The 2023 State of the Borough

 

 

At some point during 2021 I took a little Post-it-note and wrote down a two-word phrase that would become my mantra for the next 12 or so months.  “NOT THIS” in fading red ink on an also sun-faded pink Post-it-note watched me from its perch on the bookshelf next to my home desk/work from home desk/ rectangle space where I spent most of my waking hours and reminded me that what I truly wanted was indeed, not this.  And by ‘this’ I mean a sort of house-arrest I was trapped in by means of working from home, but all the time, while also trying to ‘be a person’ in my own house.  I kept saying that to myself, “I just want to be a person”, as that was the end goal.  And I’m surely glad I never said this out loud, as I am actually a person, but by ‘being a person’ I wanted to be someone that was either working, or not working, instead of the shell-human I had become, who would think about working all the time, even when not logged in.  Telling myself, oh, I forgot something, or maybe I need to re-read that document, or maybe I should be vetting someone else’s data.  I could not shut it off, and it was driving me mad.  Add this to a work environment where you are doing the job of three people and the interpersonal relationships mirror that of your worst days of middle school, and it’s a toxicity you don’t bring home because you already are home and there’s no physical escape, you must chant, “Not This”. 

One day at school pickup, after I had resigned from that job, I was chatting with our parish’s Monsignor.  I asked him if he’d come and bless our house, more specifically, if he’d exorcize the bad juju floating around my work rectangle in our home office.  I didn’t say that exactly, but at the closing for our house, we did learn that the previous owner’s husband had his ashes sprinkled around the property.  I used that as the reason for divine intercession upon my living space.  Monsignor agreed to come, but not before going off on a tangent about cremation.  Not so much from a religious point of view, but I had mentioned that our home’s previous owner was the chief of the Eastchester Fire Department.  Monsignor said, “How could a man who fights fire for a living, for a career, choose to have his body burned in the end?”  I didn’t have an answer for him.  I took a moment to consider something I had never needed to consider before, but I imagine when it came to being in a cold box six feet under, the Chief said, “Not This!”

Not This has become a mantra not only for the burnt-out, post(-ish) pandemic working moms, but for many populations around the world in this last year.  Humanity, writ large, has had enough.  Scores of workers said, “Not This!” as part of the Great Resignation and for the first time in 40-some odd years, wage pressure favored labor.  And, more recently, big Tech and others said, “Not This!” to that shift in power (no they did not like it one tiny bit!) and said, “Not This!” with thousands of layoffs.  Netflix cracked down and said, “Not This!” to account sharing.  In the fall of 2022, the New York Mets said, “Not This!” to their comfy 10 game lead and their post-season berth to sink to wild-card contenders and then lose miserably.  The incredibly brave women of Iran said, “Not This!” to the Morality Police, hijab mandates and the all-encompassing oppressive regime under which they live.  Americans (again) say,
“Not This!” as we watched the horrific violence delt upon Tyre Nichols just a few days ago.  The people of Ukraine said, “Not This!” to the unprovoked invasion by Russia.   Many Russian conscripts said, “Not This!” to an unwanted draft.  Even Mikhail Gorbachev, the only foreign head of state I recall from my childhood, save Margaret Thatcher, said, “Not This!” to Russian hegemony when he kicked the bucket last August.  The state of Florida continuously says, “Not This!” to reality and the 118^th Congress said, “Not This!” not once, not twice but fourteen times when they didn’t advance Kevin McCant’t-read-the-room to the Speaker of the House seat he so desperately desired.

As empowering and efficient as “Not This!” can be, it’s only a first step.  You can’t build a path forward by only negating the status quo.  You can’t build policy by just denouncing the other guy’s plan.  You can’t galvanize lasting support by just talking shit about the opposition (though it’s fun for a short while).  We all need a “Not This!” moment to clear the air and evict the demons.  We need plans in the affirmative, coming from a place of clear eyes and calm heads. 

As for the State of the Union, which will air as this is published, look for the people with a plan forward, and not just empty-calorie malcontents. 

As for the State of the Borough, 8 months after leaving a very stressful work situation, I feel like I can finally think about the future and I’ve stopped living in a constant state of panic.  There is once again free real estate in my mind, and I can use it to daydream and write.   I get to ‘be a person’ again, and it’s fabulous!

What You Make Of It

 

In May of 2022, I left Big Banking (after 17 years!) and went to work as a financial controller for a smaller, but diverse, investment bank.  On the first Friday of my tenure, I was supposed to present two ‘fun facts’ about myself at the all-hands staff meeting.   So I brought up Lakeview Quarantine Travel Site, because it’s not like my professional reputation was on the spot or anything (!!!!) right?  What I didn’t bring up, was the true knock-on effect of our little travel site video sessions as they manifested: 

During the fourth week of March, 2020, in a desperate attempt to process the emerging Corona virus situation and our newfound work-from-home-school-from-home-24-7 lifestyle we found thrust upon ourselves (like many others), my household launched ‘Lakeview Quarantine Travel Site’.  Lakeview Quarantine Travel Site, and its spinoff, Lakeview Quarantine Craft Site, were daily videos we published via Facebook Live with a few objectives in mind.  Namely, an evening stopping point in what could have easily become a work-from-home-and-keep-going-into-the-wee-morning-hours type of situation.  (and which had become a work through the night into the next day situation on a few occasions thanks to a new professional specialty I endearingly called ‘Crisis Accounting’ – see also The Financial Crisis of 2008.  I’m too young to have made it through two financial data crisis events and not be within a stone’s throw of retirement, ok?)

A second objective of Lakeview Quarantine videos was to be a ‘proof of life’ or daily touchstone with immediate family members.  Thirdly, it was supposed to provide some actual educational benefit to my kids.  Once the older kid caught on to this objective, he was truly reluctant to participate, yet still curious as to what would unfold in each video.  As was I, I mean, it was Facebook Live, we didn’t have a network-sponsored 5-second time delay.  We weren’t scripted.  We were pandemic-wingin’ it like the other 7 billion souls on this planet.  God have mercy.

Nevertheless, we persisted.  And by some metrics, we even succeeded.  My kids, like many of their 2010’s decade-born counterparts, and really all of us who have succumbed to the immediate gratification social media promises, would watch each video for live comments or likes.  They told our audiences to ‘like and subscribe’ or ‘buy our merch’ (which didn’t exist) like all the other (alleged) YouTube millionaires out there.  Full disclosure – at the onset of 2023 we continue to NOT be online millionaires, as your crisis accountant, please trust me.

Some of the comments came in during live videos.  Some came in after. And some came in like way after taping.   Some came in a vast myriad of forms of feedback.  Like at Christmas, people wrote in their holiday cards that they ‘loved our videos’, or at a funeral of a dear in-law, I was approach by Lakeview Quarantine groupies expressing their affinity for videos during the pandemic.  In the days since March of 2020, when in-person events began to resume, people would approach me and tell me how much they looked forward to our videos.  Or how much enjoyment they got from our zero-budget, seat-of-the-pants videos. 

I was truly floored.  As the kids would look for real-time feedback, I guess, so did I, even with all my analog upbringing, I was not immune to the appeal of instantaneous gratification (instantaneous data).  I was in the midst of providing as-real-time-as-possible data on the credit exposure my firm had with airlines, cruise lines and movie theater chains as the pandemic wreaked palpable economic damage on certain business sectors, I was living in the moment and never considered the longer-term impact we were putting into place.

But aren’t we supposed to be living in the moment?  Sure.  But what I later wanted to impart onto my kids, is that, that cheesy video stuff we did in 2020 and a bit onwards, it had a lasting effect, and sometimes things get bigger than we ever expected them to be.  And that’s ok.  And not everything can be measured in instantaneous ‘likes’.  And maybe our ‘fanbase’ is broader than we think.  And maybe, when you try to be a light in your own dark time, you are a light for someone else as well.  And in addition to teaching your kids the capital of Papua New Guinea, the state flower of Oregon or the population of Mississippi, you’ve taught them kindness and empathy as well.

Kindness and empathy come in handy, when your vaccinated self comes down with Covid as well in December 2021 and you can’t muster the energy to do anything, not even stopping your kids from watching Squid Games and Encanto on continuous replay. 

You win some.  You lose some. 

We didn’t start the fire.  It was always burning since the world’s been turning

We didn’t start the fire.  No, we didn’t light it, but we tried to fight it.

 

And as for that second ‘fun fact’, I told the office I got to play softball on Citifield while working for Citibank.  Even the Yankee fans were impressed. 

You win some.   You win some. 

 

 Happy 2023 to the Seventh Borough Family.  Happy 10^th anniversary.  We love you.  Thank you for your support!

Ninety-Nine

I was extremely late on a work deliverable last month, so basically trying to keep a low profile from the individual requesting the data.  Said colleague emails me and asks for it again and before I can respond, my co-team-guy-person message-chats me to tell me she is looking for me.  My stomach begins to feel like its filling up with bricks, that sinking feeling where you *might* get in trouble but you also don’t want to let a good colleague down.  I still only have 24 hours in the day like everyone else, and I’m still way behind.  Liz, co-team-guy-person types in the messenger app, she called me because she was worried about you, she thought you had THE CORONA!!!  My stomach churns a bit and the sinking stops, and I let out a bit of a chuckle.  I type back in the messenger app: I’ve got 99 problems but Covid ain’t one of them!

So, Jay-Z, if you don’t mind, I’m borrowing your song title concept to describe the state of things on my forty-second birthday.   In no particular order, my personal situation for the first half of 2020:

99. As of today, I will be driving on an expired driver’s license.  The DMV says for now, it’s ok due to Covid, all expiration are extended.  All DMV offices are closed for now.  Then the DMV mails me renewal paperwork because my license is expiring.  

98.  My dog likes to sleep on my side of the bed.  While I’m in it.

97.  Nick was banned from Egg Wars for teaming up with other players.  I’m not entirely sure what this means.  File under ‘Minecraft or something’.

96.  My daughter has discovered Nutella.  She has become addicted.  Just eats it off the spoon.

95.  The Great Toilet Paper Shortage of 2020.  It has revealed our inner demons as a society.  

94. The Great Baking Products Shortage of 2020.  It has revealed our inner comfort food makers as a society.  

93.  Bleach.  It’s now a cocktail. 

92. And you know those clear drinks are typically low in calories so no one will be inventing ‘Skinny Girl Bleach’ or Clorox-lite

91. No one will be inventing those drinks because they will be dead.

90. Defund the Police?  I’m personally unsure.  Defund Poison Control?  Oh hell no.

89.  Dr.  Anthony Fauci.  I had never heard of you before, but once you opened your mouth on live broadcast, I knew we must be from the same neighborhood.

88.  We are from adjacent neighborhoods.  Me and my girls got our hair done for my wedding right next to where your parents had their pharmacy.

87.  Because Brooklyn.

86.  Once you opened your mouth on live broadcast, I knew we had at least one adult in the room.

85. “Lakeview Quarantine Travel Site.  It started out fun, and then I realized I was just wasting my time learning stuff” – Nicholas, age 8.

84.  Lakeview Quarantine Travel Site.  Nobody won the TP and vodka shot!

83.  To save on toilet paper, my husband bought a Bidet attachment for our toilet.  You must appreciate the thought process of engineers.  It’s literally called a Buttler.

82.  Bidets:  Calibrating water pressure is everything.

81.  Tiger King and Carole f**** Baskin.

80.  We don’t watch TV anymore.

79.  I mean we cannot turn the TV on any longer when the kids are in the room.

78.   Minneapolis.  I had no idea it was such a powder keg.

77.  Tulsa 1921.  I had no idea.

76.  George Floyd.

75.  Breonna Taylor.  It was just her birthday too.

74.  Rayshard Brooks.

73.  Ahmaud Arbery.

72. The amount of time between Ahmaud Arbery’s death and the arrest of his killers.

71. This is just the tip of the iceberg.

70.  Lafayette Square, Washington D.C.

69.  Hypocritical Bible-toters. 

68. I think you could have handed him a phonebook or the Encyclopedia Britannica (Vol W-Z) and he’d not notice.  Is he aware of books?  I mean the inside of books, like the parts with the words?

67. And some day the taxpayers of the United States will build him a presidential library?  Maybe a casino instead.  Maybe it will file for bankruptcy. 

66.  New Rochelle.

65.  Arbitrary building/fire code ordinances.

64.  Public Officials who use arbitrary building ordinances to appease nervous white people.

63.  America, WTF?

62.  Oh did you catch Mrs. America on Hulu.  WTF?

61.  I’ve started watching The Handmaid’s Tale.  

60.  I said, Liz, is this really the year to watch this series?

59.  Yes, yes it is.

58.  Did you ever notice how the dark vans driven by THE EYES in Handmaid’s Tale look remarkably like those dark blue Amazon delivery vans?

57.  Jeff Bezos already knows how the Handmaid's Tale  is going to end because he has ALL THE DATA.

56.  Margaret Atwood already knows who is going to win the Superbowl in 2022 and 2023 because she can obviously predict the future.

55.  Spoiler alert, it’s not the Jets.

54.  Nor the Browns.

53. “99 Problems” by Jay-Z.  The song is 17 years old, but if you look at the lyrics, they are relevant right now.  But I don’t think the song enumerates 99 problems.  This is going to be a long list.

52.  I took it literally and wrote down 99 items.  It’s kind of my job.

51.  If you’re still reading, we must be really good friends.

50.  If we’re really good friends, then I can confess the following.

49.  Day Drinking.  On weekdays.  That are not holidays.

48.  Andrew Cuomo or Chris Cuomo, how do you choose?

47. The Governor Mario M. Cuomo bridge.  I used to make fun of how was unilaterally named.  I’ll leave it alone now. 

46.  All the graduations that didn’t happen.  Everyone deserves their moment.

45.  My kids ask me why people eat bats.

44.  Homeschooling.  It sucks.

43.  Homeschooling, no one was prepared for it.  3 months later, it still sucks.

42.  As much as kids complain about school, it’s their world and they need it.

41.  8-year olds.  5-year olds.  Big enough to know the world is different.  Small enough to be afraid.

40.  Small enough to think they somehow caused the virus.

39.  Small enough to not be able to articulate their anxiety.

38.  Small enough to manifest anxiety into epic meltdowns.

37.  And bedwetting.

36.  When snuggling doesn’t seem to be enough.

35.  And you feel like you can’t help your children feel better.

34.  And the first two weeks of April, when you learn of 3 Covid-Related deaths.

33.  One was older, one was my age.

32.  Two were dads.

31.  And two more non Covid-related deaths.

30.  One was older, one was a tragic accident that made the network news.

29.  I mean we cannot turn the TV on any longer when the kids are in the room.

28.  There aren’t any funerals, or proper good-byes.

28.  Can’t really grieve in front of the kids, or mention the words ‘Corona’, ‘hospital’, and ‘sick’, in front of the kids.  And you can’t spell the words out anymore because the 8-year-old is sharp.

27.   And amid all this, we’re working full time.  Overtime.  

26.  It’s quarter-end.  It’s tax time.  Oh wait, I also must teach second grade.

25.  I'm working on a second major economic catastrophe in a dozen years.  

24.  So us working parents commiserate.  I contemplate resigning on more than one occasion.

23.  Flexibility is great, but every day becomes a 24-hour day of housework, schoolwork and work-work.  

22.  We work together through Webex, email and Skype.  I do miss my co-workers.  But not all of them.

21.  Ambient noises from colleagues' homes work their way in – kids scream-laughing, dogs barking, sirens, car alarms, the guy working from his parent’s chicken farm.

20.  If I had a dollar for every time a colleague said, “My wife handles that”, I wouldn’t need to work.

19.  Oh did you catch Mrs. America on Hulu.  WTF?

18.  We’ve made it to the last week of (home) school.

17.  My dislike for writing poetry and plant science has been passed down to my second grader.  Sorry.  Not Sorry.

16.  Second grade social studies curriculum is beginning to resemble Lakeview Quarantine Travel Site.

15.  Facts about states and virtual field trips around the world, but no mini vodka bottles.  Fair.

14. Kindergarten: it’s a magical time.  First grade is all business. 

13. First grade does not care if you know what season it is.  First grade is all desks and no color-matching tables with rug-time spots.

13. Kindergarten assignment videos: Jack Hartman.  He sings about every letter.  Letter combinations.  The Silent 'E'.  Numbers.  Basic addition.  It is the songs that get in your head and never, ever get out.  

12.  The Second grader sasses the Kindergartener because he already knows all the answers to K homework.

11.  The big one picks on the little one.  The big one is clever and strong.  The little one is fierce and savage. The big one is a show-off.  The little one has already mastered the element of surprise.  I'm the referee.

10.  They both ask me for juice boxes.  And snacks.  Incessantly.

9.  While I am on a conference call.  And they are standing in the kitchen.  

7.  Like right now.

8.  If you made it this far, we must be really good friends.  

6.  Or you are delaying getting Monday started too.

5.  No judgement.

4. Forty-one was a bad year for me.  2019 was a bad year.

3.  2020 is in a league of its own.

2.  Here is to Forty-two.  I want to say it cannot get any worse, but…

One.  Here is to another trip around the Sun.  May the Universe be kind to us all.

The 2018 State of The Borough

Fourteen some-odd months ago, the Seventh Borough News was last published on this site, urging our fellow Americans to get out and vote, on the eve of a national election of epic scale and vitriol.  Little did I know at the time, that GOTV effort would galvanize over 3 million ‘illegal’ votes to be cast for one of the candidates.  I had no idea my readership was so impactful.

But then things went dark. 

And there’s been no blogging for a year and change.  And it’s not for lack of interest or lack of desire.  I even considered starting a second blog, with a different theme – wait, I know what you’re thinking, this blog has a theme?? – but Rome wasn’t built in a day, and you can’t do everything all at once.  Or even any one thing at once, most days.  So I tell my half-dozen loyal readers to go vote and then I leave you in the lurch with no comment on the outcome. 

It went a little something like this:  Election day comes and I take the kids to the polls with me, and the hubs, because he’s off to the Amtrak right after we vote for a business trip. We’re at the polling place for six AM and I’m voter #13.  I took it as a lucky sign.  Drop the kids off, drop the hubs off, go to work, come home, pick up the kids, eat dinner, put them to bed and turn on the news. 

Turn off the news, go to bed, wake up in the middle of the night to use the restroom (welcome to life after two c-sections), check my phone and see who was declared the victor and 45^th president of the United States.  Oh, it was that guy who graced all the local NY papers throughout my childhood for being obnoxious and ostentatious.  Classy.  You know how the rest of this went down.

The next year was bumpy, contentious, border-line humane and full of so much anger.  There’s rioting in the streets, and crying in the streets, people being mowed down in the streets, gunned down at church, at concerts, there are wildfires, mudslides, multiple hurricanes, major confusion as to which Caribbean islands are American territory and tiki torches being used for non-tiki like purposes.  I read a full and recently published article on how to survive a nuclear bomb attack.  The good news is that my basement has thick concrete walls and is below ground level.  The bad news is that I work in a glass high-rise in Times Square.  It was a rough year to be a person.  And that’s just the first world.

This time doesn’t seem like a year, but a string of days fading in and out.  There’s always more to do, deadlines, responsibilities, a reason to get out of bed, a reason to stay in bed a little longer.  Lie in and listen to the scrape-scrape of metal shovels against icy flagstone front steps in the dead of winter.  Listen to the sweet birdsong of spring through open windows.  Listen to the tipsy banter of a neighbor’s gone-way-too-late summer backyard soiree.  Listen to rustle of dry fall leaves and the revving-up of leaf-blowers.  Listen to the soft whirring of the motors of those oversized blow-up Christmas lawn decor balloons, only a true outer-borougher could love/tolerate/encourage.  And here we are again, listening to the chained wheels of the snowplow barreling down the slushy street. 

Over the past fourteen months, we were all telling each other to get out and have your voices heard, scream louder than the next guy, shout it from the rooftops!  And beneath much of the noise was anger, and beneath the anger is fear, and beneath the fear is misunderstanding and mistrust, and beneath all that is our inability to be united and collective, and which leaves only the capacity for self-interest and single-mindedness. 

So for 2018, let’s try to stop out-talking each other, out sound-biting each other, out-raging each other and just listen.  Listen to your neighbors, Listen to the change of the seasons.  Listen to the world outside your own echo chamber.  Listen to the sound of someone else's voice, and the emotions buried within.  Listen to what’s being said, and especially to what’s not being said.  Let’s listen to each other, and therein, we can be heard.  

Bottom of the Ninth

Last Wednesday I did something I never typically do, and watched the World Series even though it had zero Mets representation.  I was even rooting for one side, Chicago, on the sole basis of their 108-year drought of Championship titles.  I couldn’t tell you one Cubs player, one Cubs coach and I kept second guessing myself as to which team was on the National League (Cubs) and which was on the American League (Indians).  But I felt in this match-up of World Series-starved teams, Chicago was in greater need of the win.  And in a series down 3-1, they were the underdogs of all underdogs. 

Game 7 was good baseball.  Chicago was first to score, but then it was tied, and Chicago pulled ahead, and Cleveland tied it up again.  The momentum moved from the Cubs to the Indians to the Cubs to the Indians and then back to the Cubs.  It pulled me in.  It put this die-hard second-generation Mets fan’s love of all things Blue and Orange allegiance to the side, and let me be enraptured by my love for the sport, my love of the game.

Honestly, for America ex-Chicago and ex-Cleveland, I don’t think it mattered who won this battle.  Only 37 seasons in the 112 years of modern World Series Championships have come down to such a close call with a game 7 winner-take-all scenarios.  Neither team was the incumbent champion.  The last time Cleveland won the World Series, Truman was president.  The last time the Cubs won the Fall Classic, Teddy Roosevelt was president, women didn’t have the right to vote and the Ford Model T was all the rage.  Both teams were due, but it would take seven games, and extra innings to name the winner.  It was a tight, close race. 

While watching game 7 on live television, I was abruptly shaken from my love-of-baseball euphoria by ads for Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump during the commercial breaks.  And not because of the content of the ads, this campaign has been going on long enough, but I was surprised there actually were ads at all.  Excuse my lack of media-buying knowledge, I’m not sure if those commercials were aired here in New York specifically or if everyone across the country were seeing the same ads at the same time.  Because here in (down-state) New York, and in the Seventh Borough, we have made it to November without any real mass political solicitation by the presidential candidates.  The local races are advertising like crazy, but Hillary and The Donald have sent me zero mail.  Typical for national elections, I’m paid no mind. I’m not a political donor, I sway no constituencies, I’m from an undeniably ‘Blue’ state, I’m ignored from Day 1. 

As this blog began in 2013, this is the Seventh Borough News’ first presidential election cycle, so here is where we get to be un-ignored.  The election of 2016 has proved to be a tight, close race, especially as we wind up the last 48 hours of this mudslinger. 

  Like many of you, I cannot wait for this race to be over, but unlike the World Series (+/- Cleveland and Chicago), it does matter who wins this battle.   And unlike the World Series, which brought fans and fans of other teams, like myself, together, hopeful for an elusive champion, this election has been divisive and full of anger.  And the anger has turned into rage.  And the rage has brought all our demons to the fore.  And all the world is watching us become a worse version of ourselves.  We’re basically a 240-year-old having a temper tantrum.

I may not be a political hack, but I am a mother of two young children, so I’m well versed in temper tantrums.  Notably, they can sometimes be avoidable.  If the child (or the country) has their needs met, sufficient food, rest, comfort and stimulation, you can typically avoid the meltdown.  This is not always in your control, sometimes you get behind schedule, or you forget the diaper bag in the car, or you leave a favorite stuffed animal behind in a hotel room in Pennsylvania, and the world comes to an end on the Jersey turnpike.  Nobody’s perfect, but we can anticipate the needs of our charges and act.

The United States of America is basically having a meltdown because the republic is angry.  Our basic needs are not being met.  Our wages are stagnant, yet healthcare costs and higher education costs are growing exponentially.  Last week was open enrollment for our 2017 benefits at work, and as I clicked the link to the medical insurance premium data, I read the computer screen through squinted eyes and held my breath to see how much the increases would be for a family of four.  I braced myself for bad news. I got through it.  People are working harder and longer for less benefit, if they can even get the work they are seeking.  Certain segments of the country have been left behind.  On the Homefront, our security is at risk, and our protectors are also under threat.  Our infrastructure is rusting.  Our systems are dated.  Our Veterans go without.  Our population is changing.  Certain segments of the population are growing more marginalized.  Certain segments of the citizenry are getting wealthier and healthier and have all the right connections, while many others see no progress.  We’re not “Young, scrappy and hungry”, but rather bloated, disengaged and litigious (and that doesn’t make for good lyrics).  For the first time in maybe forever, there is a sentiment across the country that our children will NOT be better off than we are.  The American Dream is dying.

That work-hard-make-progress contract between the governed and the governors, which has steadily fueled this country for more than two centuries, is at risk of being voided.  Yet somewhere along this journey, we misinterpreted the signals.  We’ve accepted that a deterioration of the social contract has granted us permission to be a republic behaving badly.  Perhaps it’s due to the painfully slow ‘jobless recovery’ and the increasing threat of terrorism, greased by the ease and anonymity of social media account and internet posts, we’ve unleashed our latent racist, misogynistic and xenophobic tendencies for all the world to see.  Let’s be honest, America, many of us have never worked through our demons, we just manage to keep them under wraps in front of the company.   

This is disheartening, but what’s worse, is that this is mostly avoidable, so let’s avoid it.  We can do better.  We need to be good citizens and not raging haters.  We need our leaders to get out of their cozy camps and anticipate the needs of their charges, and act.  We need our leaders to work for the greater good, and not just themselves.  We need the public sector to be about public service.  We need the private sector to be accountable and involved.  We need a balance, not a collusion, between the two sectors.  The social contract needs to be repaired, re-written.  Our tool for redrafting this contract is our vote.                                                                                            

This is the paragraph where I tell you it’s all going to be okay.  I can’t write this paragraph convincingly, because I can’t even convince myself that it’s true.   

But I can tell you this – despite the 108 years between Cubs’ championships, they had no shortage of support.  The faith of the fans was always there.  They showed up.  If you believe we can do better, if you believe we deserve better, if you believe our children deserve better, then show up. 

Vote. 

"Do Not Throw Away Your Shot!"  (A.Ham)

On Your Own

“Why should a tiny island across the sea regulate the price of tea?”  Sings Alexander Hamilton in the musical, Hamilton.  And I think to myself, hmm the tables have turned.

So it’s the Fourth of July, and while everyone is grillin’ & chillin’ I’m at work with the rest of my department getting stuff done.  Working a holiday grants, us lunch on the firm’s tab, so some of the office guys are running a campaign to find a place on Seamless that is open and will deliver some good barbeque that we should all partake, otherwise it may be the Nathan’s food truck for hotdogs and a Coke.  Happy Independence Day. 

Full disclosure: the head office of my employer is based in London.  I work for a British company, so I guess I should take working on the Fourth of July as a given, no?  Fifteen years ago I basically had an internship visa to work in the United Kingdom from 2000-2001 and spent July 4^th, 2001 at work, getting teased by my British colleagues for hailing from a country founded by religious zealots.  This meme floating around the internet kind of summed up how that day had gone down:

Their jokes didn’t bother me much, this was a nation who fancied prawn-flavored potato chips and considers tuna and corn pizza toppings.  Their judgement was clearly unsound.

This 4^th of July, I wasn’t getting taunted by the Brits in the office.  Firstly, they were grossly outnumbered here in our Midtown location.  Also, our vending machines’ choice of potato chips was much more palatable, but mostly, the United Kingdom was still reeling from their own declaration of independence with their June 23^rd Brexit vote to leave the European Union just less than a fortnight ago.  The sentiment of that decision metastasized into a black cloud which had swiftly jetted across the Atlantic, and was clearly palpable in the office on June 24^th.  Arriving at the office in the few days after the vote felt like walking into a funeral home.  Honestly, I was hoping the ‘Remain’ campaign would eke out a victory, but to no avail, Great Britain basically told the EU and Brussels to piss off. 

Though I (an outsider with no vote) was in favor of the UK staying and stabilizing the EU, 52% of voters chose to leave the EU.  But I get it.  I do, I get it.

Well over 50 nations have separated from the United Kingdom, either by force or by negotiation or a bit of both, and the U.K. just wanted to have a slice of that feeling, to know what it’s like to be the one doing the breaking up, and not being the one left at the altar.  After the Colonial 13 were the first subjects of the Crown to break the seal and head for the door, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria, Pakistan, India, Iraq, Bahrain, Jordan, Egypt, Belize, Barbados, The Bahamas, Jamaica, Cyprus and (the Republic of) Ireland among others followed suit.  Many of which only obtained their independence in the last 100 years or so.  After a century of bleeding out territories, colonies and ‘subsidiaries’, the United Kingdom wanted its turn to say “Thanks, but no thanks”.  Feeling used and abused by the European Union, among other fears, rationales and factors, Britain decided to say “Adieu” and got their shot at being the dumper instead of the dumpee.  The geographical mapping of the votes to stay and leave looked something like this:

With the blue area wanting to leave the EU and the yellow area wanting to remain.

But I get it, I do.  I live in the United States of America.  Do you think all 50 states like each other?  Do we always get along?  No.  Doesn’t Texas think it’s its own entity from time to time?  Even Staten Island propositioned a secession vote from New York City.  Just two years ago Scotland held a vote to stay or leave the United Kingdom.  Scotland got itself off the brink and decided to stick it out with QE2 only to get sideswiped by the ‘blue states’ in the above picture. 

Within the next few days after the Brexit vote, the head office issued emails and memos to staff to the effect of “Dear Employees, Don’t Panic, um, that’s all we have for now”.  The Brexiters didn’t really have much of a plan put together in the event that they would actually win.  What is known, is that the UK may be in need of a new Prime Minister shortly and that there is roughly a two-year time period to actually withdraw from the EU.  And that the value of the UK’s currency, the Pound, has effectively taken a nose dive, and that affects me directly working in financial reporting for a US Dollar-denominated branch whose parent will be converting all our figures in to Pounds at a now-volatile exchange rate.  And so goes the question:

  

What comes next?

You’ve been freed

Do you know how hard it is to lead?

You’re on your own

Awesome.  Wow.

Do you have a clue what happens now?

Oceans rise

Empires fall

It’s much harder when it’s all your call

All alone, across the sea

-          “What Comes Next” from Hamilton

The Battle of Brooklyn

The truth is in ya face when ya hear the British cannons go

Boom!

Any hope of success is fleeting

How can I keep leading when the people I’m

Leading keep retreating?

We put a stop to the bleeding as the British take Brooklyn

Knight takes rook, but look

We are outgunned

Outmanned

Outnumbered

Outplanned

We gotta make an all out stand

Ayo, I’m gonna need a right-hand man

Incoming!

   -- "Right Hand Man", Hamilton, the Musical

In the summer of 1776, 32,000 British troops arrived in New York Harbor, making land fall on both banks of The Narrows, the narrow base of the Hudson River where Brooklyn and Staten Island are geographically closest to each other.  New York City, at the time, the second most populous city in the Colonial 13, only had about 25,000 residents.  The Red Coat presence would soon saturate the city.

The British and their soldier-for-hire Hessians generally broke into two groups, the first headed north, directly towards lower Manhattan (think: any modern-day express bus route into the city).   The second group swung out east then back west (think: like Kings Highway to Flatbush to Atlantic Avenue, or probably the worst possible route into the city, every day of the week) though it proved to be a highly effective flanking strategy on behalf of the Red Coats.  The Continentals suffered mass casualties in the present-day neighborhoods of Cobble Hill, Brooklyn Heights, and in Green-Wood Cemetery, among other locales.  Retreating and running out of Brooklyn terra firma, General Washington and company found themselves pinned against the East River and fled to lower Manhattan by boat under the timely cover of late summer fog. 

The Battle of Brooklyn, or more commonly known as the Battle of Long Island, by less Brooklyn-centric folks, was a major loss for the fledgling Republic, but it was also a major military boo-boo by the Crown.  Ever the gentlemen officers, the Red Coats made the erroneous assumption that GW would be formally surrendering in the near-term.  Meanwhile, One-Dollar George, Virginia plantation owner, and his rag-tag armada got across the river in a New York Minute, and lived to fight another day. 

***

“I was born in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, in a hospital that overlooked the spot in 1776 where the British crossed from Staten Island before facing Washington in the Battle of Brooklyn.  On the other side of the hospital was Fort Hamilton…  My family lived on Brooklyn’s Marine Avenue until I was 3.  Then we moved in 1952 to Kew Gardens Hills in Queens…”

Except for the part about moving to Queens in 1952, Ron Chernow’s early life (as told to Marc Myers in the weekly “House Call” column of the Wall Street Journal) reads just like my own.  Mr. Chernow continues that he “…had a Washington and Hamilton connection from birth.”  He’s the author of six historical biographies, including “Alexander Hamilton,” adapted for the Broadway musical Hamilton.

I’d like to tell you that I’m a fan of Hamilton, but the truth is, I’m kind of obsessed, with the musical, not Alexander, per se.  Don’t get me wrong, growing up next to Fort Hamilton, an active U.S. Army Base and garrison on the Narrows was named after our “ten-dollar founding father without a father”, you get used to most things in the neighborhood bearing the Hamilton name.  In and around Bay Ridge, the Hamilton name has been attached to diners, dry cleaners, apartment buildings, restaurants, medical groups, physical therapy practices, the library, Fort Hamilton Parkway (roughly seventh avenue), Fort Hamilton High School (which debuted in this blog two years ago as the now Fed Chair, Janet Yellen’s, alma mater) and probably another dozen local establishments.  But the Fort that bears his name wasn’t actually named after A.Ham until the early 20^th Century, as it went through another round of structural reinforcements between World Wars.

So you grow up with this general, albeit distant, affiliation or familiarity with this historical figure and these historical events, maybe you even have your newly-minted husband (who works at the bank A.Ham founded in 1784) and his groomsmen pose for some wedding photos by one of these old garrison cannons,

And then a musical about all this stuff comes to the fore, and how do you not get obsessed?  Not to mention the music and lyrics are smart, fresh, clever, poetic and impactful.  I’m not going to venture to be a theater critic here, I haven’t even seen the play.  I think tickets at non-astronomical prices are sold out until like 2020.  But I broke with my own tradition of not buying musical soundtracks until I have seen the musical in person, kind of giving in that I won’t be seeing this one for a long time.  Given Hamilton’s great renown and ability to pick up Tony Awards like Michael Phelps cleans up at the Olympics, and my own geographical affiliation to all things Hamiltonian, I had to give it a try, sight unseen.  And I was hooked.

I was playing the music on my phone all the time.  The Hamilton soundtrack would become my personal theme music as I get through this rough July workload and my new yuuuuuge reporting deliverables at work.  But what makes this song book so relevant is this:  the story, the setting and the characters of the forging of the American Experiment is our national legend, American mythology part 1.  We all know the story, or at least versions of it, and for all of its growing pains, we like this story because it reminds us that we kind of got this nation started on the right foot.  And nothing could be more reassuring in an election year where we seem so far off course.