Horses

Every time Patti Smith comes to town the weather changes drastically right before her show. Like Mother Nature is awakened… She’s been to Southern California the last 5 years and we’ve been lucky enough to cook for her the last 4 years when she came to the High Desert to play at Pappy & Harriet’s. She was, in fact, our first dine-in customer after the pandemic in 2021. Sometimes, Patti will sing to the staff for her meal and it’s always Because The Night, because love is a banquet on which we all feed. Feeding Patti and her family is a blessing and an honor that we will cherish for the rest of our lives.

Last weekend, an atmospheric river was forming above our heads with 6 inches of rain expected to drop in LA. Orville Peck had to cancel the Saturday shows scheduled for his Rodeo at Pappy & Harriet’s. We drove to LA through sheets of rain, unable to see the cars in front of us, and watched as people spun out all around us. It was crazy! We land at the Conrad a couple hours before the show and the rain stopped when double rainbows appeared all over SoCal.

Our friends and the staff sent photos of the rainbows and assured us that things in the desert were good. We rarely get to leave town on days the restaurant is open for service. It’s an event we physically and mentally have to prepare for. La Copine is a beast and on busy days we can feed well over 300 people in a 5 hour window. Our obsessions with the rain has deepened since moving to the desert 10 years ago. In Philly, it was a nuisance… In the desert, it is a blessing.

Patti Smith is a blessing, everywhere she goes, she is always working. Every word is sung and spoken with such intention and you feel like you are hearing her music for the first time. We leave her shows feeling the call to action (I awakened to the cry). Something our desert fairy Godmother, Joanne from the Integratron, told us in the early days of La Copine was a saying her mother used to tell her as a little girl, “Be bold and mighty forces will come to your aid!” Like you are being surrounded by horses, horses, horses, horses. Coming in in all directions…

Up there there is a sea, up there, there is a sea (A sea)
The sea’s the possibility (And in to time, he walked right up)
There is no land but the land (Up there is just a sea of possibilities)
There is no sea but the sea (Up there is a wall of possibilities)
There is no keeper but the key (Up there there are several walls of possibilities)
Except for one who seizes possibilities, one who seizes possibilities (Up there)
I seize the first possibility, is the sea around me (There is a sea, there is a sea of possibilities)…

Land: Horses / Land of a Thousand Dances / La Mer (De)

I’ll leave with you a video of Patti singing Because The Night at La Copine in 2021. <3