In 1989, the first Angelika Theater was opened by film producers Joseph and Angelika Saleh. They went on to open other Angelikas across the country. It was exciting to have a new downtown movie theater devoted to independent films. Over time, the theater became a downtown staple. A few other independent theaters opened and unfortunately closed, but the Angelika has remained.

The screening rooms were certainly of that era. The seats aren’t that big, and there isn’t enough pitch, so I find myself tilting my head to see the film, depending on how tall the person in front of me is. The theater is situated right over the subway, so depending on the hour, you can hear the trains rumble during the movie. I had hoped they would fix the seating during COVID, when nothing was open, but no.

Upstairs, there is an open cafe where you can sit and have a coffee and a sweet before you enter the film. Once the queue begins, about 20 minutes before the film starts, you can take the escalator down to six subterranean theaters and a popcorn stand. It used to be a rush to grab a seat, but now you can reserve one, which changes the game in some ways. The bad news is many people show up after the previews when the lights are down, and I find it insanely rude.

Besides the subway noise, which can be a detractor but is very NYC, the theater has gone downhill. My sister refuses to see a film there. One escalator hasn’t worked in years, and now neither does. I asked about it, and they said they don’t make these escalators anymore, so it is hard to get the parts. Hmm. Perhaps rip it out and put in a new one? Also, the popcorn stand doesn’t take Apple Pay, so if you don’t have cash or a credit card, you are screwed.

We went to see My Mother, My Mother, My Mother this past weekend (I would not recommend this film), and they have added a new feature. Since none of the escalators work, everyone is routed to the stairs, and now 4 security guards stand there and scan you in for our “safety.” We have now come to the point where you can’t go to a movie without security scanning happening at the door? Is it really necessary? I’d like to see the data on that.

The entire experience from not being able to get water or popcorn (no Apple Pay and I only had my phone), to both escalators out of commission (serious eyesore), and the security guards hanging out with their scanners in hand, we both decided to join my sister in the ban of the Angelika. It is unfortunate because films come there that nobody else has for short runs, or even first openings, but the entire experience is awful.

Going to the theater should be a joy, and the Angelika just makes it suck. Theaters are cultural experiences meant to entertain, but all they have done is make the experience joyless for consumers. Sigh.

Nothing else is like autumn in NYC. So much to do and not enough time. This is a photo dump of the last six weeks. Our first activity was out of NYC. We went away for a few days with friends to Clayoquot Wilderness Lodge. A place so beautiful that it doesn’t feel real. We were lucky and had fabulous weather. We hiked, we saw bears, whales, caught fish and relaxed.

On the way back, we spent a night in Vancouver, had a fantastic sushi dinner, and spent the morning at the Vancouver Art Gallery before heading home.

Another weekend out of the city, in Ann Arbor, and I am still thinking about the Reuben at Zingerman’s.

I went to the MET to see the Krasner Pollock show. Get there before it closes. These two people met as young, emerging artists creating incredible original work that was essential to the Abstract Expressionism movement. Pollock eclipsed Krasner, but after seeing the installation, Krasner should have eclipsed Pollock.

We’re heading east to the Hamptons Film Festival for the first time. The show above might have been one of my favorites. I hope it gets picked up, as they do not make movies like this anymore.

We went to Noury twice and will keep going back and back and back.

I had a big birthday, and we also had a grandchild! Our first.

We got to take care of Romo, the dog, during that time. Love him.

I cooked up a storm to make sure recovery comes with nutritious food.

Had a pedi/mani with the cutest dog.

Went to Ayada Thai for dinner and sticky mango rice. One of my favorite desserts.

We went to the Whitney to see the Lichtenstein exhibit. I am a huge fan. When I went to school in London during my junior year, I saw a Lichtenstein exhibit at the old Tate Museum. I was blown away. I did not know art could be this. I went back a few times.

And last, but certainly not least, we went to Pastis for one of the city’s best Niçoise salads

More to come.

I love a good documentary. I watched Teenage Wasteland on Netflix the other night. I am still thinking about it.

This 90-minute documentary follows English teacher Fred Isseks, who has free rein over the curriculum in his elective English class. He created a class called Electronic English, teaching kids to make content instead of just watching it. He taught at a high school in Middletown, NY.

He first lets the kids play around with making films, since it was 1991 and iPhones and compact cameras weren’t available yet. It was fun to watch something new that has become an everyday tool. He eventually steers the kids to do research, as journalists, on the river they live on, which has become a toxic wasteland.

This exercise impacted all the students, as they are part of the film made this year, 2026, which looks back at old footage and tells us about their lives today. What did they learn from all this, except that they could have a career they never imagined, that the government is corrupt, that all the deals seem to get done in the back room, and that they do not really watch out for their citizens but for the large corporations that keep America humming, even though they might be poisoning the people who put them in office.

As of 2025, the toxic wasteland is still being fined for countless violations. Nobody has ever been held accountable. A worthy watch.

The WNBA began in June 1997. We began going to the Liberty games in 1999, the year we moved back to NYC from the burbs. There were not that many fans then, but that has changed. What also changed is the game. The players’ physical prowess is on a whole other level than it was in 1999. It is so fun to watch.

We went to a Liberty game the other night. The fans are tried and true. They all know the cadence of the game; they all twirl the white flags over their heads, and the noise is deafening. It’s so good.

There are so many highlights, but I will name a few. The food is much better than the Garden. Security is a breeze in comparison, too. It is a very seamless experience although the history of the Garden is deep, the experience at the Barclays center might be better.

One highlight is halftime, as it should be. Instead of watching a curated dance from a group of female dancers wearing nothing more than bathing suits, I give serious applause to the Timeless Torches, alongside Ellie the Elephant. The Timeless Torches are a group of dancers aged 40 to 89; their jerseys show their age. They wear Timeless Torches oversized jerseys with matching sweatpants. It is a great look, and watching them is inspiring. They can dance, and they are so happy.

I also had a NY moment. I sat next to a woman who played at Northeastern, one of the first recipients of Title IX, and got a full ride while playing ball. She has attended every Liberty game for 29 years and has worked with some of the women’s coaches on the side over the years. She just retired from Cantor Fitzgerald and was fired the day before 9/11. That was a lot to take as a young person. She was quite amazing.

Looking forward to more Liberty games in our future.

Life is a journey. The people I’ve met, the relationships I’ve built, the love I’ve given and received, the roads I’ve taken, the listening I’ve done, the learning I’ve done, the grief and trauma I’ve experienced, the companies I have built, touched, and am building, the parties I’ve loved, the traveling I’ve done, and the children I’ve raised.

For the past month, I have been thinking about all of these things, especially since we are about to become first-time grandparents. I loved raising our kids, and it is exciting that we will have a new member in the family. I was excited when a new dog came on the scene.

One of my dearest friends sent me this Sylvia Plath quote above. It resonated with me. I have such a hunger for countless things. I have a voracious appetite for curiosity. Age is a funny thing; my appetite hasn’t subsided, but I have become more aware that my eyes are bigger than my stomach. Age does slow you down, or maybe I am enjoying my downtime more, and that is probably good for staying healthy too. I am focused on fewer things, and I am really good at saying no. That takes years to learn.

In my head, I am still around 35. I am not sure that will ever change, and I hope it doesn’t. I am a bit like an Energizer Bunny. Although there are certainly days when I look in the mirror and see the reality of my age, that doesn’t stop me; it just makes me laugh. Truth is, I am so excited for the year ahead and the new journeys I will take, just like I have been for the last 65 years.

I spent 1-3rd grade in Ann Arbor. My parents were emotionally damaged humans who didn’t work very hard to avoid transferring that to all three of us. Going back there with my three siblings this past weekend was cathartic. Although I am the oldest and have the best recall, we still took quite a trip down memory lane.

Ann Arbor is an idyllic place to raise a family and go to college. The city enforces strict local preservation rules in 15 historic districts that include interior restrictions, one of the first in the nation to do this in residential areas. The population is 125,000, rising to 350,000 when you include surrounding areas. They have kept the place’s integrity; the architecture’s long-ago vibe keeps a neighborhood groove that feels good. That works really well in a state where everyone couldn’t be nicer. We had countless random conversations with people.

We returned to the house we lived in, including the apartment we had lived in before moving there. We were living in sunny Bel Air, Los Angeles, before moving to MI. My Mom was definitely not happy. Why we left Michigan has become hazy. Did my father not make the tenure track because he behaved so badly (not shocking), but that’s a tough one in academia, or did my Mom say this is not working for me? Who knows, but after 3rd grade ended, we left and went to live in Arlington, VA, before settling (literally, as it was rural suburbia back then) in Potomac, MD.

I went to Burns Park Elementary, which is three blocks from our house. The grounds are incredible. There is a big hill, which I remember sledding on. A brick building at the edge of this expansive park used to operate the ice rink, which we were told closed a few years ago. Memories come rushing back.

I never wanted to go to a big school, even though my Mom was sure I wouldn’t get into any, so why go deep? I applied to two schools: one safe school, Maryland, and Simmons College. My dad asked the head of admissions why they accepted me, but I went anyway. (Zingerman’s sandwich photo above – a must-stop institution)

We used to go apple picking and then return to Dexter Cider Mill for donuts and cider as kids. We learned that apple picking was on other farms around the area, but Dexter Cider Mill was the place for the goodies. I love a good caramel apple covered with peanuts.

We went to a farmers market and saw products we remembered from that time. Landjäger sausage and lemon drops (now I know where to buy them).

The all-day parties on Saturday, tailgating before the big football game, are like nothing I have ever experienced. It is a lot to take in, but I’m so glad I got to do it once. I also did not get the two memos: one about wearing Michigan swag and/or do not bring a bag. The stadium is large enough to almost fit most of Ann Arbor proper which is why the whole town gets into the football games!

And the weather was perfect. We couldn’t have asked for better weather. That early fall warm weather, with the crispness in the air. It is so good. If things had turned out differently, I would have been raised in Ann Arbor. Do they have an app for that yet?

The Highrise (round 2) should be an amazing event. There is so much chatter happening right now in the cannabis industry around rescheduling, federalization, profitability, price compression, and more. Even if you are curious about the industry or considering investing in it, this is the conference for you.

I hope to see you there!

How much longer can the costs keep going up? The numbers tell the story. Colleges cost $500m a year; most of the graduates will never be able to pay that back, and starting your life with that kind of debt, and the interest the government collects on each loan, is oppressive. The rents don’t compute with salaries. Basic needs are skyrocketing. The divide between the haves and have-nots has become a growing abyss. Look around, and you can start to see the cracks. The worst part is that we are all getting a glimpse of how government runs things, and it’s insanely disturbing.

Small signs everywhere show the economy is shifting, and some of the biggest names in retail are feeling it first. Luxury brands are rethinking how many stores they really need. Starbucks just announced a huge round of closings. Acme has shuttered a few locations too. These aren’t small, struggling shops. These are household names, and they’re pulling back, and I believe we will see more after the fourth quarter.

When the luxury closings come, and they will, they’ll leave a massive mess in their wake. Nowhere will feel it more than the smaller destination towns that have come to depend on them. We all know how grim it is because COVID did a number on us with its own set of closures. What if all the big brands just close up and leave, and pay out the lease? Many of the secondary towns- not necessarily Madison Avenue- will be a strip of endless empty storefronts and expensive real estate that no one can afford to fill. It will be very interesting to see what happens to those places, and who steps in, if anyone, to force market change. Zohran, whether you like him or not, is at least trying to create a more equitable city.

On the other hand, there’s AI. For years, big companies have charged the same premium prices for their services: lawyers, advertising agencies, consultants, cable, all the costly expertise that businesses were told they couldn’t live without. Each of these businesses wants to do what it does: give advice and write documents, create new campaigns, and let you connect to content. But as a small business owner, or even just as a consumer, you can now look at a lot of those bills and say, “You know what? I don’t need to pay for that anymore.” Work that used to require an expensive firm can increasingly be done faster, cheaper, and in-house. That’s a massive shift, and it’s already happening.

Put those two trends together, and you get something remarkable: the power is moving back to where it always should have been, in the hands of the consumer. Consumers are deciding which stores deserve to stay open. They’re deciding which services are worth paying for. They’re choosing with their wallets, and they have more options than ever.

So here’s my advice to every business, big or small, including our own: listen to the consumer. Listen to what they’re telling you. Watch what they actually do. Because they’re the ones holding the cards now. Everything is about to change. The businesses that pay attention will be the ones still standing when it does.

For centuries, the bar has been one of the great public spaces. It’s where people go to get out of the house, meet their neighbors, have a meal, find some company, get the local gossip, or just be among people. Each town has one, or maybe a dozen, where the same community keeps returning to interact with the world.

I worked at a place one summer where all the men got their paychecks on Friday and headed off to the local pub. Factory workers clocked out and headed straight there to unwind with friends. Deals got made, friendships got forged, and plenty of life happened over a beer, a scotch, and a martini. But let’s be honest about what everyone was doing there. They were drinking.

Alcohol takes the edge off. It loosens tongues, making conversation easier. For some, it goes much further. Every bar has had its sots in the corner, completely out of their heads. Because alcohol, for all its charm, is a terrible, terrible drug. And yet we love it even though we know how evil it is for our bodies. If you have ever seen someone who has died of cirrhosis, you know. Or a kid who has drunk so much that their eyes roll back in their head and have to be rushed to the hospital to have their stomach pumped. Alcohol is everywhere. Walk into a bar or a restaurant, sit down, and what’s the very first question? “Can I get you something to drink?” Not “What would you like to eat?” The drink comes first. Always.

Today we are at the beginning of the cannabis revolution. Nobody knows how cannabis will be integrated into everything ten years from now, particularly in society, and we can’t forget the medical research, which is the most important. Cannabis is legal; it’s regulated; it’s sold in stores staffed by knowledgeable people, although it is not federally legal, which is mind-boggling. Yet in NY State, we still can’t open consumption lounges. So where does the cannabis community go for their local bar?

Think about what a bar actually sells. Sure, there’s alcohol. But there are also french fries, burgers, and, depending on the place, some excellent food. The idea that the bar was about community could be a bit of a chicken-and-egg situation. Did the men need a place to drink by themselves, be bad, and make deals, or did they want community? It is a bit of both. To me, it is all about community. The drink is the excuse; the people are the point.

Gotham is a community business. Our cannaseurs know the people who walk through our doors. They know their names, what they like, what’s going on in their lives, their dog’s name, and perhaps where they are traveling to and from. It reminds me of walking a dog in Manhattan. You pass the same people day after day, and the dogs mingle and play, and a conversation starts, and it might continue for a few months, or never happen again. You may never learn their names, but you know about their lives: who just had a baby, who’s training for a marathon, whose mother has been sick. My sister calls this the third tier of your life, and I love that. It’s not family, it’s not friends, it’s not work, it’s that essential in-between layer of connection. Everyone needs it. That’s exactly why bars matter. So why not for cannabis?

The cannabis community is full of wonderful people. Many of them don’t drink, or would simply rather consume something else. Why shouldn’t they have a place to gather with friends and consume, the same way drinkers have for hundreds of years? We held an event for the entire Gotham team the other night, and honestly, that’s all we did: we consumed together and had some delicious food. And it was fantastic. People talked, laughed, connected. Nobody was slumped in a corner. It was everything a good local spot should be.

Guarantee that when NYS finally allows a consumption lounge, there will be no food-related restrictions. I am sure the alcohol industry is not happy about the possibility of a consumption lounge, but eventually you will be able to go anywhere and do both, although it might take ten years. It will just take time because government leaders don’t want to make changes without lobbyists and unions, and I am praying AI will change all that through more community engagement. I am quite positive we will be stuck with another senseless rule and another frustration in an industry that already has plenty.

We’ve accepted for centuries that a community space can be built around a substance far more harmful than cannabis. It’s time to give our community the same courtesy. Open the lounges. Let us have our local spots.

Gotham and Cultivated launched the Highrise in hopes that the cannabis industry, along with others, could come together to discuss, listen, and think about our ever-growing industry. At our first event, we learned we were onto something. People want to have real in-person conversations about the countless issues that consume our industry, good and bad.

In a constantly changing industry, it is not easy to decide which topics to discuss, as if (and when) cannabis gets rescheduled, the conversations, decisions, and thought processes change. We are still discussing the kick-off of this event, as things move quickly yet slowly.

This event will focus on the biggest markets: California and New York. One is the largest and longest-running regulated market, and the other is the fastest-growing. We are waiting for confirmation from Clint Kellum, Director of California’s Department of Cannabis Control, who took the helm of the world’s largest legal market late last year, inheriting eight years of hard-won lessons on licensing, compliance, and the fight against the illicit market. Confirmed is John Kagia, the relatively new Executive Director of New York’s Office of Cannabis Management, steering a $3 billion-plus market through its first real test of maturity. Together, they oversee the two states that set the direction for legal cannabis nationwide. In a candid conversation with Cultivated’s Jeremy Berke, they’ll take on where the industry actually stands, what operators need to know right now, and where regulated markets go from here — rescheduling, hemp, interstate commerce, enforcement, and the future of the legal industry itself.

Wholesale prices are falling in every mature cannabis market, and New York is next. Brands are watching margins shrink, retailers are pushing for deeper discounts, and cultivators are choosing between scaling up, specializing, or getting out. This panel puts the full supply chain on one stage — the distributor with visibility across hundreds of brands, the cultivator running a farm at scale, brand operators fighting for shelf space, and the retail data behind it all — to ask where the floor lands, and who’s still standing when it does.

The four companies that went through Gotham Growth will also present their products and lessons learned to the audience. Gotham Growth is a 6-session, high-impact accelerator designed for growth-stage consumer-product founders in the NY cannabis market who are actively selling cannabis products through licensed dispensaries, retail partners, or regulated marketplaces. The program supports founders who are preparing to scale, expand, or stabilize their businesses and provides clarity, structure, and execution support. We are passionate about this project at Gotham, giving back to others who are in need of advice and clarity in getting through the overwhelming barriers in this industry.

People apply to come, as we plan to engage the audience with the people on stage. The price is low at $100 a ticket, so we can bring diversity from our industry to the audience. We’ll have plenty of time to continue the conversations after the event, with a post-conference gathering of everyone at the event location. The Highrise is shaping up to be an event of conversations that industry leaders are thinking about.

We hope to see you all there!