Him: Look… (holds up belt) Me: What? HEY – you got it! That’s my boy!
This was a pretty busy week, kid-wise.
First, the kid got a new BJJ belt, which he’s been hoping for for quite a while now.
Then I went to another one of his publishing parties at his school – it was nice that he was so happy to see me.
Then we dropped down to 0 degrees Fahrenheit with wind chill this past weekend in the city and we had a full day shoot at my old gym.
Me: Whoa! Why’s it so cold? Him: The heat’s out. Me: Get outta here.
It was wayworse in that everyone else got to wear sweatshirts and hoodies, but I had to do all six hours in a tee-shirt.
I was absolutely miserable.
For serious, one of the guys was literally wearing his entire outer wear AND his costume while setting up while I’m in a tee-shirt.
Director: Whoa, your hands are turning blue. Me: (teeth chattering) I am not unaware…also, I hate you.
Normally, I’m one of the fastest of the bunch to shoot his scenes but, because I was absolutely freezing, I kept messing up my lines.
Me: By the end of this video, you’ll know the mistakes that get people killed by Ghostface… Director: You can’t say killed. Me: Goddammit! OK. Sorry. “By the end of this video, you’ll know the mistakes that get people killed…” Director: You can’t say killed. Me: Goddammit! OK. Sorry. “By the end of this video, you’ll know the mistakes that get people killed” – GODDAMMIT!
Repeat about 20 times.
But I had to get my lines done because I had to make the kid’s recital, which was supposed to be at 5PM waaaaaaayyy uptown.
Because I wasn’t gonna make it, I wrote Sara and asked her to talk to his guitar teacher and ask if he could push it back 20 minutes to 5:20.
As soon as I cranked out that stupid line, I dashed up there, RAN outta the subway station (in boots, on ice, carrying a ton of gear and frying pan (part of the shoot)) and into the church where he was the next kid up.
Just made it.
At 1:52, there was a slight glitch with the video, sorry, but otherwise, it’s pretty good, I think?
Watch the video and catch the ending, where he saw that I came.
You should know that all my best lines I stole from people I loved.
But that’s neither here nor there.
Thought about that recently because Alison’s grandmother died the other day.
That’s Alison up above with her grandfather, Sal, and grandmother, Rose – they were celebrating Alison’s brother’s return from the army.
I’m super annoyed that bottle’s in front of Alison’s face.
You never know what little things are going to be big things until long after the fact.
In any case, Sal died some 13 years ago, and I wrote about it here.
Alison took it pretty hard, but I was glad that I was there to keep her company through that.
He and I got along great because we both liked Dean Martin and, oddly, sardines. It’s funny what people talk about.
I liked Rose a lot too. Probably one of my favorite memories with her is when I once drove out to Staten Island with Alison about a decade-and-a-half ago to celebrate Sal’s birthday.
Rose had to walk by herself in the rain, so I stepped out to steady her, and she immediately took my arm as if we’d done it a million times before.
Felt like part of the family that day.
Well, that’s not entirely true.
I suppose that I have such affection for Alison’s family because they’ve always treated me like a member of the family, even early, early on.
All of them did – even A-SIL and I kinda bickered like siblings since we met.
Now everyone in that picture above is gone and I feel so deeply for Alison’s mother, that she’s lost so much.
Then again, life is loss – it’s all about the spacing.
But even there, she’s gotten the short end of the stick.
Still, that’s her story to tell and not mine so I’ll stop here.
As much as I feel sadness that Rose and Sal are gone, they lived good long lives.
Alison didn’t, and that’s forever going to eat at me – the unfairness of it all.
And, of course, I think of my father and my mother and how I wish…so many things.
I always tell myself to see my mom more often, but life keeps getting in the way.
No excuse, I know, and yet, it is.
I’ll call her tonight. Or tomorrow.
I will. Honest and for true.
Goodnight, Rose.
If there’s an afterlife, I hope you and Sal are catching up and you’re telling him about all the madness happening around here.
And tell Alison that we all miss her terribly.
So…terribly.
Him: Would she like that I play soccer and the guitar…you think? Me: I think she’d love it, kiddo. No, I know it. I know she’d love it.
The below took place before our cocktail party, as we were planning out what food to have for it.
Sara works with various schools around Manhattan, one of which is in Chinatown, which means that we have a good excuse to eat down there alla time.
Me: I gotta tell you something. Her: What? Me: I’ve never been to Wo Hop. Her: Really?! Me neither, let’s go then!
There are all these really classic dives down there that I’ve gone to like Big Wong‘s and Noodletown – I practically lived there as a teen – but some I’ve missed, like Wo Hop, so off we went.
It’s a NYC institution – if you go to YouTube, you’ll see all these people trying it out.
Now, when I was a kid, the only people that went there were Chinese.
But when we went there, I was literally the only Chinese person (that didn’t work there) there – there were hipsters and all other races, just no Chinese.
Plus, the menu was entirely in English with no pictures, so I had no idea what to order, so I just pointed at three things.
All were carb-y and delicious.
Oddly, later on that week, we went to the local bistro (above a supermarket) and Sara said…
Her: Hey, did you see that they’re selling food from Nom Wah? Me: Wait, what?
Nom Wah is another Chinatown institution; it’s reportedly the oldest continuingly operating dim sum restaurant in New York City, having opened in 1920.
A younger generation of cousins went in and revamped a lot of things to make it more Instagram friendly while keeping the same classic menu and recipes.
I think that’s why I write about food so much – in addition to the fact that, deep down, I’m still a fatty-fat-fat – because food and family are so intertwined.
Shame about Nom Wah and alla that family drama.
Here’s hoping that its got another hundred years in it.
Her: Look how happy you are! Me: I’m gonna regret this in the morning, but…yeah.
Sara and I debated whether or not to do something here in the states to celebrate our marriage.
I felt that heading out to Taiwan and the photographs were enough, but Sara didn’t get to have any of her family around, while I did.
Plus, the ABFF and my friends around the way both felt that we should do something, so we spent a little time looking at places.
But Sara and the Surgeon’s wife got to talking.
Sara: Well, we did Taiwan and really just want to keep things simple. Her: Let us host it here! We have more than enough space. Sara: What? We’re talking almost 100 people. Her: Oh, it’s fine. This place screams “event space.” We’d love to host you. Sara: Wow! That’s incredibly kind of you to offer! I’d have to talk to Logan… Her: It’s done! Yay! I love a good party!
Obviously, that was super generous of them and pretty amazing, so we jumped at the offer.
For me, I was happy to let Sara take complete control and just handle everything – her cousin Jen even came a day earlier to help out with everything, which was clutch.
The Surgeon lives in a converted department store in the Village so he’s got like 18-foot ceilings, or something nuts like that, as well as 2,200 SF to work with BUT we still had to be judicious with whom we could invite over.
I ended up not inviting any of my relatives – including my own brother and sister – as (a) I have soooo many of them, (b) I got see some of them in Taiwan.
I figured I would have something separate for them down the road.
Plus, we agreed not to invite anyone that I’d not spoken directly to in over a year as well, with limited exceptions.
This is why Sara and I were out in Queens the other day; we had to buy a ton of liquor for the bartenders that we hired for the party.
On that note, the bartenders were total pros that made three signature cocktails for us to have at the party.
Him: What are you looking for? Sara: We only have one really hard and fast rule and that’s no tequila or mezcal – long story there. Him: (laughing) OK, well, what do you want then? Her: Well, he likes rum and I love prosecco. Him: Got you. And a colour scheme? Her: Oh, red would be great! It’s the color of good luck in Chinese culture.
But I was busy too as I also ended up running down to Chinatown that day to grab six pans of delicious dumplings – over 300 of them – while Sara took care of all the other food.
We did have a bit of a scare the week before the party, which was that Sara’s son got the flu, so that meant that my kid and I didn’t see them at all the week before.
She and her son socially distanced for the whole time.
Amazingly, he got better pretty quickly and the rest of us didn’t get sick at all.
Sara: OMG, if I had to miss my own cocktail party, I would cry so hard. Me: Imagine if we both couldn’t show up!
But we were still stressed out because there was supposed to be a major snowstorm that weekend AND six people cancelled because of the flu, while one couldn’t make it because of a last-minute family emergency.
Still, all-in-all, it went off without a hitch, and everyone seemed to have a grand time.
Really wish I had more time to spend with everyone but, the way these things go, she and I barely had 10 minutes with each guest, but it was nice seeing everyone.
Me: Well, it looks like we’re finally done with wedding stuff. Her: Yup! Well, ours at least. We still have weddings to go to later on this year. Me: Is that still happening? Her: Logan Lo! Me: Right, right, yay, love…
Last month, I told you that I ran into a fella named Shawn that does a podcast called The Dad Bod, which isn’t actually about, well, dad bods per se but, rather, is about being a dad here in NYC.
In any case, we recorded an episode the other day and it just went up this past weekend so I thought you might like a little listen.
In it, I talk about raising the kid in the city, a lot more details about what happened that awful night in December of 2015 when Alison went to the ICU that I never told you about, the first several months after she and my dad died, and about this new life I’m trying to build with Sara and the kid.
It’s a little over an hour but I think that Shawn did a really great job here, maybe give it a go?
Location: home, recovering from the weekend, I’ll tell you about it in the next entry
Mood: enervated
Music: think that I could make it there someday (Spotify) Subscribe! Like this post? Tell someone about it by clicking a button below.
In season seven of the Game of Thrones, John Snow begs all the sides of the Seven Kingdoms to put away their differences to prepare for the coming war with the White Walkers.
He knows that humanity is doomed if they don’t unite because they’re unprepared for the war about to happen.
Hold that thought.
Many historians don’t consider World War I and World War II as two separate things – at least not in Europe.
For them, it was one long war of modernization and ethno-racial underpinnings, with Germany at the center:
In WW1, because the Second Reich of Germany came about as the result of the breakdown of the old-world order of empires (German, Austro‑Hungarian, Ottoman, Russian), while…
In WW2, just 21 years later, Germany was still smarting over its defeat in WW1 and the subsequent humiliation of The Treaty of Versailles, and it was a chance to show the world that WW1 was just fluke – that didn’t work out.
It’s only by seeing the big picture that you realize what is really happening.
Me at the Jannowitzbrücke station in Berlin 21 years ago.
While most of sane people in the world, and here in the US, see the downfall of the American Empire under Trump, which is accurate, I see that but it’s more than that.
A lot more.
If the US and the EU/NATO do become adversaries, then China – and, to a lesser extent, Russia – wins.
It might not happen tomorrow, but it’s definitely gonna happen.
And a war is coming, in one form or another, hot or cold. But it’s coming if it’s not here already.
Yes, Russia is evil and dangerous but it’s not the danger that China is.
You have no idea how dangerous China is.
Because China is dangerous in ways you couldn’t imagine.
100 years ago, in 1926, China was…nuthin.
It was in the middle of (multiple) civil wars, called the Warlord Era (1916–1928). This was after the Opium War and the downfall of the Qing dynasty.
There was no unified national army, no cohesive economic strategy, no real industry of any sort, outside of large agrarian areas predominantly used to feed their own people.
It was a whole lotta, well, like I said, nuthin.
The Western powers – plus fucking Japan – controlled all the ports, legal, banking, customs, and tariffs – everything was in the hands of someone else.
100 years later, in 2026, China has the largest trade surplus in the world, reaching roughly $1.2 trillion in 2025 — the largest number EVER in human history, recorded by any country.
Think about that.
To go from a backward nuthin nation of warlords under the thumbs of everyone to athe nuclear-powered creditor nation in four generations.
That’s mindboggling.
In fact, just 24 years after the warlord period of China, China was already showing the world how quickly it learned how to use soft power in Korea – essentially handing the US the first of many defeats in Asia.
China did it again, just four years later with the Vietnam War.
Then the USSR/Russia attacked a weakened China in 1969 and should have destroyed them, but it didn’t, even with superior firepower and tech.
Culturally, the Chinese are quiet – we watch and learn. And we think.
If it wasn’t for the fact that the Chinese government is absolutely brutal against its own people and regularly threaten Taiwan, a country I love deeply, I’d admire and be proud of these facts.
But, just like here, the country is in the hands of the selfishly evil and the populous is too brainwashed or too fettered to do anything about it.
That’s what the West is up against.
But with Trump pissing off all its allies to line his own pockets so, because half of my countrymen are imbeciles, there is no unified front against China.
The united west lost the first two rounds when it was fighting China by proxy.
Fractured? The West is screwed.
If there’s a true cold war against China – and really, that’s the only war that’s possible between two nuclear empires – Donny’s barely able to play checkers against some chess grandmasters and we’ve got zero friends to help us.
That’s not good. None of this is good.
Now, I hate China because of how it treats its people. Which is to say, I hate China because of how it treats the Chinese.
Then again, the US isn’t treating its people all that well either, lately, now that I think about it.
Me: Congrats on becoming a parent! It’s tough but awesome. Him: Any advice? Me: Yeah, have her learn how to fight, learn how to manage her money, and learn how to speak Mandarin. Him: (laughing) Why Mandarin? Me: OK, so in 1926…
Me: I feel it’s dishonest for me to not say something because this stuff actually matters and people are dying so this fat senile fuck can make a little more money and stay outta jail before he dies. Fuck that. Producer: [I get it]. We are falling fast into a dark time in the states. Voice your just opinions and hopefully more people will voice theirs.
Have you ever noticed that the right-wing here in the US always seem to be militant Christians but it’s only the left-wing that ever quote the New Testament?
Weird, right?
It’s almost like they have zero actual facts even here to support anything they believe and – even here – they’re just completely making stuff up as they go along.
Never imagined, in a million years, that it would amount to anything.
So, I’ve been pleasantly surprised with the cool things that have happened with it, such as me being recognized by fans when I’m just going about my day.
Over time, it’s grown into something I’m really quite proud of and the team works insanely hard to keep it going.
A few years ago, the producers advised me to be mindful of what I say online because SF is supposed to be for all fans, of any political spectrum.
At the time, I agreed and have, for the most part, been fairly limited in my criticism of Trump and the MAGA movement in general.
But, after the deathsmurders state-sponsored executions of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, I’ve decided I can’t just tiptoe around this thing.
To my loyal readers, I unreservedly apologize for my appalling silence this whole time.
I regret not writing this sooner.
To wit: If you’re a Trump/GOP voter and read me, don’t. Honestly.
You’re a traitor to everything this country once stood for, and you can get bent. Full stop.
The insane mental gymnastics the MAGA voters go through to justify their absolutely batshit interpretation of what it means to be a loyal American is just pathetic and gross.
If that weren’t bad enough, it’s just the sheer embarrassment of their existence; they have the complete confidence of the rich C- student that’s never been right but has never suffered for always being wrong.
It’s invariably those people in group projects that were the main reason why I’ve struggled with group projects and here – at a macro-level – is no different.
We’re struggling as a nation right now, not so much because they’re clueless, but because they’re completely clue-resistant – fighting every bit of fact they can, despite all evidence to the contrary.
Now, before you write me anything, just know that I don’t give a flying fuck about anything you have to say.
There’s a buncha reasons for this that I don’t have the time and you don’t have the baseline intelligence to process.
But – as a general rule – I don’t read jack shit from whiny apologists of draft-dodging, gold-star family mocking, senile, incontinent, lying (so much fucking lying, JHC), child-raping pedophiles.
Sidenote: If he’s not in the files, why spend all these YEARS hiding them? Occam’s razor.
Ergo, whatever self-assessed brilliant insult or witty comeback you’re planning to write, just know that I’ve been called worse things by better people.
I’m sure you and the circle you call your family tree are not unfamiliar with this.
In summary: Fuck you and the horse you rode in on, you broken pencil of an excuse of a human being.
If I’ve entertained you even for a millisecond, know that I’m embarrassed and wholly regretful for that, although I’m guessing that 97.4% of what I write is beyond your fourth-grade reading level.
May I suggest you find someone with the time and crayons to more fully explain this all to you, you submissive fucktard.
“Submissive,” because – deep down – you know, you’re this way because you’re too scared, too confused, and too jealous of a world you couldn’t hack and need someone to tell you what to do because you utterly failed on your own.
May you choke on a $2 egg with the only medical professional available being a MAGA adherent of Wormbrain Kennedy Junior.
tl;dr: Go fuck yourself, you paste-eating, cosplaying, pedo-worshiping traitor.
Glossary
The New Testament: The 27 books after the Old Testament; if you’re a Christian, technically, this is where you should be quoting from.
A lark: Something done for amusement
To wit: “That is to say”
Unreservedly: Completely
Get bent: Go have sexual intercourse with yourself
Macro-level: Big picture
Incontinent: Unable to control urination or defecation.
Urination or defecation: Peeing or pooping.
Occam’s razor: The simplest explanation is usually correct.
Ergo: Therefore
Apologist: Someone that offers excuses for someone or something else.
My brother was in town last week, so it was nice catching up with him for a bit.
I think he comes to NYC partly to see the family and partly to eat pizza.
I was hoping to head over to see my mom and sis while he was here but wasn’t able to swing it.
So, Sara, the kid, and I went to see my mom and sis on our own a week after he left.
We rented a car for the first time in a while, the day before the big snowstorm, but it was a mess.
They took over an hour to get us our electric car, so they gave us a Mercedes – which I had to spend a solid five minutes trying to figure out how to even put the damn thing into drive…
Sara: Oh, did my old man get confused by the new technology? Me: (grumble)
…but after I drove it off the lot, I realized it only had 31 minutes of charge on it.
Me: I’m sorry, that won’t get us out to Queens. Lady at the desk: Oh no, no it won’t. We’ll take care of you. Hold on, honey.
They ended up getting us a Kia, which was fine because we just wanted to get going.
Part of the reason we rented a car was to head over to BJ’s Wholesale Club to pick up stuff we needed around the house – we had to borrow my sister’s card for that.
Sara: This is my kinda speed. Me: The suburbs? Her: Yep – and I love me a big box store.
After we bought an obscene amount of stuff, we went back to have dinner with my mom and sis.
My sis and her husband were so cool – they actually threw Sara a mini “Welcome to the Family” party, complete with flowers, a massive amount of food…
…(Greek, no less) AND a full homemade pan of keto cake.
Sister: We wanted to give you a warm welcome to the family! Sara: That’s so sweet of you! I’m so happy to be the newest Lo.
Sara was thrilled, as I was – by both the sentiment and the Greek food.
The other reason I had to head home was that the last few entries I put up made me realize that I was missing a ton of my childhood photos.
So, to this end, I took a HUGE pile of perhaps 12-14 of full photo albums from my mom back to my pad to scan.
It was a little bittersweet because part of the reason I never scanned them before was that mom was loathe to let them go.
But this time, however, she encouraged me to take them. Almost as if she was handing them over to my stewardship.
I’ll end this part here because it’s bumming me out.
Now, the kid was living his best life this past weekend because he had two sleepovers, got to hang out with his cousins, AND had three of his classmates come by for a snowy playdate today.
All-in-all, despite all the snow, it was a pretty good weekend for us.
But, I realize that it was a weekend of horror for many others.
I have a lot of thoughts on what’s been going with the murders of Renee Good and Alex Jeffrey Pretti, none of it good, but I’m still trying to process it all.
It’s wholly awful and sickening, though.
And I’m waiting for all the Second Amendment people who have been talking for decades about standing up against Federal overreach for years to actually do something but – thus far – it’s been crickets.
The only surprising thing that’s happened is that the NRA has weighed in to demand a thorough investigation.
On the flip side of kindness, Sara and I were out at the Surgeon’s house the other day and I told them that Johnny and I stopped speaking.
When we were much younger, there were times I woulda called Johnny my best friend.
But, in the end, he chose money over decades of friendship.
Him: That was it? You never spoke to him again? Me: He called me once, drunk. Didn’t pick up. There was nothing to say. I didn’t want someone like him in my life. Around me. Around my kid.
Which brings me to the Devil, whom I’ve not seen in ages.
Not since before COVID.
Throughout the years, I’ve ping-ponged between enemies, frenemies, and friends with him. We’ve had so many differences, arguments, times when I legitimately feared for my safety.
Yet, he was oddly never treacherous. Dangerous and heartless, yes. Treacherous, no.
Me: It doesn’t bother you? Hurting people? He: Not particularly. Me: Why not? Him: Maybe they deserve it.
And now I’m left wondering whatever happened to him.
I suppose that, if he’s still out there, I wanted to say, thanks.
This was 20 years ago. That may or may not have been him.
After all these years, now that I’m older, I finally understand some of the things he was trying to tell me when I was a young and hot-headed man, and he was the older, wiser fella trying to teach me something.
I think I’ve finally experienced enough of the world to understand what he was trying to tell me all this time: That the world was alwayssoupy grey and only children see things in black and white.
For better or worse, what I thought was cruelty this whole time was – in fact – a form of kindness, in some perverse way.
I was just too naïve to see it.
On that note, I thought about one of our very last face-to-face conversations.
Me: (later) Why do even care? Him: (laughing) You’re the last reliable guy in New York. In 20 years, you’ve never said you were going to do something and not do it. Out of all of them, you’re the only one that’s never let me down. Me: That’s it? Him: (shrugging) That’s a lot. Finding someone whose word isn’t just bullshit is a lot, Logan.
Well then, I suppose, for alla my faults, I’ve done something right.
Johnny, someone I once considered one of my best friends betrayed me, while the Devil, whom I called that in my head and hated at times, ended up making me so much of who I am today – in a good sense.
Even this late in the game, I’m still learning stuff.
Like I said, a buncha people from my past have been making a reappearance in my life, in a manner of speaking – either they actually have or I thought about them, which I’d probably not done in a while.
I call him Cellini because, like him and Jason Everman, he’s insanely successful in some seriously disparate fields:
He sold a buncha companies to Google and Facebook – you’ve absolutely used his stuff if you’ve been on either of them – and might be a billionaire. I’m not sure.
He’s also a ridonk fighter – fourth degree black belt in BJJ from Gracie Barra, great boxer, and trained shooter and wrestler – and is kinda my private coach on certain things (see below).
He’s also getting his master’s degree in philosophy a Oxford.
Despite alla this, though, he’s a pretty quiet and down-to-earth kinda guy.
Him: Don’t put up a picture of me. Me: It’s ironic that a fella that helped invent the internet doesn’t wanna be on it.
Plus, even though he’s a super busy and successful guy, he’ll still take the time out to answer questions that I’ve got regarding certain aspects of fighting which I always appreciate.
Like most kindnesses I get, it’s a kindness that is neither expected nor warranted.
Below is him acting as my coach, which he totally doesn’t need to do, and yet he does.
We met up just this past week a mutual friend’s physical therapy joint – Recalibrate PT, which is probably one of the best PT spaces in the city IMHO.
There, Cellini he took two hours outta his super busy schedule to give me a private lesson to help me fix a buncha issues I’ve been having with my game.
I also ran into a whole raft of friends while there that I’d not seen in ages, including my buddy Sawyer – who was training with my friend Cotton (whom I also recommend if you’re looking for a personal trainer).
Me: Dude, we loved Masters of the Air, whatever happened to your character (Lt. Roy Frank Claytor)? Sawyer: In the show, he just disappeared but in real life, he survived WWII and fought in the Korean and Vietnam Wars, which he also survived.
On a somewhat related note, I recently had a phone call with someone whom I was unkind to ages ago.
He said I never apologized to him for being unkind to him, but he seems to have forgotten that he wouldn’t let me apologize to him.
Still, I suppose that’s really neither here nor there; I could have apologized again but chose not to again.
In any case, I figured that, since I was the one originally in the wrong, I’d just go ahead and apologize again to him, again and did that.
I’m hoping he took it to heart just because I would hate for anyone to suffer because of something I did, but that’s really his decision to make and not mine.
