Author: Matthew Groff

  • Totally Vaxed!

    I got my second does today! I’m all vaxed up!

    Now, if you haven’t yet, go get your shot!

  • A Home in the Country

    We are going to get out of the City for a long weekend, and I think it is long overdue. I could be wrong on this, but I don’t believe we have slept outside of our apartment since June 2020. A good friend of ours has a little house upstate. It’s in a small subdivision of a neighborhood, and has all the feelings and trappings of suburban bliss, from about 1970. The family friend is out of town, and has offered the house to us. We jumped on the opportunity.

    When we stay at this house, or when we Airbnb/VRBO a house that is in a neighborhood, I play this game in my mind of wondering what my life would be like in the suburbs? I have lived in New York City now for fifteen years, and I am thoroughly City-ized. And by that, I mean, I can live in a very tiny space, and have people on top of me all the time. Having lots of space is now very foreign. Could I function with so much room?

    It reminds me of a story. We have some friends who used to live in NYC. They owned a small one-bedroom apartment, and when their kid was born, they knew they had to move. Very fortunate for them, their tiny apartment sold very well, which allowed them to move out to the country and buy a house. When we went to visit them after their move, their modest house was sparsely filled with furniture, and pictures on the wall. “We have more house than stuff,” they told us, “but we don’t want to buy stuff just to fill it up.” Their house is still scantly decorated.

    I think we would also have a home with nothing in it, a little Scandinavian Style. (You know I have an IKEA fascination, right?) I’m not excited about owning a house, but the older I get, I find myself wanting a yard. Well, a back yard actually. Not so much for me, but for the kid. A backyard and an imagination is a pretty awesome thing to have as a kid.

  • Behind the Scenes Drama of the Super League

    Here is the New York Times story about how the Super League died. Stories of greed and hubris are as old as Greek drama.

    www.nytimes.com/2021/04/22/sports/soccer/super-league-soccer.html

  • ODDS and ENDS – See, I Was Right

    “Odds and Ends” is my continuing series of random thoughts and follow ups…

    First of all, I was right about the Super League. An Op-Ed in The New York Times pretty much said the same thing that I did, (At least I think so) and Five-Thirty Eight also had a Chat about it as well. The bottom line is that the Super League is Dead. Long Live The Super League!

    Pretty shocked that the writer of the Philip Roth biography is now being accused of sexual assault. Won’t be buying that book now.

    I am strangely finding myself interested in how the Knicks are doing. Though basketball is my family’s sport of choice, I have never been a big pro-basketball fan. But something about the team this year has me paying attention. Maybe it’s Rose, maybe it’s the better defense, maybe I like rooting for the underdog. Something.

    I know I am late to the game, but I have been following the Scott Rudin story. It broke at the start of April, and if you don’t know, Rudin is an Oscar and Tony winning producer who is an awful person to work for. He bullies people, screams at them, breaks stuff, throws tantrums, and, well, he’s an asshole. From the years of working at rehearsal studios, I have encountered many Rudin types; they asshole their way to success. Sadly, Rudin types aren’t created in a vacuum, they are enabled. Until the enablers are addressed as well, Rudin types will keep thriving in the entertainment world.

  • When I Heard the Verdict

    Yesterday, I took the kid to the park, which is a very normal thing for us to do. We were there for about a half hour when I got the news alert on my phone that the jury would return their verdict in the Chauvin trial in an hour. Well, I just stopped what I was doing, which was keeping an eye on the kid and writing in my journal, and started the watching the clock till 4:30. I kept scrolling through Twitter, which wasn’t the best idea, but I was sure that would be the place where I would get the news the fastest. I say that it wasn’t the best idea because every tenth post or so, there would be a really awfully racist comment about George Floyd. Then, after 5pm, the first tweet came through;

    Guilty

    Or my favorite;

    Guilty Guilty Guilty All Counts

    Nothing could be more simple or powerful to express exactly what the verdict meant.

    I did feel a huge release of the anxiety from the trial. We all know the history of this country, and we all know that justice and accountability haven’t always been present when the police are on trial. I really wanted to believe that we’d get it right this time, and I was nervous that we’d just repeat past mistakes.

    But we didn’t. And that is a step forward.

    And as me and the kid walked back from the park, the new reality started to sink in; we’re not done, this isn’t over. There is still much work ahead. We still need to march. We still need to demand reform and accountability from the police, but also the DA offices, and our elected officials. Reform isn’t easy, and it takes time, but that arc just bent a little closer to justice.