More About What Music

Down under the bridge again.  This is the old Italian neighborhood in Poughkeepsie that my grandmother spoke about.  Her walk to school must not have been far from here passing through the dreaded the Italian neighborhoods with their drying tomatoes and garlic handing in the windows.  As a result she hated Italian food all her life.  Oh, dear grandma, to think of what you missed.

We parked under the bridge.  All these fine Poughkeepsie establishments seem to be located beneath the former rail bridge.  Apparently, the chef, a Culinary Institute graduate got tired of preparing fancy meals all night and decided he just wanted to make pizzas.  I ordered a calzone.  And after I did, he said he didn’t use ricotta.   I wasn’t quite sure how that could still be a calzone, but I ordered it anyway.  It was a fine zone, with the sauce on the side, but it wasn’t as good as the flaky wonder I’d sampled in Sao Paulo last March. 

I comment to my mother and her husband a predictable comment: why, oh why does the music suck so bad in this otherwise remarkable environment?  The food is quite tasteful and deliberate.  The wine list is thoughtful.  Our Chianti's a treat.  The environment is dimly lit and the fixtures are a warm brown wood that all works to relax one and make ya’ feel comfortable.  And the music, is an uninspired rotation of not so classic rock that might have well as been WPDH, the “Hudson Valley’s home of rock.”  My folks roll their eyes and I move on after making a neon lighting analogy.  How come people don’t care more about what music they play?   Yes, of course it’s rather subjective.  Maybe that’s the chef’s comfort music.  But it may as well be Target for what it does to the atmosphere.

There’s a drizzle.  And then there’s a downpour.  We all consider how we’ll get to the car.  It’s only a fifty-yards away.  We’ll hoof it.  I fiddle with my headset and get on a weekly sales call with the team who are experiencing 8:00AM back in Beijing at just the same time I’ve completed my dinner and I miss a chance to say more than “thanks” to by way of a debrief on our dinner out together here under the bridge. 

Wednesday 8/21/19