I'd driven back from Oswego, stopping in Binghamton to visit a new friend in a writing program, I'd met her on-line, pushing on in the morning, Route 81 Southbound closed for a fatal accident, the detour of a line of trucks moving slowly over hill and dale in Pennsylvania's Endless Mountain region, made it to the street behind the restaurant with fifteen minutes to spare, going to work, the first night of Restaurant Week, live jazz on top of that, then finally at the end of it all, after driving eight hours, and working as many, I drove back to the apartment, unloaded, taking the car back to the rental across from the Shoreham Hotel.  Hemi Dodge Charger, I'd grown to like it, and there was less salt on it than the Camray I'd rented for the last voyage.  Then getting through the next two nights, the tricky wine tasting, Jeremy moving slowly, after I'd busted my ass pulling the wine all the way up to the bar, delivery day Tuesday, and then Jazz Night, the very busy, people popping up like termites, again and again.

A day off.  I got up at a reasonable hour, and walked down to the offices of the good Doctor Patel on R Street, on the other side of Connecticut, cold, but the sun out, blue sky, a hawk on top of the Decatur apartment building, hearing its cry, looking up.  And I saw, being in a reasonable mood, not as beaten down and fucked as I would be working the normal four nights closing, the town in a similar way to how Hemingway might have seen his towns, Paris, always from the perspective of the inveterate countryboy, marveling at its confluences, of the translation of the countryside and the natural world he knew from growing up, an outdoorsman, to the stone, brick and concrete, to the paved roads, the trees lining streets, many people coming and going, but still, light, weather, birds, nature always waiting to reclaim should one of us seriously fuck up...  I remember going down to the Starbucks patio with my notepad, and DC my little version of A Moveable Feast.  To a country boy, who almost returned to the country side and never came back after college, there was enough for the city to make its point that it was a city full of striving people and also the locals and also the people very much left behind.  Those who make it, those who are normal, those who don't get it anymore and give up.

I thought of Shane MacGowan, and Jesus too, the country boy in the city, always sticking to the old values, the way of seeing things that takes in that not all of the world is a city, but rather the vast majority is not and still needs to be accounted for and respected.   "Oh sweet city of my dreams, of speed and skill and schemes..."  The old dog track being torn down to make way for a car park, the tale of White City.  The city is a strange place, unfathomable if one could not see the nature in it.  My jaw had been full of pain, and I couldn't tell if I needed a goddamn root canal or if it was something in the weird popping joint of my jaw and so I went to go see my doctor, the consummate gentleman.  And walking down there I remembered how I used to go sit at the Starbuck's patio, whether or not I bought anything, my stomach no longer able to take coffee without acid discomfort, pulled out the old yellow legal pad and wrote pointlessly, except for the habit.  Writing notebooks--doesn't get much better than that, even if its drivel.  "Like Atlantis, you just disappeared from view, and the hare upon the wire, has been burnt upon your pyre, like the black dog who once raced from old track three..."  Not exactly ad copy, nor PR, nor an attempt to undermine the great democracy or promote anything in particular.



The countryside is values, something that will never leave you, your cells, your DNA.  A tree will always be a tree, and a welcome old friend in the strangeness of the city.

I cannot think of the Christian tale without considering that element of the country boy bringing the wisdom of nature, the innate parable quality to launch that comes out of having nature as an intimate friend deep in the psyche, the experience of being surrounded by, if not wild, trees, fields, countryside, animals.

I cannot think of the tale of MacGowan without picturing the farm in Tipperary, summers spent from childhood, contrast to London and the Barbicon tower apartment, the classic Irish thatched roof farmhouse, and the wild nature of country people.  Rainy Night in Soho always gets me, the lyricism of nature transforming the city into something sufficient and alive.  For reasons I do not know, the song rarely gets old for me.

What insight does that song bring, I'm not quite sure.  There's a wisdom in it, about love, I suppose.  And time.  "Now this song is nearly over.  We may never find out what it means.  Still there's a light that shines before me, and you're the measure of my dreams."

The model, I suppose, is stressed.  Lincoln came out of the great countryside, of Kentucky, of lost towns in Illinois, humble places, backwater.  Farm and animals.  Whatever the corporate lawyer he was for railroad companies, his fine house in Springfield, there is no city boy Trump playboy quality to him, and no helicopter, above the people, in which Lincoln ever travelled, having to sneak through Baltimore in disguise in a detached rail car to get to his Inaugural.

Interesting, then, that the country people should fall for such a man as Trump and his corporate promises, his flashy stance of strength and power, a manipulator.

The chefs I knew, they were all country boys.  Strong, resourceful, resilient.  Keeping long hours, enjoying their beverages.  They were French, and Swiss, or a lady from Jackson, Mississippi, educated at Radcliffe.   They made things happen, they worked hard, they kept things consistent.  They were hearty.  They all like music.

City people, stylish, smart as they are, well-educated, there was something they lacked.  And what they lacked fell into a spiritual quality, and that quality, with access, but their talents pointed in a different direction from those who get their music and words from nature.

City people will always be wondering, "where did you get this talent, where did it come from?"  It stumps them.  So they counter by promoting their own city sound, their city writing, their city style, but, to my taste, they miss out on the real authentic thing.  They miss the beauty of the traditional, in favor of the urban.  Nothing against that, the source of the urban is the country anyway.