Blog Posts

Like most decisions, it was made quickly and without any sense of ramifications. Fast forward three hours. The air is filled with the sound of Christmas music, and the smell of baking cookies. Candlelight casts warmth across a room full of familiar faces. Down the hall, five adorable children under five-years-old are bouncing on our…

I watch the news. I appreciate that times are tough. And I read the blogs, so I know that few people buy CDs anymore. Still, lemme make one final appeal to you on behalf of kids in Brooklyn who need somewhere safe to go after school, and wanna’ learn how to write (coming from a…

It was an unusual text message, even for 8:41 on a Friday night. “Man up, son!” Ends up Chris Abad’s little bother, Gabe, was celebrating his fifteenth birthday on Saturday by gathering a few friends downwind from a landfill to pepper one other with gunfire. Paintball bullets, but still. “Tony and Jamie are coming,” Chris…

My pal Ron Lieber writes the “Your Money” column for The New York Times. It’s a great gig for a smart guy, especially for these trying times. Ron periodically canvasses his “e-mail focus group” for feedback and insight on his ideas. Last week, for example, he inquired after first-time house buyers. A few weeks ago,…

A few years ago now, I returned to my alma mater, Syracuse University, to speak to students about how to get a job (or, more specifically, how I got my job, and lessons I’ve learned that might be of some valuable to them). It’s a speech I would later give at Emerson College, and have…

Listen, I know I’m prone to hyperbole, but last night’s Rebel Spirit Music Presents: A Holiday Benefit, Vol. II” album release party was hands-down the single-most meaningful, beautiful and excellent artistic and community-oriented thing of which I’ve ever been a part. There wasn’t a bad apple in the bunch. And were I not a) exhausted,…