Run This Town

If I could run the marathon right this second, I would. Sunday marks my tenth New York City Marathon in a row (and my eleventh overall). For the last four years, I’ve run with Abbi. I love running with her (though I’m not sure she’d always say the same about me). Our pace is governed…

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This Is It (This Is Really Happening)

All the way from JFK to LAX (the part I was awake, anyway), all I could hear was the voice of Ryan Adams screaming in my ears. “Don’t waste my time; this is it! This is really happening!!! This is really happening!!!” My brain was on the right lyric, but the alt-country singer/songwriter’s seminal 2003…

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C’Mon C’Mon, Gather Round

I won’t front; I was nervous. Thursday was a difficult enough right from the start. Rapper Lil Wayne pleaded guilty to gun possession less than an hour after I stepped into the office. For the bulk of the afternoon, then, the news team piled on the story and began crashing a half-hour show. All day…

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Times Are Hard (But No One Seems To Care)

Christmas can demand a lot of a man, even in October. I swore up and down to Chris, Jamie and Tony that I’d meet them at Galuminum Foil Studios at exactly nine o’clock. At 8:34, I hailed a cab from West 86th Street to 14th and First. At 8:47, I hopped the L to Lorimer…

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The Wild Rumpus

For me, Maurice Sendak’s “Where The Wild Things Are” is mixed up with the wild rumpus of my parent’s divorce. I don’t remember when Sendak’s creatures first appeared in my life; his fifteen-page book was always present. I do remember wandering the wide, book-strewn aisles of the Oak Park Mall’s Kracht & Brentano’s with my…

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Christmas Is The Time To Say I Love You

There’s barely a nip in the air, but once again, we’re getting the holidays started early. In two years, “A Holiday Benefit” and “A Holiday Benefit, Vol. II” have raised nearly $5000 for 826NYC, a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting students ages 6-18 with their creative and expository writing skills. This year, veterans Chris Abad,…

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The Gift

Two years ago today, Abbi and I received many thoughtful wedding gifts, not the least of which being the presence of so many family and friends who trekked all the way to South Carolina’s Low Country where Blackberry service is scarce, and the mosquitoes are as big as hummingbirds. Ours had been a fairly drama-free…

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Actual Email, Vol. II

Last year, my department was slashed in half. We responded by setting a new strategy and impossibly steap but completely attainable goals. Keeping on target called for daily vigilance, and more than one speech invoking Presidents Obama and Kennedy (not all at once!), Bob Dylan, Bono and even Internet visionary Clay Shirky. We’d done a…

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