Good morning. Hello. How are you? Doing well today? I am good. Sleepy. I was up till 2:30 and got up at 8, so, you know. Sub-optimal. But luckily, after these words, I have literally nothing to do until 5 PM or so, so I am going to… go back to sleep. And it is going to rule.
New York is great and I am having a great time. It is not a hugely cathartic thing, though. It’s interesting. It’s weird. It’s amazing to see old friends, and also completely comfortable and normal. It’s weird and surreal to be back but also completely comfortable and normal. It is the best thing ever to be back but I also could totally be home right now, with my wife and child, and that would fucking rule.
I was sitting at Tom and Jerry’s last night with Rina, a great friend who also does not live here. We are both huge lovers of New York and Phil Collins fans. Rina and I have been planning to see Genesis together since the show was announced, not long after we saw Phil Collins together. Seriously, we’ve been planning this for, like, two years. And we were sitting there in my favorite bar in the whole world and she said “I mean, I’m happy I took this trip but also I could totally have stayed home and not come and that would have been fine,” and man. I 100% agree. I thought maybe doing all of these things and seeing friends for the first time in ages would be cathartic, some sort of release. But really I am seeing friends for the first time and doing all of these things under the shadow of a still lingering pandemic, having my vax card checked everywhere, wearing masks everywhere. It is good to see them and do these things, but it’s not cathartic. It is still mildly stressful!
I’m simultaneously amazed at how little New York has changed and how much it is changed. SoHo especially seems pretty hard hit. Half the store fronts on Broadway are still empty, there are empty shops everywhere in SoHo. The bodega thing yesterday was crazy. Jubilee and Duke. Just… gone!
Anyway, yesterday was great. Board meeting went well, had a lovely conference call with some friends about a side project that is going to be super fun, did work until 5 ish. Watched the new trailer for The Matrix and I am legitimately excited about it. That is going to be just great. December 22, here I come. I am totally here for this new thing in sequels where real time has passed—like The Force Awakens. Been 30 years since the previous installment, in real-world time and story-universe time. It’s a brilliant storytelling convention and it feels… fairly new? Like a 21st century thing? I can’t think of any pre-21st century examples, can you?
Ate lunch at Chipotle because I hadn’t been to a Chipotle in, like, two years and… yeah, turns out Chipotle is still just fine, whatever, after two years. Some things do not lend themselves to missing.
I noticed while standing at the beloved corner of Broadway and Canal that about half, if not more, of the people on the street were wearing their masks outside. I suddenly felt very self conscious and weird not wearing one. I put it on when I went in to Chipotle and did not take it off when I went back outside. It’s cold out! Masks are warm! It is kind of nice. Cozy.
Still, though. I am trying, but… no masks in bars, no masks in restaurants. I keep it on at all the shows the whole time (I took it off to say goodnight to my baby on a video chat just as Genesis was going on), but. I feel like it’s inevitable I’m gonna get Covid? Like? How does this whole city not have it? I am confused. Vax checks are reassuring, but you also get the sneaking suspicion they’re kind of BS. It’s weird. I thought they would comfort me more — all the shows I’m going to are Vax-required, none of this “or recent negative test” nonsense. And yet, it barely makes me feel anymore safe. I am maybe not cut out for this.
Anyway, after work I went and met Rina, Kevin et al at Tom and Jerry’s, which was lovely. Dens showed up! Seriously, I haven’t seen that guy in, like, three or four years. It was amazing.
Then Rina, Eric, Kevin, Elise and I headed up to MSG via the subway, which… Wow, you know, I read about this new “use your phone to pay for the subway” thing, but I blew it off, I thought it was some clunky, wonky thing like the Taxis, making you use some weird, obscure third-party app you’ve never heard of. But nope! It is magical! Amazing. I cannot believe how awesome it is to pay for the subway now. I had no idea.
So then we saw Genesis, which was great. I loved it a lot more this time. Better seat, alcohol buzz, and it turns out my friend Kevin is a profound Genesis fan, grew up loving them, deep knowledge of all of the obscure albums, knew all the words to every song. Saw the Invisible Tour as his first concert. Know a guy for more than a decade without learning their true, deep love for Genesis. Who knew. But anyway, the show was great, I am glad I went again. I still believe that they should swap “Domino” out for “In Too Deep” and “Abacab,” but I have come to accept it. In my head canon playing “Domino” was Tony Banks’ condition for going on the tour. I had this theory even before I learned that Tony Banks wrote “Domino,” and now that I have learned that, I am convinced it is true. “Duchess” is great and was awesome live. “Tonight, Tonight, Tonight” sounded fantastic. I may have shed a tear during “No Son of Mine.”
So after the show we went to some irish bar by MSG, which was fun, and then we all left around midnight, 12:30. I took the amazing, fantastic subway back down to SoHo and decided I just HAD to go to Tom & Jerry’s a third time, since Bryan was working and I hadn’t seen him yet. The place was very full, between the Balthazar and Fanelli holiday parties, and I think I was the only person there not associated with one of those. It was fantastic. I only stayed maybe 30 minutes but man. Very soul nourishing.
What was not nourishing was the six hours of sleep. I love the Nomo Soho but I had forgotten that a) their blankets aren’t warm, b) they don’t keep an extra blanket in the closet, c) there aren’t enough pillows, d) the curtains don’t black out. On top of all of that my travel CPAP is an engineering marvel of miniaturization, but it still kind of sucks. I forgot that trips longer than two nights, and these issues slowly pile up and make me more and more tired. I have two more nights of this. I don’t know if I can keep going.
Okay let’s do a mix. Man. I am so tired. And I had no mixes ready. I just made this one. I like it. Lotta ladies. Starts off with a classic. I am gonna totally listen to this. Once I wake up.
Are you going to get a haircut while you are in NYC?