A drizzling Berlin November evening. Three friends crammed around one of the gnarly wooden pub tables that have provided refuge on the wrong side of the Tram tracks of Warschauer Straße for nearly a quarter of a century.
Our stage of intent, blissful insobriety has hit the level where anyone who dares asking will learn our names actually are Tom Collins, Glühwein, and Strawberry Daiquiri. And the laughs only die for a brief 17 seconds when the speakers above us begin to pour Doug Pettibone’s trembling guitar sixths over Fruits Of My Labor and Lucinda Williams reminds at least one of us of the fragile poetry of companionship so indispensable in a life that has changed at a terrifying pace over the course of barely two years.