May 21, 2013 - Patterson, New Jersey. I am dogged each year - Spring and Fall - by NPR Membership Drives. It is a constant refrain as I drive across America.... I've meticulously timed these trips to coincide with guilt triggers. Every year has been the same. I once belonged to five different public radio stations - I still am with three (my two local stations and Sitka's) and occasionally send funds to others.... Driven by guilt, manifested by those begging us for cash so they can tell us perhaps the most honest version of the news. Begging for truth, it seems.
I spent one of those "After Hours" nights in New York with my friend Tara last night. Popping from the East Side, down to SoHo, up to the East Village, back to Midtown for a breakfast pizza and the end of a nine hour conversation about age and health, purpose and passion. The best kind of conversations that are punctuated by the characters that slip in and out of conversations - whether people or places. New York is timeless and even on a Monday night never sleeps.
Tara is in New York to care for her 92 year old Grandmother - an unheralded New York icon. For decades this New Yorker has collected signature of the tabloid famous... from Michael Jackson to Ewan MacGregor from Frank Sinatra to Snoop Dog (who recently gave her a shout out on Conan). Some people drop names - she has them, thousands of them. A patchwork that illustrates a city inexorably tied to the spotlight, and she always just outside of it - but known by them all. Its a beautiful story of timelessness and mortality teasing its way out.
New York City is filled with these stories, but it is now in my rear view mirror as I cheat Mayor Bloomberg out of $12 tolls by leaving town the long way round....