I'm still at the restaurant
Loving something that is gone
My 14 year old daughter is a Swiftie, a fan of the record-crushing songstress Taylor Swift who channels heart-break into billions of dollars. My daughter loves words and Taylor knows how to turn a phrase.
One song, “right where you left me” has this chorus:
Help, I'm still at the restaurant
Still sitting in a corner I haunt
Cross-legged in the dim light
They say, "What a sad sight"
I, I swear you could hear a hair pin drop
Right when I felt the moment stop
Glass shattered on the white cloth
Everybody moved on
I, I stayed there
Dust collected on my pinned-up hair
They expected me to find somewhere
Some perspective, but I sat and stared
I mention this because I have a story in the Washington Examiner magazine, on how the Columbia University anti-Israel protests were an extension of a broken New York, and where the problems began, how they got worse, how New York remains on a slide to the bottom, and my daughter read it and said “you’re still at the restaurant.” It’s the kind of burn only a teenager can lay on you.
I know that she’s right. I had a lot of analogies about leaving New York but the one I’d use most often was of the ex I still cared about, from my better life afar:
But now I think it’s more like a sibling who is on a bad path. I can’t really just get over it, can’t really leave them behind. Yes, our lives are immeasurably better in Florida, my kids are so happy, I sometimes can’t believe how good it all is, but something is wrong with someone I care about and I can’t just forget about it. I go back and forth between feeling like a genius for getting my family out and anger at the people who destroyed something I loved so much. I also feel a responsibility to speak for all the people who are trying so hard to vote themselves to sanity but are thwarted. “Don’t forget us,” people told me as we left. I won’t. If you think New Yorkers deserve this, that they all picked this for themselves, go look at the election results in my homebase of south Brooklyn in 2020, 2022. It’s a sea of red. So I’ll live my life but I’ll sit down in that booth sometimes, writing to my lost city, hoping something I say can get through.
You can read the story here: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/magazine-features/3013420/big-rotten-apple
You can hear “right where you left me” here:
In the same vein, the people I can’t leave behind are suffering economically while the New York Times pretends it’s just the vibes, man. In the New York Post, I write how the economy doesn’t just feel bad, it is bad. https://nypost.com/2024/06/02/opinion/vibecession-in-the-real-world-economy-is-still-hurting
Also in the Post, I note Andrew Cuomo is on his "how do you do, fellow Republicans" tour and I hope the NY GOP doesn't fall for it. https://nypost.com/2024/05/16/opinion/no-left-leaning-bully-andrew-cuomo-hasnt-suddenly-changed-his-spots
Again in the Post I hit the theme of Stolen Youth, the book that I co-authored with Bethany Mandel. Indoctrination is starting far before college. We need to focus on brainwashing in the K-12 space and even younger: https://nypost.com/2024/05/05/opinion/brainwashing-campus-activists-starts-long-before-college/
Since I’ve last written, I’ve interviewed all these people on the Karol Markowicz Show. Listen at the links below or wherever you get your podcasts!
On a recent monologue, I talked about sending my kids to sleepaway camp and how deeply I hate doing it but sometimes things that are hard for parents are good for children. I know a lot of parents are going through the same thing: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-the-karol-markowicz-show-124699042/episode/the-karol-markowicz-show-is-journalism-183155875/
You can see video clips from all of these interviews on my IG: https://www.instagram.com/karolinpublic/
Finally, my friend Mary Katharine Ham and I recorded our take on the outrage over Harrison Butker:
Thank you for reading, watching, all the support! I appreciate you all so much.
Karol
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