Last night, I attended an event to honor Danny Meyer for his incredible, city-changing work at Madison Square Park. Under a tent in the pouring rain, he shared a story with the audience, one that I already knew. It is one of the joys of living in this city long enough to be part of its history and remember what has changed.

Fred and I moved to the city in August of 1983 and into 80 Madison. At that time, the neighborhood was filled with single-room occupied hotels that the city had put people up in. The area was overwhelmed with prostitutes, homeless, and drug addicts, but we could both walk to work, so what did we know?

Many nights, we would walk through Madison Square Park; depending on the hour, we would walk around it, down 5th Avenue, which was also a bit suss, to the Village for food, drink, and entertainment. The only guide was Zagats, which I discovered a bit later on.

Fast forward, Danny made it his mission to bring the park back to the days of yore, when it was beautiful and the community used it. He brought in an art program, thanks to his Mom’s dedication to the arts (it was her idea), and went to people like us to raise capital alongside the big donations from the insurance companies that loom over the park at 11 Madison.

It was the first significant gift we had ever made to an organization: $20K of Yahoo stock. Danny didn’t realize he should sell the stock when it changed hands and watched it go up, up, up before calling Fred to ask what he should do. Fred said sell, as all organizations should sell immediately, but in this case, luck was on the side of the park, as it has been since Danny touched it. The stock had more than tripled.

We celebrated at an event upstairs at 11 Madison with the original donors, who only filled two tables. Times have certainly changed. What has stuck with me is the conservancy and, of course, the private-public partnership, as all parks (except Bryant Park, which created a separate deal) are part of the NYC Parks Department. A conservancy sits on top of the park that has working capital to make sure the park never crumbles back into despair again.

Now, I am the Chair of the Public Housing Community Fund, which is working on cleaning up years of neglect in NYCHA parks, and a few other things such as job training. We want to create a conservancy for the NYCHA parks, too; we want to make those parks beautiful with people using them and enjoying them daily, and we want to see rotating art in those parks. Those parks might sit inside NYCHA communities, but they also affect other residents of NY. Can we imagine what an incredible city we could have if we treated public housing like we treated other residential areas? And why wouldn’t we? After all, 17% of all residents live in those buildings.

The parks went through a tough time in the 80s; remember Tompkins Square Park when it was encamped with homeless people, and they put a gate around the entire park? It is time for NYCHA parks to get the love they deserve. We have redone a few parks, but there are countless left.

I am passionate about making these changes alongside our board and the executive director, Alex Zablocki, who is one of the best I have ever worked with. The time has come to do the right thing for the residents of NYCHA.

This week, I read an article in the Washington Examiner on why Republicans must turn against cannabis. The article confirms that the media is no longer fact-checking real data; at least the Washington Examiner isn’t.

Here is a paragraph from the article. “Besides the data behind why recreational marijuana should be discouraged and prohibited, why indulge in it, to begin with? Seeking a high in all its forms is illogical and foolish. You lose even the slightest control of yourself, and you will either do something you will regret or be incapable of reacting spontaneously in an unexpected situation“.  Has this person ever had an alcoholic drink? The article is a quick read and good for a few laughs, but I believe the cat is out of the bag, and the data actually points to why it isn’t Federally legal already. The scientific data does not concur with this article’s absurd points.

Cannabis sales are expected to exceed $31 billion in 2024, with a 30% increase over last year. Almost every state has some cannabis reform, be it medical or recreational. The Governor of Virginia vetoed cannabis this past week; if I lived in Virginia, I would wonder about his ability to make intelligent decisions based on that. Who is paying him off? Maybe the illegal markets that seem to be blossoming.

If a company has more than 500 shareholders, it must go public. That law was passed in 1964 due to fraud in the over-the-counter market. Granted, it is not the same in the cannabis market. Still, when 70% of Americans want to legalize the plant, 55% of Americans smoke, and 72% believe that smoking is better than consuming alcohol, one has to wonder what the hell is happening at the Federal level.

If we all decided that cannabis should never be legal, as Youngkin in Virginia and the writer in the Washington Examiner believe, the only people who would be applauding are the illegal markets that are having their best moment ever.

It will take years for us to truly understand the trauma that COVID-19 leashed on all of us. The list is long. People lost friends and family members, and education fell into an abyss with the onus on parents’ shoulders; we woke up to racism instead of the reality of classism, and most of us thought about how we wanted to live our lives when we got out of this mess. The US Government dealt with the entire national crisis so poorly.

Now, we are out on the streets again, but something has changed. It appears that most Americans are unhappy with their country even though the stock market is doing fine and the cities are humming along. Could it be that our infrastructure has been under-capitalized for so long? Our bridges require massive repair, our public transportation system needs a serious upgrade and more added to it, there are thousands of trains to travel all over Europe, and we have shit.

Every time a Democrat President comes after a Republican President, they fix the mess that the Republican President got us into. Republicans don’t care about anything but their pocketbooks; their empathy towards their fellow person appears to be zero. Britain, which has been reigned over by the Conservatives for fifteen years, is an utter disaster.

The anger is apparent everywhere. Random people are getting punched in the face by others just walking around the city. Where is that coming from? We have such anger being espoused from Trump’s mouth every day, while he should be in jail like most people would be, just for not obeying his gag order alone.

We need more housing, better transportation, and new education platforms, and we need to embrace different energy methods. We also need massive changes in the way our government works. I get the House vs the Senate, but California has a population of 40 million people with two senators. Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, and the Dakotas have a little over 5 million people with ten senators. It doesn’t work anymore. We are the most robust nation in the world and have let our country deteriorate. It began with Reagan spending money thirty percent of the budget on the military and cutting taxes at the same time, which screwed all the other programs that gave our country a conscious.

Is the answer intelligently raising our taxes and actually making America great again? In NY, they are putting congestion pricing into play by charging people $15 to cross the Brooklyn Bridge, which is no different than when Robert Moses divided black communities in two. How can they do this without first building the proper transportation? Oh, they need the money from the toll first. What does that say about how our system works? Nothing good.

Even the lords of technology have created a mess instead of using this relatively new world to spend more time doing good than bad.

It is time for someone to lead and do the right thing, which will impact the next twenty years, instead of just holding on to power. Is this just pointing to the fear of white supremacy and white men losing their rule? Americans are unhappy, and the answer is definitely not Trump. We need a serious reboot.

When Gotham was just an idea, several pieces were in my head besides a store. There is the store, the cannabis products, the merchandise, the events, the music, the technology behind all of it, the importance of hospitality, and Gotham Goods, aka private label products.

I am the first to admit I bit off more than I could chew. I had a vision, and Gotham Goods was part of that. I knew we would eventually want to bring in our own products, so why not do it all at once? I am sure that being over 60 vs 40 had something to do with it, too, but here we are.

My first mistake was the first person I hired to execute the brand. She spent too much money, didn’t understand what taking it up a notch meant, and did not understand how to build a business from scratch. There was one shining light: the fragrances we chose are fantastic, and the sidekick she hired is also amazing who now runs Gotham Goods. So, lessons learned and a bit of regrouping, and here we are.

Tonight, we are launching functional fragrances. The packaging is beautiful, and the smells are so good! The oils contain CBD, so rubbing them on your neck, wrists, or any pain is an added bonus in relief. I love these products.

There is a void in the market for luxury body products with CBD. That was the vision. We now have candles, body/hand wash, lotions (soon to be in tubes to toss in your bag), bath soaks, a muscle salve (a huge win), and a lip moisturizer (soon to be in a tube too).

It has taken some time as always, but we are finally getting into a rhythm and moving in the right direction. If you are in town tonight, come by the store from 6 to 9 to get an aura reading, see and hopefully buy the new products, and enjoy the fun. We know how to throw a good party at Gotham.

What is happening with religion and conservative men right now is such an apparent fear of losing power. There has been a decline in religion since the mid-twentieth century. It is not shocking based on the sexual crimes, including their religious beliefs being imposed on all of us while chipping away at women’s rights.

Watching the religious rights support of Trump, who is a wife beater, rapist, divorced several times, tax evader, grifter, and appears to be an all-around horrific human being, is mind-boggling. Do we think all these people are buying his Bibles? Then, of course, we have the conservative party, which has worked hard to chip away at the progress (not enough) on civil rights, women’s rights, and, most importantly, education, which is where it all starts.

It is hard to watch and makes me angry, furious, dumbfounded, and nauseous. I want to believe, and data does point to it, that it is not the majority who applaud this behavior but the minority. In the South, where white men still rule, I wonder how the majority of people continue to vote these people into office.

How much longer will this go on? The egos, the power struggle, ugh. If only women ruled the world, we would not be where we are today. We started watching Sho-Gun, which takes place in 1600. The men were power-crazed barbarians; the church was right up there with them. I can’t help but wonder, if women were the leaders, would drawing a sword be the first thing that comes to mind when meeting others from afar? Eventually, we will get there; watching the religious right and conservative party espouse something from a different era is killing me.

I read a quote the other day by Eric Micha’el Leventhal: “Our children are only as brilliant as we allow them to be.” If we let that happen, the religious and conservative movement would probably cease to exist but we would all be in a such a better place.

Anyone in the cannabis industry knows how horrible the software is that we all must use. I sat at the concierge desk the other evening and checked people in. The software we use that feeds into our marketing is crap. I met someone who built the back-end tech systems for Chase in the early 90s and said they were still using the same software. Think about when you check into an airport and how long it takes the people behind the counter to check you in. The software is antiquated.

Many of these old software systems aren’t open, so it is not like anyone can build on top of them. The market size for singular industry software is probably not as big as an investor would want, aka the cannabis space, but why can’t someone build a system that is easy for anyone to build their own?

I can’t write code and probably never will, but I understand how the systems work. After the other night, I can’t wonder if someone has ever thought of building a Lego-type software that is open, could be used for a small org or a big one, adds pieces over time, and is tweaked for your own needs with the ability to plug and play? Maybe it is out there or being built, but the technology for the cannabis space is in need of a serious upgrade.

Whenever someone asks me about how the cannabis world is going, it is hard to give a one-liner. The complexity, including the constant change, can be overwhelming, depending on the day. In NY State, the license roll-out has been slow. Many CAURD licensees are selling their licenses to others backed up with legal paperwork, those who have been given proximity protection do not have the proper paperwork needed, and no diligence is being done on the reality of each of these properties; zero money has flowed into CAURD licenses and never will.

The OCM’s (Office of Cannabis Management) desire to do good has been short-sighted and unrealistic. Most licensees are not paying their farmer bills, so the Government announced $125m to help the farmers stay afloat. In California, the licensees are not paying the farmers either.

I know that we have tried to do the right thing at Gotham. We pay our employees more than the hourly wage and give them full health care without paying into the system. We give them four weeks of vacation as a budtender. We promote from within and are going to give personal finance training. That is how we create a burgeoning industry.

Where will all this go? My gut is a decade from now, this is how it will all play out. The other major thing, unfortunately, is that most of the licenses given out today will either never open or will find themselves having to close owing money to farms and the taxman.

When I was growing up in Potomac, Maryland, it was just being developed from rural farmland into a burgeoning suburb. Camotop, yes Potomac spelled backward, was a new development with large “McMansions.” I taught guitar lessons to a kid who lived there, and I was blown away by the size of the house and what it must cost. Although I have not been back in decades, from what I understand, Potomac has nothing rural left.

Fifteen years ago, we went to an exhibit at the Cooper Hewitt Museum, and in the garden, there was an installation called Design For the Other 90%. It was an intelligent, inexpensive design for third-world countries, giving each home water, storage, and a roof over its head. These homes are needed now more than ever for refugees, and that includes homeless people in our own country.

Many entrepreneurs were getting into the prefab space at one time. I looked at investing in one of those companies, but in the end, they self-funded. What I loved about the concept was that these homes had the basic needs, were small, were built off-site, and could scale up, adding additional components when needed or not.

The cost of homes has gone through the roof, and the name “Design For the Other 90%” says it all. It is imperative that people can buy less house for less money. I have read that the trend towards small homes is beginning as mortgage rates increase. When entry-level homes cost over $250m, there must be opportunities for everyone to have the “American Dream” of owning a home.

I also read that in Paris, 75% of the shops are independent due to strict rent caps and controls, and a semi-planning company buys large abandoned units and rents them at cut prices to revitalize neighborhoods. In France, people have homes in their families for generations because they are not allowed to be bought and sold as an asset class like we do in the US. Also, in France, 25% of people live in public housing that happens to be beautiful and well-maintained, keeping their communities robust.

There is something here between the small homes, the high cost of rent and purchases, the importance of community at the street levels, and ensuring everyone can afford to have a roof over their head. Where the small home market goes will be interesting to watch.

My Mother and Grandmother connected being thin to beauty. So, it is not shocking that I have been on a conscious diet since I was born. There are too many stories to tell, but I would never be tall with long legs and effortlessly thin unless I came from different parents. Regardless, who paid attention to the gene pool while I dieted away? As my Grandma used to say, “A minute on your lips, forever on your hips.” She would have loved Ozempic.

The only people we used to see in the media, be it TV or magazines, were thin white people. The good news is that it has changed. Fashion spreads now have a myriad of faces and bodies; TV shows probably cast the most significant net.

I spent the morning at the Olympic Spa in Los Angeles this past week. I got to soak in a hot jacuzzi, hit the cold plunge, took an herbal steam, sat in an oxygen room, did an ice-cold sauna, and the highlight was the scrub. A woman dressed in a black bra and black boy shorts underwear scrubs your body down, tosses warm water over you, oils you up, and stretches you out. It is quite the experience; your skin feels like a baby when you are done.

The spa is for women only, and everyone walks around naked. Seeing everyone waltz around, appearing to be comfortable, is not something I necessarily feel comfortable in. I grew up in a family of body shaming. Sitting there and being tossed around like meat in my scrub gave me a new appreciation for the human body and embracing ourselves, even if we are not thin and leggy. Even thin and leggy people have bumps and lumps. Nothing like a bit of reality, seeing naked women strolling about enjoying their spa day. I can hardly wait to go back.

When people rise to fame, such as sports figures, politicians, business people, community leaders, parents to their children, and anybody people look up to, they become role models. There have been role models forever.

I have heard many, particularly sports icons, say that people shouldn’t look to them as role models; they didn’t ask for that. That is bullshit. If you ever find yourself at that level in your career, where crowds of people come out to watch you play, you have become a role model even if you didn’t want to be. It comes with the territory, particularly in America.

With success comes responsibility. Many people who have made a lot of money set up foundations because they are tax shelters and allow people to impact areas close to their hearts. It could be anything from education to medicine to any meaningful targeting given to the donor.

People used to wait until they retired to start giving money away. The technology boom changed all of that. Many people who have made incredible amounts of money have created foundations to give some of their capital to things they care about.

Some of the numbers we see from tech giants appear to be significant sums of cash they are giving back to the community, but when you look under the cover, the amount they are giving away is not very big compared to their wealth. Sad but true.

Then we get to Elon Musk, who appears to not give a fuck about anything but himself. He created a $7b fund, but not much has gone anywhere. Just enough to keep the foundation active in the eye of the law. It is shocking but not shocking.

I can’t help but ask myself, what’s wrong with this picture? Why does this country create so many financially successful individuals who give away the least amount of money they can or none at all? We are one of the wealthiest countries on the planet, yet too many with financial success choose to build a rocket to the moon instead of creating social programs that can help the communities around which they live.

I wonder why anyone cares who Elon votes for and who he gets behind for President. He has proven himself to be an incredible entrepreneur who has impacted our world; SpaceX is the next one. Still, when it comes to doing the right thing with billions of dollars in his foundation for tax purposes, he can’t find it in his soul to give back as impactfully as his businesses have made to us.

The importance of public-private partnerships will increase in the decades since Reagan destroyed the concept of paying taxes for the greater good of running an efficient Government that would bleed down to the streets (literally), education, healthcare, breaking the cycle of poverty, etc.

I wonder how we got here in America and why we applaud people like this.