guidos in cowboy hats.

         I'm out of my element here in so many ways, a graduate student in an undergraduate class, an aspiring filmmaker among incredible photographers and a Southerner living in New York. Long Island is a far cry from down-home Dixie. In search of a taste of the lower economic country class of home. 

Country night at the Nutty Irishman in Bay Shore is as close as it gets. Nowhere near capacity, the line dancing, two-stepping and PBR drinking locals are barely a familiar filler for my homesickness. Charming but lacking, I capture this themed atmosphere that was once a lifestyle for me. 

I am grateful for the efforts, but there's an inauthenticity that makes this already taboo trait of the area a bit more pathetic. The words to the songs blaring have little resemblance to the lives of the patrons. To me, that way of living is more than putting on a pair of boots once a week; I want the rednecks, I got guides in cowboy hats.