Plinkety plunk ... a birthday impulse buy
I just visited the famous Mandolin Bros fretted instrument shop on Staten Island, NY. Mandolin Bros, owner Stan May (left), the Gal with a Guild, and ever patient sales expert Dennis Ryan. … and came out with something a transglobal telecommuter can neither store, stash or carry terribly easily: a brand new guitar! Just like the time I schlepped home a giant framed Paul Alan Bennett picture for my birthday last year, and which is now freeloading in a friend's dining room in Eugene, Oregon. (As you will read, I almost dropped $750 on a blanket too…) "Paintings and blankets, you're settling," quipped my sage friend, Jerry Norquist. I've never heard of Mandolin Bros until I happened to jump onto the tail of the New York Cycle Club Ride to the Staten Island Bluegrass Festival, led by a bluegrass aficionado, Mark Gelles. Take a look at Straight Drive playing on stage here. "You gotta go there, best shop in New York," said Mark. "By t