I was a bit nervous about my first trip to New York in a few months on Tuesday morning – the weather forecast called for snow, freezing rain and ice pellets. Diana dropped me off at the airport in plenty of time, and sure enough, the flight was cancelled. It turned out that every other flight was cancelled to ease traffic in to La Guardia with the adverse weather conditions. I was able to get on the next flight and arrived only 30 mins later than planned.
A documentary, “RBG”, about the life of the Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg helped pass the time on the flight.
I enjoyed a section covering how Ginsberg’s husband promoted her strongly for the court vacancy during the Clinton administration. Clinton describes his interview with her, which quickly turned to a deep discussion on various legal matters, as sealing the deal very quickly – “Within 15 minutes I was confident that she was the right choice”. I also enjoyed the discussion on her relationship with Antonin Scalia, the most right leaning justice on the court and as such her philosophical opposite. They seemed to find a way to become close friends despite their differences. Ginsberg is indeed a legal giant and made huge contributions to the advancement of equal rights for all under the law.
Vince, a good friend from AIG, and his daughter, Alex, joined me for dinner and drinks on Tuesday evening. We started with a “smoking sipper” at the InterContinental hotel bar – one of our favourites, and then braved the rain and slush for a short walk to Bar Centrale, a speakeasy style place close by.
Bar Centrale is popular with celebrities looking to escape the hustle and bustle of Times Square and the theater district. We were interested to see Anderson Cooper, the CNN news lead, a couple of booths down from us.
It was very nice to catch up with Vince and to hear about his new job as CTO of insurance company QBE. I miss our time together in New York catching jazz performances and enjoying meals together.
Wednesday took me to 10 Hudson Yards, the office of BCG Digital Ventures – a company we are in partnership with to stand up a new digital business. The view from the 46th floor office down the Hudson river was amazing. I enjoyed experiencing the modern, hip office that I imagine is commonplace in internet 
companies like Google and Facebook – complete with a full espresso bar and all kinds of snacks and drinks. Most of the folks working with us on this project are based in Sydney and Diana is promoting the need to visit their home office pretty strongly. She really misses Sydney and would love to visit all her friends there.As I was enjoying all the accoutrements of the modern office, I was entertained to find AIG featured in the crossword puzzle.
BCG hosted us at a New York Nicks basketball game on Tuesday night. My nephew, Struan, would be jealous as he’s a huge basketball player and fan. I’m not that interested in basketball these days but enjoyed the experience in the iconic Madison Square Garden very much. Can you spot Madison Square (actually round) in the foreground of the Empire State Building in this picture from the office?
The flight home on Thursday was smooth and uneventful. I watched the movie “Can You Ever Forgive Me?”, and was very impressed by Melissa McCarthy’s performance. She plays Lee Israel, a biographer who has fallen on hard times and makes money by forging letters from famous literary figures – Noel Coward, Dorothy Parker and the like. This is quite different than the typical comedic performances that McCarthy is known for, and a pleasant change. I saw her interviewed on CBS Sunday morning today and she talked about visiting bookstores each weekend to pick up a physical book rather than an ebook – in the course of a week she climbed significantly in my estimation. During the movie I heard an excellent trumpet song and further investigation revealed a Chet Baker song that I’ll include in the musical section later in the blog.
I arrived home around 2:30 in the afternoon and was just heading out to pick up something for Saint Valentine’s dinner when Diana arrived in the garage. She had teased me with a 6pm arrival at home so that she could surprise me, and had already been to the store to pick up dinner. What a nice surprise!
We exchanged gifts and enjoyed a nice Valentine’s dinner at home. I loved Diana’s gift – a hand painted cheese board with part of the melody from “True Companion” – our wedding dance. I wanted to include a picture here 
but it’s already packed for Austin and I can’t remember where it is. My gift was a book of my blog entries from last year and we laughed when we compared it to the book from a couple of years ago – much fatter. Apparently I have a lot more to say about our activities these days. Dinner of sea bass, green beans, and eggplant was delicious – thanks D!
but it’s already packed for Austin and I can’t remember where it is. My gift was a book of my blog entries from last year and we laughed when we compared it to the book from a couple of years ago – much fatter. Apparently I have a lot more to say about our activities these days. Dinner of sea bass, green beans, and eggplant was delicious – thanks D!I was very proud of the card I found – a couple of octopi (second in our animal affinity to penguins).
We headed to downtown Dallas on Saturday afternoon in preparation for a concert at the Kessler. We checked into the Canvas hotel (formerly the Nylo) and then drove over to Oak Cliff. I had a quick browse through the Wild Detectives store, and picked up a book which seems promising based on the first few pages. Then we enjoyed a cocktail and delicious chicken liver mousse and salumi at Macellaio (Italian for butcher). This is a new tiny, 55 seat restaurant from the owners of Lucia (our favourite Italian restaurant in the Dallas area) which specializes in salumi: sliced, cured meats and sausages – right up D alley.
From Macellaio we drove over to the Kessler for the Mark Broussard 
concert. We saw an excellent show at the same venue from Broussard last year. I thought it was around May but Diana was correct that it was almost exactly a year ago. This time around they didn’t offer cocktail tables downstairs (standing only) and so we had seats in the wrap around balcony upstairs. We claimed our seats and then enjoyed a yummy burger at PhD (across the street from the Kessler) before the show. Can you tell how cold and gloomy the weather is from the sky behind the Kessler?
concert. We saw an excellent show at the same venue from Broussard last year. I thought it was around May but Diana was correct that it was almost exactly a year ago. This time around they didn’t offer cocktail tables downstairs (standing only) and so we had seats in the wrap around balcony upstairs. We claimed our seats and then enjoyed a yummy burger at PhD (across the street from the Kessler) before the show. Can you tell how cold and gloomy the weather is from the sky behind the Kessler?Broussard started out very strongly with some upbeat soul and Motown style music. Here is doing a medley including Stevie Wonder’s “Superstition”:
We had a tough time with the booming sound from the bass kick drum and the noise from the standing audience below – not what we have come to expect from the pristine sounding and respectful Kessler. My Dad said it well today – “You’re just getting too old for that”.
About half way through the show, Mark switched to a solo set, and we enjoyed that very much. Here he is doing the heartbreaking “Gavin’s Song” – Gavin is his oldest son, now 16 but this song was written for him at 2 weeks old. I think it speaks to all parents, no matter what age their children.
The band rejoined Broussard and he kicked off with his classic “Lonely Night in Georgia”- always a crowd pleaser:
We enjoyed the concert a lot – just not as much as previous concerts – the price of progress and popularity.
After a good night’s rest, we enjoyed breakfast, coffee, and a crossword at “Opening Bell” – a very cool coffee shop across the street from the Canvas hotel. Their avocado toast with bacon crumbles was just what we wanted. Then it was home to McKinney and to packing up for moving some of our stuff down to the new apartment in Austin.
I finished the book “Let’s Go, So We Can Get Back” by Jeff Tweedy this week. I enjoyed the conversational style of this book very much and highly recommend this book to anyone interested in this style of music.
Some excerpts that I particularly enjoyed:
“My Dad also loved “Hummingbird”. He loved it so much for years he’d ask me , “Why don’t you write more songs like “Hummingbird?” I’d tell him, “I have no idea. I can’t. I’m not even sure how I wrote “Hummingbird.”
“Hummingbird” is one of my favourite Wilco songs and so I can relate to Tweedy’s Dad’s advice.
Tweedy continues:
“Something I heard a lot when I was in rehab was this totally awesome way counselors would shut someone down when they started arguing that they didn’t have to listen, they were going to do it their own way. The counselors would point out that “You’re best thinking is what put you here.” Most of the time everyone would laugh at the undeniable truth of it all.
Watching the Melissa McCarthy movie, I heard a trumpet solo that I liked enough to look it up – no surprise it was Chet Baker, perhaps my new favourite:
Brandi Carlisle popped up a couple of places this week – on the Joni Mitchell 75th birthday show and the Grammy awards. Here’s a song that caught my attention:
The Tedeschi Trucks Band released a new album recently, featuring a couple of amazing songs as usual. Here’s a good one:
Jeff Tweedy had a couple of “Fame” references in his book and this one in particular. I always thought this was a great song: