After realizing I had not blogged once in all of 2022, I planned over Christmas to write up a year-end piece on the year's events that should've motivated me to the keyboard. But then I got locked out of my apartment on Christmas Day night.
Sorry for the delay. I may get around to telling that story, but first:
Among the missing posts:
- my frustration before the year even began - December 2021. After having carefully avoided Covid because I'm among the 3% of Americans considered immunocompromised, I risked seeing my now-remote CNN colleagues in-person for the first time in 21 months -- and tested positive the next day, rushing to the ER for Regeneron - which turned out to be ineffective vs. Omicron.
- my misery in then having to spend my two-week Xmas break quarantining from my partner in our apartment, having to skip my uncle's funeral, and then, trying to make it to the family cemetery for the interment, having the Uber driver get so lost on the way that we missed all but the last farewells.
Finally arriving at Mount Hebron Cemetery
- my reflections on visiting the buildings at 2 Broadway and 14 Wall Street where my father had his law offices before moving them up to the burbs, memories of accompanying him to work on Saturdays to match the schedule of his workaholic father/boss - part of why my brothers and I never followed him into the family business.
14 Wall Street's pyramid roof/my brother Matt (who became a school superintendent)
- my disappointment at the ongoing suspension of the Central Park volunteer tour guide program, for which I had just been certified on a second tour, the Ramble, when the pandemic hit in mid March 2020. I attempted to stay informed by taking more tours from the staff guides...
The Block House, built for the war of 1812, North Woods
...being a "greeter" at Belvedere Castle, while also still...
...giving unofficial tours to friends.
The Bow Bridge, Lake, & Dakota, 1890 & 2022 (photo: John Williams)
- my relief in finally getting an Evusheld shot in March, finally giving me measurable Covid antibodies because the vaccines hadn't worked on my immunosuppressed system (now moot because Evusheld doesn't work against the latest variants, and has been discontinued).
- my sneaky satisfaction in returning in February, masked, to nearly empty museums on weekdays before the city had fully gotten back to full throttle.
MoMA and the Met, February 2022
- the crazy coincidence discovery by my older daughter, while working for New Yorker writer John Seabrook, that my great-uncle (her great-great-uncle) had been involved in the reorganization of Seabrook's grandfather's company in 1925.
- the bittersweetness of finally getting to attend a memorial service for our friend, the legendary music genius Hal Willner, whose wife Sheila had been my pal since Rolling Stone days, and who tragically died in the first weeks of Covid - with tender tribute performances by many including Bono, Elvis Costello, and the normally reclusive Michael Stipe and Tom Waits. R.I.P.
- my risible fury with the crazy Covid rental car/employee shortage -
As a general-interest reporter, you have to cram knowledge and then discard it to make room for the next story, and you have to move on.
But at a book reading in Greenwich Village last night, I was bracingly reminded why some stories you do just matter more, and stick to your guts. Most of my tenure was spent covering pop culture, which certainly is important to a lot of people, but is rarely life-or death.
Not so this story.
My first meeting & demonstration
I just dug up a paper pocket calendar to find the date - November 6, 1989 - (right) that I first attended a weekly meeting of ACT UP - the AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power - which had formed in March 1987.
I had been assigned to write a longform piece by Rolling Stone. I think one of my editors, Susan Murcko, had brought in a clipping about the group from the Village Voice. Or maybe the Times.
I wanted to suss out who was who and what was what, and the best way was to attend the open, democratic, freewheeling, sometimes fractious, often cruise-y Monday night forum at New York's Gay & Lesbian Community Center at 208 West 13th Street. It was run by "facilitators" and everything was decided by majority vote, after kicking off with the request that any undercover cops identify themselves (none ever did).
The facilitator, Ann Northrop - a lesbian former debutante and TV news producer - described ACT UP to those in attendance as "a diverse, nonpartisan group of individuals united in anger and committed to direct action to end the AIDS crisis."
All true.
A few weeks earlier, in September, seven members of ACT UP had donned fake IDs and worn suits to infiltrate the New York Stock Exchange, chaining themselves to the VIP balcony and unveiling a banner saying "SELL WELLCOME," a reference to the pharma company Burroughs Wellcome which made the only approved AIDS drug at the time, and had priced it at $10,000 per patient per year. Meanwhile compariots outside staged a "die-in" blocking traffic. Many traders angrily screamed things like 'Die, faggots!' and 'Mace them!'
Wall Street, Sept. 1989
But a few days later, Wellcome lowered the price of its drug by more than a third.
This -- was impressive.
It turned out that the leader of that action, Peter Staley, knew what would be impactful because he had worked on Wall Street as a closeted gay man and had been participating in ACT UP secretly until his t-cell count got so low that he quit to become a full-time activist.
Staley was exactly my age - 28 - charismatic, impassioned, articulate - and in the fight of, and for, his life.
Just two days later, I attended my first demonstration, and my story was off and running.
A month later, I was with ACT UP inside St. Patrick's Day Cathedral for their choreographed "Stop The Church" interruption of mass led by Cardinal John J. O'Connor, who had opposed teaching of safe sex in schools and condom distribution. 4500 protesters showed up outside, and 111 were arrested.
The impact got muddied when, during communion, a renegade member threw a wafer angrily to the ground, which enabled critics - and President George H.W. Bush - to say they'd gone too far. But they of course got more publicity for it.
As I continued to report, I naturally found myself focusing on individuals -- most of them leaders, like co-founder playwright Larry Kramer, Staley, and Northrop, and Mark Harrington and Jim Eigo of the "Treatment and Data" committee, who were monitoring the status of medications and trials.
But I also found interesting Natasha Gray, a 25-year-old Bryn Mawr grad who hadn't known anyone with AIDS, who had gotten involved through the issue of housing for the homeless, many of whom were now becoming infected. Gray talked to me both about how empowering the group was in terms of self-education, but also about how she now was dreading losing her new friends to the illness. I decided to include her as a point of entry for readers like her.
Fauci
I also interviewed the NIH's Dr. Anthony Fauci, who
In pre-pandemic times I prided myself on living a pretty hyperthyroid cultural and social NYC life - perhaps justifying to myself why I would choose to live in the city of hardship, by taking advantage of the upsides even as I never escaped the feeling of FOMO. Would I ever get to DiFara's again before the old guy making the pizza dies? That touted big MOMA show that's closing next weekend?
Looking back at my calendar for January and February 2020, I can't believe our pace. And how much of it happened to be celebrating our friends' work.
But by the Ides of March, I would be tormented about whether to even attend my best friend's wedding.
In the weeks leading up to pandemic panic, we had enjoyed Courtney Barnett concert at Levon Helm's Woodstock Barn. Painter Nicole Wittenberg's gallery opening. Two or three plays a week, including Ruth Negga at Hamlet at St. Ann's, Erik Jensen and Jessica Blank's Coal Country at the Public, a long-gestating oral history of a coal mining disaster with live music by Steve Earle (that my daughter had helped transcribe some interviews for). Syd's college classmate Blair Underwood tearing up A Soldier's Play on Broadway.
Then there were readings -- Cathy Park Hong's Minor Feelings at Books are Magic, Rebecca Traister interviewing Peggy Orenstein about Boys & Sex at the Strand, playwright Brooke Berman's screenplay reading in a theater basement, an ACT UP gathering in Brooklyn, a Columbia writing class taught by Sam Freedman with guest Min Jin Lee.
More: A meal in a tiny midtown Italian joint with my octagenarian aunt and uncle. Popping in to a gallery to witness Patrik Graham live-drop a soft clay bust of his head to make his flattened art for a school fundraiser. Practicing my latest volunteer tour of Central Park on some patient friends.
As March hit, this pace didn't exactly come to a screeching halt -- more like a creeping horror movie one. These adventures, as well as more mundane, everyday activities that I took for granted -- sitting with an editor in a bay at CNN (hell, going in to the offices at CNN) -- meeting a friend at a coffee shop -- riding a subway train -- gradually had an underlying drumbeat of fear that grew louder and louder.
The star of Jagged Little Pill who we didn't see. 3/4/20
Looking back, my first conscious awareness of the shift was Wednesday, March 4 - what turned out to be our last Broadway show, Jagged Little Pill. We sat cheek by jowl in the packed house, but Syd brought hand sanitizer. We saw an understudy for the the lead actress, Elizabeth Marshall - her first missed performance of the run -- which is always exciting, because you can feel the cast supporting the understudy - -but Marshall would later hypothesize that she had the coronavirus. (A week later, the show, like most plays, would be forced to shutter.)
The Plot Against America panel, 92nd St. Y. 3/6/20
Two nights later, we attended a premiere screening of HBO's The Plot Against America at the 92nd St. Y with creator David Simon and stars John Turturro, Winona Ryder, and Morgan Spector. More signs of the new abnormal. Co-star Zoe Kazan had stayed in California instead of getting on a plane. The meet and greet with the cast in the lobby after was cancelled. We sat near the back.
When a person coughed, the whole room turned and stared.
The following Monday, more creeping caution. I took and passed my Central Park Ramble Tour test - but instead of shaking hands with my proctors, we rubbed elbows, semi-ironically.
That night we had a dinner party with two couples we had wanted to introduce to each other. Nobody was masked -- they hadn't warned us to do so yet. We all half-joked if this was the last time we'd get to do so for a while.
Little did we know.
Tenement Museum tour, 3/10/20
The next day I took a Tenement Museum walking tour of the Lower East Side. The participants stayed socially distanced.
Then I met a friend in town from Nashville for lunch. We had planned to go to Katz's Deli, but that seemed like it would be thronged, including many out-of-towners - at this point the warnings were about the virus coming in via planes and boats, remember? -- so we opted for a small place.
The waiter wore a mask. When he offered to grate parmesan on my pasta, I remember hesitating -- was his hand going to give me the illness?
That would be my last meal in a restaurant to date.
Then came Friday the 13th. (I know!)
I wore a suit to CNN that day for the first time, because I planned to go right to the Brooklyn wedding of my college roommate/bestie - his third time. The first marriage had ended in divorce, the second with the tragic cancer death of his wife. I wanted to be there for him and his three kids, but also, for his wife, who is in her 50s and for whom this was a first wedding. I didn't want her to feel the night was cursed or wasn't worth celebrating.
Syd demurred shlepping all the way from Harlem and back and I couldn't argue with her. I was happy that my subway car was fairly empty, and sent her a selfie as reassurance. (I now see some panic in my face.)
But after arriving at the venue, I sanitized repeatedly, stayed away from strangers. I participated in the ceremony by reading something and applauding from the front row, I was incredibly moved - from the back of the room - by the newly united family's group hug -- and I skedaddled before the meal was served.
On my walk back to the subway, I ran into a former co-worker from ABC news jogging with her dog. We hadn't seen each other in years. We bumped elbows.
That kind of random encounter, too, would become nearly non-existent for the next year.
The next day would be my last in the office for the rest of the year (and more). I was issued a "work from home laptop." I haven't been back since. The job has been doable remotely, thankfully we had worked together long enough that we knew the drill. (I can't work in person with an editor any more, though so there's a lot of additional back and forth via email.) I don't get to be in the control room during the show, so there are a lot of texts, phone calls, emails, and ragged nerves.
Our past life has turned into Zoom simulacra: video with family instead of birthday and holiday gatherings (even college graduations). Virtual catch-ups with friends instead of dinners or flying to see them. Video "plays" instead of being in an audience. Many anticipated events have been cancelled or postponed. (Elton John's farewell concert from 2020 pushed to 2022! Stay healthy, Reg!)
So I was happy to qualify for a vaccine (I have a "co-morbidity," suddenly an asset) this week, though there are some questions about whether it will take because of some meds I'm on.
Will it be the last time? Or will we end up needing shots every year? Will we be able to gather in groups without the cloud of suspicion and fear?
One thing I know that the Year of Living Covidly has taught me: there were times a year ago that I thought I might be doing too much, because I feared it all might blur together.
If not the illness itself, then the whittled-down existence it has demanded?
I have a suggestion. It's been my security blanket most nights, after Anderson Cooper and Rachel Maddow rile me up.
But first, let's be clear - I count myself among the lucky. Compared to my friend who lost a spouse, or others who lost parents, or who have wrestled the virus for weeks, some needing oxygenation. Or the suddenly unemployed, like my haircutter of 20 years. Or kids in their 20s who were just starting out, losing jobs and internships before they begin. Or our neighbors who are not just first responders but also have two elementary schoolers "learning from home."
I've got a partner (unlike some), and we're together in lockdown (unlike some), and we actually like each other (....). I've been able to still work from home since mid-March - which is also around the last time I saw my older daughter, who lives upriver, in person. I haven't seen her sister, an off-campus college senior in Ohio, since New Year's. Her commencement that was supposed to happen on Memorial Day has been pushed till May 2021; my plan to fetch her and her stuff is a non-starter because of quarantine + immuno-compromise issues.
So we've made do with Zooms, like this one on my birthday:
But still.
We haven't fled town, like 5% of the city - or 40% of wealthy neighborhoods,, per the NYTimes.
Thankfully we do have bikes, and masks (left), and Central Park nearby - though on weekends it's too full of feckless mask-less rebels.
There are other signs of the fraying of the social contract, loss of good will and tremors that NYC could be heading to one of those unpleasant economic craters. A bike has already been stolen from our building; in Baltimore, Wire creator David Simon tweeted that his car was broken into for "small change, phone charger and some Sister Rosetta Tharpe CDs."
But all my pre-COVID palliatives for this already-fraught era (see previous post) - museums, theater, music, giving volunteer tours of the Park - are shuttered.
Books have proved impossible, partly because of how much I have to read to stay au courant for my CNN gig. The news is too dark for me to lose myself in "dark and edgy" TV dramas. Podcasts are okay, but often turn into a nap.
We did take refuge in old movies on the Criterion Channel, and relished "What Do We Need To Talk About," the new one-hour Richard Nelson play about COVID lockdown, using characters he'd already written several plays about, which streamed live via the Public Theater.
I began to seek solace in other types of entertainment: compelling music documentaries like "The Devil and Daniel Johnston," "Searching for Sugarman," "Muscle Shoals," "Big Star" "Five Years" "A Great Day in Harlem" "Produced By George Martin" (and I'm looking forward to the new Beastie Boys one).
Or standup specials - like Mark Maron, Ronnie Chieng, Wanda Sykes, James Acaster, and the Dave Chapelle Mark Twain Prize special.
Or my cousin Ben's weekly silent comedy watch partywith his colleague Steve Massa, with Ben's live improvised music, for which his wife Mana is the camera operator and cheerleader.
But then I found a COVID-depression vaccine that combined elements of all of the above in one package, plus the much-needed sense of belonging to a family. I am one of 1200-1500 or so "clients," as we've been dubbed, who tune in live to the hour-long, five-nights-a-week "The Tweedy Show," broadcast on Instagram from the Chicago home of Wilco frontman Jeff Tweedy.
You don't have to be a Deadhead-level Wilco fanatic like myself - or, indeed, even familiar with the band's repertoire at all - to find comfort, entertainment, humor, and more in the impromptu mix of song,tummeling and family banter.
The show is literally homemade, from their living room, 10-11pm ET, on his wife Susie's Instagram page, "Stuff in Our House" whose pre-COVID function had been to chronicle the eBay-volume of kitsch lining their shelves, leading you to wonder where Jeff has room for his extensive collection of Martin guitars.
I've always been enamored of Tweedy's deadpan I-care-but-I-don't-but-maybe-I-do stage banter; I actually long ago wrote a part for him in a spec pilot, as a semi-motivational graduation speaker.
Tweedy's emphasis on family, music and fun is clear in the band's whole vibe, especially its bi-annual Solid Sound Festival at Mass MOCA, a fusion of bands who inspired them, bands they want fans to know about, solo projects, comedians and art.
But putting on 50 of these Instagram shows in a few months - more than most network shows produce in a season - and keeping them charming, distinct, and compelling, turns out to be a different kind of impressive production.
Especially considering it seems to have begun on something of a bored whim in mid-March, when an unkempt Jeff decided to stage a lockdown show literally from his nightly bath, and 107 of Susie's followers tripped across it and kept watching. The family couldn't believe that many were interested.
They eventually developed a nightly pattern. At first the show began with a closeup of the family jukebox playing a 45, but - after what seems to have been some music rights issues with Instagram - now it kicks off with a TV-style variety show theme song - and logo honoring the bathtub origins. (note: I updated the video using show 53's intro to include the animation and Spencer-dance).
Susie is the (iPhone) camerawoman, never seen - a la Charlie in Charlie's Angels or Carlton the Doorman on The Mary Tyler Moore Show - but very continuously heard; she curses like a sailor, and her most common utterance is "Oy Vey." If she ever coughs, she has to immediately insist to her father that she's not sick. The one time she accidentally hit the reverse button on the phone and wound up on camera she got so freaked out she threw the phone to the couch like a hot potato.
The cast is rounded out by their two laidback sons. Spencer, 24, an extraordinarily versatile drummer, has been playing since he was a kid -- see this Errol Morris-directed Quaker Oats ad - and made a double album with Jeff in 2014 when Susie was undergoing cancer treatment, named after her: Sukirae (right).
And Sammy, just 20, who at some point will amble out from the unseen part of the house, maybe heating up a pizza, wearing either one of Dad's old shirts or one of an endless t-shirt collection, only to quietly steal the show with his plaintive vocals as he reads lyrics off his iPhone. Here he is singing Daniel Johnston's "True Love Will Find You in the End."
