Week 14 of 2025
On Monday night, Kin and I walked over to the Rose Theater to see Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass. In hindsight, I wish I'd invited my mother, as when we talked later in the week about the concert, her eyes lit up. The records of his that we had in my childhood home, I'd assumed were my dad's -- but they were hers, she insisted. She loved him. Indeed, the theater Monday night -- his 90th birthday! -- was full of baby boomers. The people seated all around us, at least, were overjoyed -- they knew every song, shouting out its title after just a few notes were played. The woman on Kin's left kept grabbing and squeezing his knee, barely able to contain her excitement. The music was superb -- it's a new Tijuana Brass, but it was still Herb Alpert fronting and he can still blow the horn with the best of them. Behind the band was projected a film with old footage of the band, of Herb and his wife (a singer in Sergio Mendes's band). He took questions from the audience. It was such a joyful night.
That evening of joy ran so contrary to everything else that's happening (thanks in no small part to all the boomers who voted for this shit). Trump has crashed the economy. Immigrants are being disappeared right off the streets. People I once respected are bowing down to the end-times god of AI, hoping it will give them salvation as the world crumbles.
I received a once-in-a-lifetime invitation to travel to Dharamsala to attend an event at the Dalai Llama's Mind & Life Institute on the future of the mind and AI. But I declined. I must be out of my mind, I'm sure people think. But there is no way I can travel outside the country right now -- and the conference isn't until October. I cannot even imagine what this country will be like by then. Partially, sure, I worry for my safety crossing borders. But also, it just doesn't feel like the right way for me to spend my limited time on this planet: flying in an airplane halfway around the world to hobnob with powerful people (well known scholars, politicians, business people) about the future. I'm not interested in that kind of networking, truth be told -- particularly now. Do I want my picture taken with His Holiness? Sure. That does seem cool. But I'm not really in this because of what this gets me.
Whatever "this" is, right?
I did record a podcast and I did join a planning meeting and I did send two Second Breakfast newsletters (on Friday and this morning). Not sure what any of it gets me, now that I'm writing this reflection.
More clear cut is what the training gets me: on Saturday morning, I got up extra early, took the ferry over to Governors Island, and ran the Spring Fling 10K, a race sponsored by NYC Runs (not NYRR). I didn't hit my goal of breaking 50 minutes. But I did win my age bracket, so that's pretty cool.
Mom came to town briefly on Friday, taking the train from Stamford on her drive home from Maine. We ordered delivery to the apartment -- Indian food. My favorite. Ah the irony of not traveling there.
We'd ordered Charles Pan Fried Chicken on Thursday and we went out to eat on Saturday too -- another trip to Dirt Candy for their special burger night. Rather than the fixed menu, they had several burger options: smashburger, cheeseburger, hot dog, riblet sandwich, chopped cheese -- all vegetarian, of course. The chopped cheese was so damn good, and certainly has ruined the meat version for me. (I mean, you always kind of have to ignore the ingredients and preparation when you get a chopped cheese and just lean into the flavor of the gut bomb.)
It's another busy week, with the fun fun fun of my annual doctor's visit to look forward to. Still less painful than watching Trump and Silicon Valley destroy the country.