I see a sign for $1 coffee at\nMcDonald’s. Why not? Drip coffee is drip coffee. I park my car and\nwalk toward the entrance. Three transients loiter outside. One of\nthem, a man in his 70s or 80s or 90s, smokes a hand-rolled cigarette\nas he leans against his bicycle. Strapped to back of his bicycle are\nhis worldly possessions, including a tambourine. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The tambourine arrests my attention. I\nalmost detour to investigate. I want to know: What are the\ncircumstances of the man’s playing? What makes him break out the\ntambourine? Does he sing as he plays? If so, what are the songs?\nWhat’s his name? \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As I said, I almost detour but not this\nmorning. Fatigue tops my curiosity\u2014for the moment. It’s a rare\noccasion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I walk inside McDonald’s. I am arrested\nby a sight again. Eight elderly men and two women wearing MAGA caps\nand t-shirts sit with their backs to the wall, sipping coffee. One\nman is warning government to keep its hands off Medicare. Another man\nis ripping immigrants while talking to the ceiling. He parrots\ntalking points heard from the Fox News foxes outfoxing Americans out\nof their core decency, something I believe, I just know, know,\nknow<\/em> resides within almost every one of them. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n Team Trump notices me. They stare\ncollectively at me like I’ve never been stared at before. Perhaps the\nlong hair. Perhaps the frazzled gray beard. Perhaps the corduroy\nblazer with the suede patches. No, it’s all three in combination! I’m\na walking, not-yet talking socialist intellectual in uniform. Leon\nTrotsky has resurrected and plans to unionize the hamburger workers\nand overthrow capitalism! He also deigns to drink $1 coffee with the\nAmerican proletariat, a mass of people who mostly align with Trump.\nEven Leon wouldn’t figure that one out. None of the Russian peasants\never wanted to align themselves with the Czar. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n I freeze for a moment and soak in the\nTrumpian stare. I turn around and see Mr Tambourine Man puffing away\noutside. He’s sort of smiling. His face has a million weather reports\netched upon it. He is weather. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n What a contrast. What juxtaposition. Am\nI some kind of metaphorical meat in this American shit sandwich?\nWhere is the more interesting and more important story? Is there any\npossible way to connect them? \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some answers come to me. Yes, they can\ncome in McDonald’s. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n I unfreeze and move to the counter. I’m\nthinking of Mr Tambourine Man…play a song for me \/ in the \njingle jangle morning I’ll come following you. <\/em>\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dylan didn’t invent him. Dylan never\ninvented anything. He borrowed and fused. He readily admitted this in\nhis memoirs. He’d heard a tambourine man long ago play his tambourine\nand sing along roads, in camps, in the woods, under bridges, in\nalleys, the willows, everywhere. Steinbeck knew of them, too. He put\none in The Grapes of Wrath. <\/em>The tambourine men have always\nbeen among us, which is kind of a comfort, because America needs them\nwhen things go to shit. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Trumpians have always been among\nus, too, which is no comfort. The George Wallaces of America never\nseem to fade away. Will we finally lick their type before I die? Can\nwe smote them? \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n I order my coffee and will give it to\nMr Tambourine Man if he wants it. Call it payment when I ask him to\nbreak out the tambourine and play, sing right outside the window in\nfull view of the Trumpians. They won’t hear a damn thing. They’ll\njust see him play and sing. They’ll also see me dance with coffee in\nhand. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n People get discombobulated when they\nsee people they don’t know or understand dance in public. Let’s\ndance! <\/em>It worked for Kevin Bacon in Footloose<\/em>. He was a\nreal American revolutionary and overthrew religious tyranny!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Oh yes….the fatigue is gone and I’ve\ngot that jingle jangle hitch in my giddyup as I carry coffee past the\nTrumpians. I’m relishing the song Mr Tambourine Man will open the\nshow with. I’ll ask for Woody Guthrie or the Ramones. Prince? I know\nall the lyrics to \u201cRaspberry\nBeret.\u201d I haven’t danced in ten years. It’s time. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n He’s not there! He’s bicycling down the\nroad into the fog. I imagine the tambourine playing itself as the man\npedals. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n Next time, Mr Tambourine Man. And I\nwill be following you to wherever your magic swirling ship takes us.\nOur senses haven’t been stripped. That’s the problem with the people\ninside. \n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I see a sign for $1 coffee at McDonald’s. Why not? Drip coffee is drip coffee. I park my car and walk toward the entrance. Three transients loiter outside. One of them, a man in his 70s or 80s or 90s, smokes a hand-rolled cigarette as he leans against his bicycle. Strapped to back of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5429,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-meditations","has-post-title","has-post-date","has-post-category","has-post-tag","has-post-comment","has-post-author",""],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5428"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5428\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5431,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5428\/revisions\/5431"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}