June 2026 Dispatch
Hello, Goodbye
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June 2026 Dispatch: Hello, Goodbye
To channel the bombastic stylings of your favorite morning zoo drive-time DJ: “And we’re back!!”
As I type out this sentence the doppler effect of Christopher Cross’ “Ride the Like Wind” just warbled through my open window from the speakers of a passing car sailing down Atlantic Avenue—”It is the night, my body’s weak / I’m on the run, no time to sleep / I’ve got to run, ride like the wind / To be free again.” But instead of dropping today’s forecast followed by a “Get the Led Out” all-Zeppelin rock-block, I want to apologize for my month-long radio silence here on LAST CALL. Did you miss me?
I realize, too, that I didn’t think to suspend paid subscriptions during this unexpected absence. If you’re a paid subscriber and would like to request a free one-month extension to your subscription just let me know. It’s the least I can do. And if today is the day you might finally want to become an annual paid subscriber, I’ll happily extend a bonus month to new paid subscribers as well.
The primary reason is that I’ve had to do my best to heads-down focus on finishing my long overdue manuscript for my next book, Drinking Italian. And as self-imposed deadlines of May 1, May 15, and May 31 came and went I spiraled even more than usual with a mix of anxiety, guilt, and agonizing stress. I continue to let so many people down in my life, personally and professionally, and that existential weight can be overbearing.
As Carmella Soprano told her mob-boss husband Tony in the Season 6 episode “Chasing It”: “You eat and you play and you pretend like there’s not a giant piano hanging by a rope just over the top of your head every minute of every day.”
There’s only so many minutes in each day and yet here I am tens of thousands of minutes (and words) later, but I’m still pushing through. There are times without any physical distractions where I can sail through 1,2000 words and then there are those where it takes me hours to fine-tune 500 words on the history of Birra Peroni. I just need to get it down and then worry about making it perfect.
It’s that mental game. My analogy as writer feeling like baseball pitcher melting down on the mound with the yips is stretching into extra innings. I’m doing to my best to shake it off with walks, exercise, taking breaks to go outside and sit on a bench and watch the tug boats ease up the East River. All I want to do is shake off the catcher, adjust my cap, and let it rip across the plate.
Though I’ve had deadline issues with all of my books (except for Distillery Cats which was a pure joy to write and the fastest I’ve ever finished a book; I mean, come on, it’s a book about cats!), but this one, man, I just don’t know why… I think it’s compounded with the perceived personal failure of the dive bars book I spent two years working on (it also took me that long to understand dive bars don’t give a shit about being in a book), the daily grind and stress of life as an at-times barely surviving writer, and this Dumpster fire of a world we live in.
I can see the finish line, and I hope plan to turn it in very soon, but chasing this deadline has made me feel like the the writer who cried wolf and I worry that I’ve broken the trust of those who believe and support me, from my agent to my editor to my photographer to my publisher to my readers. I’ve been given plenty of latitude and space to bring this home but as they say: give someone enough rope, and they will hang themselves.
I’m manifesting that finish line and realize the amount of work still required after I hit “send” to my editor—notes, rewrites, edits, revisions. But I’ll be ready. I want people who matter to me—friends, family, colleagues, fans of my work—to be able to trust in me once again… and believe in me.
Since reading Cameron Crowe’s terrific memoir, The Uncool, I’ve kept a particular image from the book in my camera roll as a literary talisman. It’s a note his mother, Alice Crowe taped to her son’s bedroom door in 1980 when the then 22-year-old Crowe was writing Fast Times at Ridgemont High. On a particularly maudlin spring afternoon when I was killing time at a coffee shop in Crown Heights I posted that message in an Instagram story, oversharing my current state of mind out into the world. Later that night I noticed Crowe had reshared it with his many followers. Granted, he shares a lot of fans’ stories online, but I took it as an overture to slide into his DMs with a brief note to thank him for his years of inspiration and that I repurposed his mother’s note as personal inspiration to get to the finish line of this deadline. He wrote back: “She’s always there…”
May was Mental Awareness Month which made me more aware than ever of my own delicate mental health. “It’s ok to not to be ok. And it’s also ok to talk about it,” was the reminder I’d hear each night in a PSA on one of the podcasts I listen to before drifting off to another night of restless sleep.
I wisely turned off notifications whenever a paid subscriber unsubscribes from LAST CALL, but when I go through my weekly stats I can see who unsubscribed and the reason why—usually “time” or “price” or the elusive “NA,” which I understand, try to accept, and move, on eager to welcome the new paid subscriber who will replace our fallen subscriber. Many people I know, even good friends and colleagues, have recently unsubscribed. And that’s OK. All of these subscriptions add up and life presents more important matters concerning where and how you spend your money. Of the last ffew promotional offers I ran for new readers to upgrade at a considerable discount, not one person took advantage and signed up. Rejection, in life, and especially for a writer, is to be expected, but that doesn’t mean it still doesn’t sting. And to the fellow who signed up for a paid subscription and proceeded to plow through a whole stack of pay-walled Dive Bar Jukebox dispatches only to then cancel his subscription the same day, leaving the bon mot, “Sorry, just wasn’t worth it,” maybe next time just leave “NA” as your reason for leaving.
I’ll keep doing this because it obviously isn’t about the money. I do it because it’s a creative outlet and a way to communicate and engage directly with readers. Anyway, I remain grateful for those who continue to read and engage here, and those of you who are in the position to support my efforts with a paid subscription, thank you.
I hope some of you had the chance to take in the final shows of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert before his show, and the Late Show franchise David Letterman kicked off at the historic Ed Sullivan Theater launched in 1993, came to a premature end due to network pressure from our thin-skinned President. I watched them the next morning on the DVR and would find myself suddenly tearing up more than once—at the loss and situation around it and for the exit strategy Colbert orchestrated with humor, grace, and plenty of jabs. But especially for the many last and lasting moments, stories, and songs shared by friends of the show stopping by one last time. Letterman himself joined one of the final shows for the full hour, even returning to the roof of the Ed Sullivan Theater to throw chairs and watermelons crashing and smashing to the sidewalk below as one last jab at CBS with a message: “To the folks at CBS, in the words of the great Ed Murrow: Good night and good luck, motherfuckers.”
While I did graduate college with dual degrees in English/Writing Arts and Theatre I don’t consider myself Johnny Broadway (for one, don’t get me started on the insanely narrow seats), but this joyful, star-studded serenade of Sondheim’s “Putting It Together” with Bernadette Peters, Annaleigh Ashford, Ben Platt, Christopher Jackson, and Patrick Wilson just hit me hard.
I’ve always enjoyed the “The Colbert Questionert,” one of Colbert’s signature bits where he would ask a celebrity guests 15 questions ranging from the banal to the insightful. President Obama was the penultimate subject to take the Questionert (Colbert finally submitted to it with a cavalcade of celebrities stopping by to each ask a question).
“What do you think happens when we die?” was always a question that usually turned things a bit more complicated and I always loved hearing the different theories and points of view. Obama’s answer: “I think that… I don’t know. But what I accept is that if we’ve lived a good life I think we live on in the memories of the people who loved us.”
One of my favorite responses to the same question came from Ethan Hawke. After taking an extraordinarily long pause to think, he finally answered.
“Um… You ready? I don’t think we die. I don’t think we have an understanding of the divine concept of time. I don’t think we’re any more capable of understanding a clock than a dog is. I think something much bigger is going on than we’re aware of in our day to day routines. So I don’t think I have the intelligence or the DNA make-up to answer that question.”
Think about a show with that level of depth and compassion being replaced Byron Allen’s clip show Comics, Unleashed, all because the President can’t take a joke. And because that same man knows no sense of compassion. The same many who, when asked to what extent he was concerned about Americans’ financial situations said, “I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation. I don’t’ think about anybody.”
And in the end, the lights came up on his final guest, Paul McCartney, joined by Elvis Costello, Jon Batiste, and Louis Cato and The Great Big Joy Machine to sing “Hello, Goodbye,” (also the title of the final episode), joyfully reflecting on the duality of life’s constant changes and filling the stage with Colbert’s family, staffers, and friends to close things down in a chorus of “Hela, heba-helloa’s.”
Tonight’s Forecast: Orange and Blue Skies for the New York Knickerbockers
You just know I had to sneak in a LAST CALL dispatch to celebrate the occasion of my beloved New York Knicks making the NBA Finals for the first time in 27 years.
Being a lifelong Knicks fan means being well-acquainted with heartbreak. So this cautious sense of confidence and optimism in the air is an unexpected sensation that lights up the NYC skyline like an orange and blue comet that returns every other decade or so to instill just enough citywide hope yet ultimately fizzles out leaving only memories of almost and what could have been.
Making the NBA Finals was the assignment, but it feels like if another Knicks championship title is going to happen in my lifetime, it could very likely happen with this lineup. They’re heading into Game 1 of the Finals tonight against the San Antonio Spurs after winning an historic 11 straight playoff games in a row thanks to their incredible defensive intensity, switching things up and running the offense through center Karl Anthony Towns, a deep bench, and of course, the clutch play from team Captain Jalen Brunson. Even so, the Knicks are considered the underdogs in this match-up, primarily due to the dominance of center Victor Wembanyama along with a supporting cast of Stephon Castle, Dylan Harper, and De’Aaron Fox.
There’s something fitting about the last Knicks’ playoff appearance being 27 years ago in 1999 against the Spurs. But I’m incredibly stressed. It’s a different kind of stress than book deadline stress because with the Knicks I have nothing personal at stake other than a lifetime of dedication and mostly disappointment.
The last time the Knicks won the NBA Championship was 1973. Let that sink in. I was a four-year-old then and my father always liked to remind me that he had to miss watching the Knicks beat the Lakers on the night of May 10, 1973 because a young, curious, and likely mischievous Baby BTP wandered into his sister’s room and jammed her flute cleaner down his throat and had to be rushed to the ER. I wish my dad was still around to be able to watch this current Knicks run. Though he was famous for giving up when they were down in a sport where 30 seconds left on the clock can feel like an eternity. I was back home from grad school watching Game 1 of the 1995 Eastern Conference Semifinals between the Knicks and their rivals, the Indiana Pacers. With the Knicks up 105-99 with just 18.9 seconds left, my father checked out of the game and went into the kitchen to make a cup of tea, missing one of the biggest comebacks in NBA history as arch-villain Reggie Miller scored 8 points in 9 seconds, ultimately defeating the Knicks 107-105.
If you’re stopping by Montero’s tonight to watch the game, be sure to ask your bartender about the brand-new Montero Bar & Grill t-shirt. This just-dropped maritime merch (designed by Delaney Lee) comes in a seaworthy navy blue colorway with a porthole’s-eye view showcasing the exterior of the beloved Brooklyn bar located a stone’s throw from the nearby waterfront.
Among the spirited Easter eggs in the illustration you’ll find Montero matriarch Pilar Montero sitting at her usual corner seat. And peer up to the apartment above the bar (where award-winning author Frank McCourt once called home in the early 1980s) to find Enzo, my favorite vanilla-caramel-fudge tabby cat, on @windowkitty duty monitoring all the action below in the the red neon glow of the bar’s famous sign. Enzo’s already claimed my personal t-shirt, but you can pick up your very own at Montero for $25.00. But hurry, they’re going fast.
I’m rocking my Oakley’s Car Wash t-shirt today in solidarity to my favorite former Knick, Charles Oakley, a James Dolan-anointed Enemy of Madison Square Garden. While it’s been great to see former Knicks Patrick Ewing, John Starks, Latrell Sprewell, and Larry Johnson huddled together at MSG watching all the action like proud uncs, it’s sad to see Oakley MIA.
I have a couple Knicks caps in rotation, but I mostly wear this Carhartt collab lid I picked up last year when I’m out and about and want to support the team while remaining incognito, though I’ve got my eye on this Carhartt x Knicks trucker-style cap.
While the city is awash in orange and blue and excitement about the current state of the Knicks, I’ve found that my knee-jerk pronouncement of “Go Knicks!” to any one I pass also sporting Knicks gear is rarely returned and instead met with a look of what did that weird guy say? That’s the case, even more so, with women. And yes, I get it. You don’t want to be bothered. The giant headphones were my first clue. But when I recently gave a woman next to me at a crosswalk rocking an OG ‘90s era Knicks Basketball heather gray crewneck from Champion (now immortalized by Jennifer Aniston as Rachel Green on Friends in 1996), I got the most withering, leave me alone look yet. And yet, I will still likely emit an involuntary “Let’s Go Knicks!” if I see you.
I planned to stay in with Enzo to watch Game 1 at home tonight, but I’ll likely wind up at my usual table at the Lombardi Room in The Long Island Bar up the block. Something like this seems best viewed among a crowd of New Yorkers.
In the meantime, enjoy some Knicks-inspired pics from my camera roll. I’m running up to Lassen & Hennigs on Montague to pick up some Knicks cupcakes. Then it’s back to work on the manuscript until tip-off.
Thanks for reading and your continued support and your patience during the recent gap in programing. It’s good to be back. No pressure, but feel free to show your continued support with a tip or pick up the next Negroni for BTP or can of Blue Buffalo Tastefuls Tuna Entree in Savory Sauce. Grazie Mille!
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Loved your authenticity here, Brad. Life is hard for everyone, even the incredibly interesting, creative, uber-funny and “successful “. I’m happy you took the break!! Glad you put one foot in front of the other and dug in. Go Knicks and Go BTP 🧡💙
Sugar, it's Eli. Keep on truckin', wildcat.