Sign of the Times

As anyone who has ever lost a close friend will tell you, it's not necessarily the big milestones (birthdays, anniversary of passing) that trip you up, it's the random day to day moments when something you do, say, or hear happens,  and the only person you really want to talk to about it is them.


This happened to me Friday when I was going to a meeting at the new REI flagship in Soho.  I was rushing from the subway and suddenly looked up and blinked a few times in the bright winter sun when I realized it was in the Puck Building in Soho.

The new REI store is amazing, it's like walking into a slice of Boulder, and since its opening in mid December has been a magnet for a community of outdoor and nature loving New Yorkers.  From a work perspective, I had stumbled upon 'my target audience.'


Though it's a sign of the times, and one that made me miss my friend, the debunker, the high beam on the dark road.  Dave always made us laugh while also so accurately interpreting 'what this means' from a larger social commentary perspective. 


The Puck Building used to be the HQ of SPY Magazine, an iconic social satire magazine that existed in the late 80's to 90's, that finally folded in the late 90's when the age of irony seemed to end.  90's martini drinking and laughing about Donald Trump antics and what celebrity was 'separated from birth' from was no longer funny, and we ushered in an era of Real News, fear and earnestness.  


In New York part 1, I spent a good portion of the mid to late 90's in Soho, working for a funny, edgy, fiercely independent ad agency, where I first met my friend Dave, who passed away three years ago.  This was when Soho wasn't a corporate mall, when we hadn't sold the company,  when everyone I worked with kept the bar very high on 'great creative' as the top priority.  


Different time, different place...  


I did love the new REI store, and felt that it's part of an overall "New York is getting better" wave, though all day I missed hearing what Dave would say about it. 

He might say, something he often said to me about California, "It's right for the way you're living today." 

Or he might say,  what he also often said, and how he continues to still influence us:


"Just go have an adventure!"