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Jennifer Knox reading at Fergie's. Knox was excellent but Anne Boyer, on the same bill, was even better. There were maybe 25 in the audience and nearly all of them poets. It's unfortunate that American poetry no longer appeals to non-poets.

In the late 80's, Fergie left Ireland with 500 bucks in his pocket. Arriving in Houston, he got a bartending job, then moved to Philly, where he got hired at McGlinchey's. I've written about this low life bar in the story "555," in my collection Fake House, and in the poem "Watching the Winter Olympics at McGlinchey's," in my American Tatts . I've also written about it in the New York Times and Common Dreams. In "555," I mention Fergie by name.

Of all the bartenders I've known at McGlinchey's, only Fergie has managed to move on to open his own bar. In fact, he owns four, three of them fairly upscale, and none with a television.

His bars are too expensive for me, so I rarely see Fergie, but in June of 2009, I asked Fergie about his business, and he insisted that all of his bars were doing well. He rejected the idea of a long term recession. On a recent visit to Ireland, he had seen signs of panic and despair, but he dismissed them as overreacting.

Where Fergie's is located used to be seedy, with go-go bars and prostitutes, and Mumia Abu-Jamal was alleged to have shot that policeman right here, on the same block, but this part of town is now filled with trendy bars and restaurants, and within this cocoon of prosperity, one may just think that all is well, though I suspect that Fergie himself has revised his prognosis.






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