Author: Matthew Groff

  • Buying a House (A Bit of a Ramble)

    As I feel we all should do, but I have started in earnest, to question all of the assumptions that I was given growing up, and what I think I need to accomplish as an American adult. Full disclosure, I am a college educated white male who has unquestionably benefited from white privilege in America. For today’s episode, I would like to look into the idea that I need to buy a home in the suburbs.

    That to me seems to the highest expression of married white male success. I large house in the subdivision of the suburb of a major city where crime is low, schools are good, and everything seems scrubbed clean. We can talk about the banality of the suburbs, but I feel that John Cheever is the mast of it, and it is best left to him. What I see is the con game of the huge house.

    The larger the house, the more stuff you have to out in it. Which to keep the economy going, as the top 10% of earners are the only one’s benefiting from this economic growth, then they have to make up for the purchasing that the bottom 90% can’t afford. Bigger houses, more cars, more rooms, more entertainment.

    And isn’t this basic Adam Smith Economics 101; that you can either make an inexpensive product that you sell to the masses, or you make an expensive product and sell it to a few people. I feel like we are in the expensive few economies.

    Which gets me backs to the idea of buying a home. I feel like new homes are too big and take up too much space. There is nothing small with space. I have to buy big. Then the other side of it is why am I buying a house? It won’t get passed down to my kid. I have seen what my parents, and now some of my friends are doing with homes the inherit; they sell them. No one is passing homes down to their kids. It’s just an investment. Doesn’t it make more sense for me to $2500 a month into an index fund for the next 30 years? Isn’t that a bigger retune on that investment?

    But I have been told, and am still continued to be told that I have to get a house. Who does that benefit?

  • Walking New York

    I have been taking walks in the City again. I just seem to be finding myself doing it. Such as, I get done having a drink with a friend, and instead of heading to the subway and going home, I just decide to walk to the next stop. Or walk around the stop and see the neighborhood. Sunday I walked down Columbus Ave, down in the 80’s, just to look at the place.

    I have gotten into a rut in this City. I only exist in the neighborhood I live in, the one I work in, and that’s about it. With this large city around me, I only see Harlem and the Financial District. It’s a forty-minute subway ride between them in the morning, and it is like living in two different worlds.

    From the bottom of the island, I walked up Broadway, which at that point is heading up hill. I passed all the tourists at the Charging Bull, and made my way to City Hall. Technically, I think I entered into the boarder of Tribeca, and then, the boarder of Chinatown. SOHO popped up, and then I had to call it as I entered into the Village. I think I walked for little over an hour. I watched the people on the streets ebb and flow. I thought about how Broadway used to be a path the Lenape used. I tried not to think about all of the craziness that is going on in the world right now.

    I tried to clear my head, and look at the people who all live here. That we try to exist in the same place, to make it work here. Millions of people have walked the same route I did, in times that were way more dangerous than now. I want to believe that we are moving the ball forward, making things better. I wonder if there is a place for me, still. It is the question that seems to have been dogging me since I was eight years old. Do I belong? Am I supposed to be here?

  • That Judge Thing

    The Republicans have made a deal with the devil to get Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court. This is the gross world we live in, but there is just about nothing that could have happened yesterday that would have stopped his approval. The goal has been five conservative votes on the court, and it didn’t matter how it happened, but the Republicans will do anything to get the five votes. And that’s the goal post in all of this. And they will get it. Public opinion be damned.

    And that is the calculation in all of this that I just don’t understand. That fifth vote will cost them in the midterms. And then it will cost them in 2020. This may even go on to 2022 and 2024 if major cases are over turned. It makes the Court an issue for years to come.

    But what I really don’t get is that the Republicans have shot themselves in the foot for the next generation of women, if not the one following. For most girls in high school, Dr. Ford looked like their mother, and they just watched as a political party say that her honesty and suffering mean nothing compared to the destiny of a man to be on the Supreme Court. This will last. I know this to be a fact because I was in high school during the Hill/Thomas hearings, and it was clear that a smart intelligent, successful woman amounted to nothing compared to a man. These are the women that are running for office now because they have seen this shit happen before, they have experienced this shit happening to them or their friends, and here we are, doing it all over again. Men will not solve this problem, only women can and will. And why is the Republican party deciding that it is worth alienating just about all women in this country?

    Women the age of Dr. Ford won’t vote Republican. Their daughters won’t. And what makes you think that they won’t teach their sons and daughter to not trust Republican’s in the future.

  • Thoughts

    I have been so conflicted since I got back from the tour of the puppet show. Most of it has to do with the closing show blues. You get so close to a group of people, seeing them every day, and working with them. It’s like friendship with a very clear purpose or goal; Get the show open. And it was a really great cast. We all got along, and it was a very professional and laid-back group. We had a lot of fun, but we got our shit done. Anyway, I used the word conflicted because these types of shows are few and far between, and coming back to the City, I just feel that I should be doing more creative things, and get out of the job situation I am in. Such as, even if I quite this job, I would find my way to working a similar type of job. Instead of just saying fuck it, and going out there are trying freelancing. I did freelancing for a shot time and I hated every minute of it. It was like being on the edge of homelessness and that worry never left me. Now there is a wife and kid involved, and I don’t know how I would make it happen… But that is the fear talking, and it seems like the fear comes back to me when I get back to the City. When we were on the road, I had no fear, and I felt free, and confidante to handle any challenge. This is the central issue of my life; committing to a creative career.

  • Day After the Election

    Well… The primary election thing didn’t really work out the way I thought. Both of the people I supported failed to secure the nomination. I guess it is still democracy in action even when your candidate doesn’t win.

    Last night, as we were finishing up rehearsal, which happened to be right after the polls closed, the whole cast and crew gathered around a phone to see the early return results. All of us were supporting the same people, and there was a disappointment as the first returns came back, and they weren’t good.

    One cast member wondered out loud why the Nixon/Teachout were so low, because he had only heard from people that Nixon/Teachout were the ones they were voting for. Then he caught himself. “Of course, they would say that. That’s the liberal bubble I live in.”

    And thus… One of the problems of living here in New York, and being in the very liberal arts community; political thought is either liberal, or really fucking liberal. (Hell, I still miss Bernie.)

    I try to keep an open mind, and see if I can find the middle ground on issues. That seems what I rational person should do.

    But at the same time…

    I do think everyone should have access to health care.

    I do think taxes should be raised on the wealthy.

    To pay for things like roads and bridges and schools.

    I think we do need to address the income gap.

    And the coming housing crisis.

    You know…