield St. Patrick's Day Committee at City Hall this morning.



Radio dudes Bill Dwight and Monte Belmonte doing a charity gig in downtown Northampton today.



My friend Zak's new restaurant Eclipse in downtown Northampton is opening today. Go check it out!



The hot new spring fashion statement.



Me in the great wide open this afternoon atop Amherst's Mount Pollux.



The Music Section

Trevor: The bald version.



Paul Kantner of the Jefferson Starplane turns 69 today. Here's a picture of him I took at the Springfield Civic Center sometime in the Seventies.

Zak

Last Night