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Two home-remodeling guys, contractor and employee, at the Institute Bar in Spring Garden, now dubbed The Loft District by developers. This still-dismal neighborhood is moving up, thanks to an exodus from high rent downtown, so the beer prices are somewhat pricey, though they do have 16 varieties on tap.

The contractor, left, went to the Academy of Fine Arts, and still paints and sculpts, though he has never shown. Working under the table, he hasn't paid taxes in seven years.

I also chatted with 30-year-old John, whose family owns this bar. He told me about a protest he organized as an eighth grader. Dissatisfied with the crappy lunches served in their cafeteria, a third of the students dropped their books on the floor and walked outside. John staged this without the internet, and was charged with inciting a riot, though no serious penalty came of it.

The bartender, Kurt, was talking about "All the people who died, died. All my friends, they died," but no one could think of the singer, so I won brownie points by pointing out that it was Jim Carroll, author of The Basketball Diaries. Kurt has seen the film.




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