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As part of a four-month residency MANHATTAN NEIGHBORHOOD NETWORK, I’m opening up the production notebook for a rare series of live, work-in-progress performances of new OM episodes, offering a close look at how they take shape.

Across four intimate evenings, I’ll share unreleased stories, conversations, audio, film, and multimedia experiments exploring one of the biggest transitions of my life. Along the way, special guests will join to help shape the work before it disappears into production.

Join us for our first event on WED, AUGUST 19, at Manhattan Neighborhood Network (509 W. 38th St., Manhattan). Doors and light refreshments at 5:30 PM. Performances begin promptly at 6:30 PM, followed by a reception with food and drinks.

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Today, some journal entries about the recent move:

MP ✌🏼

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HUBBA HUBBA IS BACK! Our summer program hits with 1996’s Crash, featuring a lineup of the decade’s smoldering stars, including peak-era James Spader, Holly Hunter, Deborah Kara Unger and Elias Koteas on 35mm!



Join us for a wild night of vehicular mayhem on TUESDAY, AUG 25th at Nitehawk-Prospect Park.

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We’re deep into a move, renovations, along with other big life plans.

So this week, I share a special typewritten and illustrated journal entry—a recent afternoon of New York DEEEEEE-livering.

MP ✌🏼

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HUBBA HUBBA IS BACK! Our summer program hits with 1996’s Crash, featuring a lineup of the decade’s smoldering stars, including peak-era James Spader, Holly Hunter, Deborah Kara Unger and Elias Koteas on 35mm!

Join us for a wild night of vehicular mayhem on TUESDAY, AUG 25th at Nitehawk-Prospect Park.

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Today—a recent DMV experience from the journal:

NOTE: Every shirt I’ve bought from Tombolo gets me kudos in public.

MP ✌🏼

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OTHER MEN LIVE—JULY 22

As part of a four-month residency MANHATTAN NEIGHBORHOOD NETWORK, I’m opening up the production notebook for a rare series of live, work-in-progress performances of new OM episodes, offering a close look at how they take shape.

Across four intimate evenings, I’ll share unreleased stories, conversations, audio, film, and multimedia experiments exploring one of the biggest transitions of my life. Along the way, special guests will join to help shape the work before it disappears into production.

Join us for our first event on WED, JULY 22, at Manhattan Neighborhood Network (509 W. 38th St., Manhattan). Doors and light refreshments at 5:30 PM. Performances begin promptly at 6:30 PM, followed by a reception with food and drinks.

TICKETS

Over the last four years, this Substack has been my most consistent space for sharing work. But lately, the questions keeping me up at night have shifted, and my curiosity has gotten bigger than the container I originally built for it—namely Other Men, Other Men Need Help, you know (sweeping hand around) only masculinity stuff.

Maybe you’ve noticed it’s been quiet. I’m navigating some big life shifts that have taken up my attention and reshaped my priorities. Life has been asking me different questions. I will share more about those in a few months—for now, I can say that the changes are good, needed, and happening “all at once.”

As I move into the summer, fall, and beyond, I’m giving myself permission to let this space become a little looser. Less magazine. More notebook—very much raw (literal) sketches of daily life, observations, and my increasing attempts to nail my own illustrative version of Burt Reynolds.

This will all make sense soon.

Today, from my notebook to you—I share a few highlights from the first half of July.

MP ✌🏼

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🍺 The family friend dads who never had kids but used that void to buy us an expensive beer stein for college.

♣️ The queer dads who did public health by day, danced in Baltimore house clubs at night, and kept our underage, fake ID having asses safe whenever we snuck out for nightlife in the late 90s.

🚲 The co-worker dads who built our new bike when the other one got stolen during the summer of 2017.

🛗 The other co-worker dads who asked if we were ok during an elevator ride.

🚬 The German dads who let us smoke Marlboros in their houses as teenagers.

💪🏼 The AV teacher dads, who told us they once saw Arnold and Sly at a video conference, said they were actually shorter than expected, and not to worry about our growth spurts because we, too, could be action stars one day.

🫂 The dads of our exes we had to say goodbye to because of the breakup.

🏅 The dads who don’t call us champ or sport (boss is ok on occasion).

🇵🇷 The dads who embrace us like our deceased Caribbean parent.

⬇️ The dads who rock a button drop chesty look to perfection.

👑 The dads named Uncle Phil.

🎉 The dads named Pops in House Party.

🍑 The Michael Stuhlbarg dad advice monologue in Call Me By Your Name.

🦌 The Hal Halbrook surrogate dad monologue in Into the Wild.

🕵 The dads named Keith Mars from a show I’ve never seen but have been told to watch, not just because the dad character is quite a father but that’s part of the reason.

👵🏻 The grandparents who became our dads and also taught us what the word gigolo meant when they used it to describe Warren Beatty.

👩🏻 The moms who are dads and the moms who become our dads because dad was never around, took off, or departed Earth early.

🪽 The dads meeting our friends’ dads in Dad Heaven.

😇 The dads who were religious in a corny, Mr. Rogers way about it, and not in an abusive or restrictive way.

⬇️ The traveling dads who somehow found the most random airport souvenir gifts to bring back home from Taiwan.

🏫 The dads who used their retirement to pay for our college education.

📶 The dads inside.

🌤️ The dads who just got outside.

🪖 The dads who served in the military to give our lives stability.

❤️ The dads who didn’t cheat on our moms.

❤️‍🩹 The dads who cheated on our moms but deeply repented for it.

☺️ The dads who were nice but we rejected because kindness wasn’t as appealing as rebellion.

⬇️ The dads who let us play really inappropriate music in their car, probably because they felt guilty about divorcing our moms, so this one is a little conflicted.

🧪 The IVF dads who are trying.

◎ The dads working tirelessly to return to their kids but accidentally discovered a portal to another dimension that looks eerily like ours except for the cantaloupe-looking creatures who hide under the skin of humans and eat you through their nostrils—it’s really fucking gross.

MP✌🏼

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Last week, I spent 48 hours in Los Angeles for work.

Here were my most meaningful interactions:

1. SUNDAY, 1PM (DOLLAR RENTAL): The rental car lady said my name was biblical, so I used the opportunity to “Christian-Flirt” with her, starting with an affirmative “Why yes, ma’am.” She told me that the devil didn’t keep her away from church that morning, unlike others. I threw out a “people today” sigh. It was quite a performance—I might as well have been wearing a shirt saying, “Bold in Belief.” She gave me a free upgrade.

   
   (I just remembered an internship interview I once had at UCB Theater. The staff asked who my comedy idols were. I only heard “idols,” froze, and said, “St. Francis.” Wrong audience.)

   

2. SUNDAY, 3pm (HI, NEIGHBOR): I arrived for a Welcome to El Barrio live recording at a boricua-owned dispensary. I’d never met a Puerto Rican while visiting California until this trip. There are many in Los Angeles, and of all those I met, their tattoo game was sick.
   

3. SUNDAY, 6:30pm (VISTA THEATER): There was a short, well-dressed, bearded, balding man around the same age as me in the ticket line for a double bill of First Blood and Extreme Prejudice on 35mm. We gave each other The Look. It’s wasn’t the I’m interested stare. It was more like two divas showing up to a ball wearing the same outfit, scanning each other as both threat as well as reflection, thinking, “Ok, so if that’s how the world sees me—notttt bad.” No words were exchanged but maybe he’s somewhere on Substack writing the same about me.

   Colin Farrell was also present. This is starting to sound like a dream but he happened to walk into the theater while I was surveying my doppelgänger. It was the Irish star’s birthday (I found that out days later). I think it’s pretty cool that he spent the evening with a few friends dorking out on 40-year-old macho movies.

   

4. MONDAY, 2pm (MUSEUM ROW): Back home, whenever someone walking towards me is glued to their phone, I always stay in their path, so I can show them what an idiot they are when they eventually bump into me. Sometimes, I’ll say something smug, too. But on this LA trip, I was walking and texting, and some dude (not on his phone) kept strolling towards me until I looked up and moved. Ok, you made your point, daaaad.
   

5. TUESDAY, 12pm (DOLLAR RENTAL BATHROOM): There was one guy at the urinal, watching something on his phone with his right hand while peeing. I finished my business, washed my hands, and dude was still standing there, piss job complete, immersed in his video. Congrats to whoever made the clip he was watching—that’s quite a content win.
   

6. TUESDAY, 1pm (LAX TERMINAL B): When I opened up my carry-out enchiladas, the dad-looking dad next to me said, “Oh, thank you for lunch.” I immediately had the “well, I knew you would be hungry” response. It actually meant a lot that he laughed at my comment. I love it when I manage a quick reply instead of the “hehe…yeah” non-starter that eeks out of me on occasion—those are the kinds of awkward exchanges I dwell on at night.

   

7. TUESDAY, 2-8pm (35,000 FEET ABOVE THE U.S.): I sat next to a five-year-old and her dad on the return flight to New York. I felt bad because he felt bad about how much his daughter was chatting with me—a lot of “Honey, he’s working.” She thought I was overfilling my plastic cup with Diet Coke, but not a drop spilled throughout the flight (I showed her!). She said it was her birthday and then showed me miscellaneous gifts, including a slew of Disney stickers, which she plopped everywhere in our section. I guess our conversation carried enough volume that when we landed, the men around us did something really cool—a bunch of them said happy birthday. The girl was shocked that—SOMEHOW—they knew. While walking through JFK, I found one of her stickers stuck to my shoe.

I’m back and happily so. A big thank you to Blake, John, and their cats who always give me a welcome shelter whenever I make my way out West.

By the way, for more on the lives of Puerto Ricans in L.A.—that live episode of Welcome to El Barrio is out. But for the lives of Puerto Ricans in Nueva Yol, we’ve got new episodes of Our Thing: The Birth of Salsa in Nueva York.

MP✌🏼

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Let’s start this out with a proverb that EVERYONE should print out as a reminder of a universal truth:

Now, onto the rant thoughtful commentary.

*

Every few weeks, someone sends me something in the media cycle to comment on. I always appreciate the outreach, but if you’ve been following this space for a while, you know I rarely share opinions on the news. I mostly leave breaking commentary to other voices.

But a deluge of think pieces in the form of Louis Theroux’s Inside the Manosphere, the New York Times’ recent opinion piece, America Has a Masculinity Crisis, TED Radio Hour’s Beyond the Manosphere chat, and The New Yorker’s look at Men’s Retreats has made me nauseous to the point of hollering (reading audience commentary with the usual shade of “men will do BLANK, but not therapy” responses only makes my stomach more curdled).

The underlying thread in these pieces makes me sad and angry—pointing to the actions of lonely people, often in an arm’s length way to nail algorithmic success (JFC, the masculinity crisis headline is older than William Randolph Hearst).

Hence, I, reluctantly, show up here today to respond.

I was surprised by a recurring memory that came while reviewing these pieces, thinking, “Maybe this is one of those moments that point to the ethos of why I spend day after day, week after week, year after year in this space talking about the private things men think and do.”

🤔

What was that memory? My first hangover.

I was 16.

My friend and I raided a case of Bud Light from his dad’s fridge. We probably split six beers. Whatever the amount, it was enough to get hammered without any sickness. I liked the feeling, even if I woke up the next morning with a day-long headache. Then came 11th grade.

When I started my junior year, I couldn’t make friends. It was like I lost the ability. I wasn’t a great student, athlete, or even an extracurricular kid. Circa the rules of late 90s masculinity, my ability to spend more than 30 seconds on my clothes made me girly. Boys thought I was gay. I wasn’t really Latino enough for the Latino kids. I wasn’t wealthy enough to buy myself into social acceptance with the rich kids. I tried the coded rules, like asking a bunch of boys over to watch a Friday night boxing match (one of the perks of my mom’s remarriage was getting cable, namely HBO, baby). When that Friday came, my stepdad bought four pizzas for the guests I’d invited.

No one came.

Instead, my septuagenarian stepfather and I—the least athletic guys in Montgomery County, Maryland—watched the bout and ate slices.

I couldn’t acknowledge how painful this moment felt at the time, but damn if it doesn’t reverberate in adulthood.

I felt a part of nothing. I had no direction.

I’d allow anyone who knew me to offer commentary on the kind of teenager I was, but I doubt I generally came off as anything other than nice and quiet. My grades were so-so. I just floated by. On the surface, I imagine most people would see a stable teenager, perhaps content. But what teenager is content?

My rebellion was always very secretive.

I connected my feelings of ease with those cans of Bud Light from the previous summer, and started a habit of spending Fridays and Saturday nights alone, going up to my parents’ liquor cabinet and pouring something for myself. I would stay up watching cable, drinking whatever was in that glass. Eventually, alcohol joined harder drugs. That’s the way it goes. The next week, I’d float through the hallways at school. Just existing.

If that sounds sad, it was/is. I don’t even want to share this now, let alone 30 years ago.

The thing is, I wanted to be outside of my body. To be someone else. To have a guide who saw me, someone who could guide me. I don’t know if I would’ve given anything, but the feeling is still so palpable even now that I can only imagine I would have.

By my senior year, I fared much better. I found friends and became part of a scene (back to my hip-hop roots with some raver energy thrown in). I stopped using hard drugs, went to college. Career, love life, travel, disposable income. Now, I’m married and living in New York City.

But I think of the rejection I felt during those months and how it tempered my relationships with men for the rest of my life.

When I review the various think pieces sent to me with the deep feelings of disconnection I project onto these guys (whether audience members of the Manosphere or those who attend self-improvement retreats), I connect with is one of the most recognizable parts of my adult self—the one who still feels like that 16-year-old boy. Even though that’s a time in my life I never want to go back to, the tendency towards self-medicating and isolation, rather than face social ostracism, is one that I continue to reckon with.

In regards to the quote I shared up top, we wait until we see clear, physical proof of someone taking a bold public action to acknowledge that someone (or a group) feels alienated. The thing is, “burning down a village” isn’t just a solitary action—it’s often self-inflicted. The destruction of a village also means the destruction of the individual within the community. Whether it’s booze, sex addiction, cutting, or simply retreat—they’re all actions based in disconnection.

It’s a different world in so many ways. I will never know what it’s like to be young and navigate social pressures online. I feel for these young men who are so damn lost. Even though the environment is different, I understand those same impulses for connection.

I find myself thinking of the boys and young men who make their way, looking for someone to get them out of themselves. How much I ache for these young guys and how lost they feel, even if they can’t put words to it. How good it feels just to find something, someone, just some group to be a part of.

I don’t often connect with the phrasing, “You are not alone.” That’s not totally true. Your experiences are yours. That feeling of “alone-ness” is true. The truer statement is, “Your experiences are universal.” Trust me. Dude, you’re not that weird—I see you.

That’s why I’m here, day after day, month after month, year after year. Not to tell anyone the answers. To say this is what I’ve discovered, and here’s what I’m still asking.

Adios, ciao ciao, byeeeeeeeee,
Mark✌🏼

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I spent a year in the homes and haunts of our living and gone-too-soon salsa greats. This week Our Thing: The Birth of New York Salsa, hosted by ROSIE PEREZ, premieres! It’s a proud professional, creative, and, importantly, cultural milestone for me. There’s so much love in this mezcla—I know you’ll feel it when you listen. It’s where all the podcasts live—find out more info here.

Last time we moved, I found a rubber Vulcan ear. This time it’s receipts.

Life has thrown a few new projects my way this spring, which has led to my absence from this space. One of those recent detours is a move. Not far though—Caitlin and I are schlepping two blocks away, around the corner from a movie theater frequented by local teens who go there to vape and make out (matinee tickets are $7—how can you beat that in New York?).

We’re bouncing on the anniversary of my 13th year living in New York (16th year, technically, counting the first three years I spent here after college). Back in the familiar dance of packing and rediscovering the archives of my life, I’ve come across a box of receipts and journal entries from that 2013 transition time.

13 years ago, it was either gonna be New York or New Orleans. My girlfriend and I were living in DC. She wanted to move down South, and I was considering a return to New York. Years later, I can clearly see how different our lives were—I was looking for ambitious opportunities, she was looking to experiment, explore, and live freer. The age difference played a part, too. I was in my early 30s, and she was entering her Saturn Return phase.

My first trip to NOLA was early that year with a return ticket to New York, treated as a back-to-back comparison.

I was housed by my boo’s friends. They aimed to show me the best of Crescent City.

When I shot up to New York, my friends Brian and Leslie took me out to eat at one of Bay Ridge, Brooklyn’s many stellar Middle Eastern haunts. We watched Zero Dark Thirty afterward in the same vaping/make-out theater I live so close to now. I didn’t like the movie that much.

Around Memorial Day 2013, I “temporarily” moved to New York to take care of Brian and Leslie’s cats while they traveled to California and drove back.

My first meal was with my best friend. He needed to talk—his marriage was ending. I hope it’s ok to share that—both because he’s not named and, in these 13 years, they seem to have both found the right lives for themselves. I reconnected with his ex last year—I really missed our friendship, and it’s one of the most meaningful reunions I’ve had in a long time.

Brian and Leslie housed me for four more months while I “felt out” New York again. My girlfriend and I talked every day as she planned her move to New Orleans. Since I wasn’t working, I spent many summer days wandering around the city, often with my friend, Ruth. We’d see matinees and talk about our relationship woes.

I didn’t want to tell my girlfriend, but I was falling in love with New York again.

I finally opened up about my feelings for New York. My girlfriend left and started falling for New Orleans. Our relationship lasted another year and a half, which I think is pretty good, even if we should’ve ended it much earlier.

There’s no desire to ever do a long-distance again, but with the right person (and I’m with that right person), it’s manageable (and Good God, the amount of family members and friends who are gracefully navigating long-distance partnerships due to elder care, life in the military, the job market, or financial strife—it’s become a very common reality for so many). Until life says I must adjust, I remain a New Yorker.

13 years later, and I still love this town. Caitlin just texted me about our morning R train conductor ranting about people holding the doors. NYC always keeps it 100, and I love you because of it, baby.

But I wouldn’t stay if my people weren’t here. My love affair with New York is contingent only on being in proximity to the people who make my heart beat. I couldn’t have started, restarted, or stayed without the support and love of those souls.

Even my ex finally moved here. With her new boo.

Back to packing up Vulcan ears and movie stubs. I’ll return with more of the regular Other Men mishegoss next week.

Adios, ciao ciao, byeeeeeeeee,
Mark✌🏼

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It’s been quiet here lately.

There are life and creative updates which I will keep MYSTERIOUS until I share later.

As a spring awakening of sorts, I announce our latest Hubba Hubba screening—1991’s indie darling, Hangin’ with the Homeboys, on 35mm for its 35th anniversary.

Join us for this rarely screened classic followed by a Q&A with Executive Producer Janet Grillo on WEDNESDAY, MAY 27, at 8:30pm, always at the magical Nitehawk Theater-Prospect Park!

TICKETS TICKETS TICKETS TICKETS TICKETS TICKETS TICKETS TICKETS TICKETS

My dad had seven kids. I was the last. There’s a decades-wide age gap between the firstborn and me—by the time I started kindergarten, she was divorced. Even if I was precocious as hell, there’s no way an adult is gonna get advice about a trial separation from a five-year-old (except in dreck like 500 Days of Summer with its kid sister “wise beyond her years” horseshit).

It took some time for all of us Pagáns to see each other as peers, let alone siblings. But, I’d lock horns with the “Oh, you mean ‘half-sibling!’” unsolicited poppycock I’ve heard since childhood. There’s a line in the sand for folks who can’t honor how someone defines their family. Conversely, I’ve got open arms for those who struggle beyond what others define as “normal” or “nuclear” dynamics.

Even before I read Tracy Clark-Flory’s My Mother’s Daughter, I sensed she came from a similar family cloth. Tracy was raised in the Bay Area where her mom, Deb, had moved after a restrictive upbringing in Indiana. Tracy says both mother and daughter united over a feeling of “other-ness”:

I would say our mother-daughter bond in some ways was around that sense of being outsiders or other as girls and women. I think it’s both true that I was shaped by her own sense of otherness, but also that I feel very lucky that I had that sense of identification with her.

When Tracy was sixteen, her mom revealed a family secret: as a teenager, Deb gave up a child for adoption and was committed to a home for unwed mothers. In her 30s, and following her mother’s death, Tracy worked to find her sister and uncover what her mom experienced following the pregnancy. The results led to Tracy’s newest memoir. It’s an exquisite weaving of family legacy, a history of (often) quiet penalties for women and their children born out of wedlock, and a balm of a read—especially for those of us still trying to redefine our family units as we age.

I’ve been meaning to connect with Tracy for some time. Her writing about relationships, sex, and desire continues to inspire the work I capture in this space. Her new book and its themes allowed us to schedule a Substack Live this month—enjoy some excerpts from that energetic and enlightening conversation.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity

You talk about observing your mom and the complex emotions sometimes that took over her face when she looked at you especially in moments of joy. You also have this Alan Watts concept where he suggested that “the universe was looking at itself through our eyes.” You write, “In other words, we humans were of the universe and gave it consciousness. Through my eyes, my mom is looking at her daughter.” Which is just beautiful and ethereal. You remarking on observing your mom, as well this philosophical idea of the ways in which we are the eyes, the ears, the spirits of the universe, and in this search for your sister, how much do you think the search was for your mom versus for you?

I mean, it’s so interesting. So, like when I first found out about my sister, I was a teenager. My mom gave me the very basics of her story, that she got pregnant as a teenager. When she was 18 years old, her father sent her away to a home for unwed mothers, where she placed the baby for adoption. This was 1965, almost 20 years before I was born. And I remember asking her if she’d tried to find her daughter. And she had said, “Some people hire private detectives. But I don’t want to barge into her life. I don’t want to disrupt her life. It’s not my right.” I think she felt that she had kind of surrendered her right and that she wanted to make herself available to her daughter if she should ever want to come find her. So she listed herself on an adoption registry. And I think as a teenager, I had grown up as an only child longing for a sister, begging for a sister. And so I wanted to find my sister from the moment that I found out that she existed. I could tell that this caused her a lot of pain. And it didn’t feel like mine, I guess. And so I kind of left it, like, this is hers. Years later, when my mom died, when I was in my late 20s, the thought occurred again. I realized, shortly after my mom died, my dad disconnected their landline, which was the number she’d listed on the adoption registry. And the first thought I had was, she can’t find us now. Like, the number that’s out there that she might discover doesn’t exist anymore. And so I listed myself on a registry and put my phone number and thought about hiring a private detective, but remembered what my mom had said about it’s not my right. I don’t want to barge into her life. Truthfully, right after my mom died, it was hard for me to tell what of my wish, you know, to find my sister, was a wish to find her? And what of it was motivated by my grief over losing my mom? And I kind of interrogated it and felt like it might be selfish to go looking for my sister at this point in time, right after our mom has died, the mom that she never got a chance to know. And it was really years later, once I kind of realized that DNA testing, like really was a possibility, a possible way to find her, and only find her if she wanted to be found, that I started considering it. And by then, you know, my mom had been gone for many years. I had become a mom myself. You know, I felt like I was in a very different phase in life. I’d written my first book. I processed so much of my own shit at that point. And so it felt, I felt like clearer about my motives at that point in my life. And it felt like I was really wanting to do it truly for myself. And like I had enough distance from my mom that I could own it now. But our coming together has felt like this wild kind of triangulation. The first time I met my sister in person and I hugged her, I had this feeling of like, I’m hugging her as my sister for myself. And I’m hugging her for our mom because she’s the baby that our mom never got to even hold. And I’m also sort of like hugging her for our mom as a mom now myself that my me becoming a mom has changed my understanding of our mom’s loss from this adoption right um so I would say like you know it felt like the motivation was was mostly for myself but then the the coming together process my like it feels like my mom has been this just additional layer of it like I’m experiencing this on multiple levels, right? It’s as a sister, and it’s for my mom, both at the same time.

I actually want to go back a little bit just so we have some context. You are an adolescent. A dermatologist visit where you’re getting an Accutane and birth control prescription led to conversations with your mom about sex, and then it led to her telling you about having this first child. At that age, who did you imagine this mysterious person to be, and how did that change or inform how you viewed your mom?

Initially, when she told me about this baby and that I had a half-sister, I thought about someone who was like a same-age sister or a sister who was maybe a few years older. When I considered that my sister was so much older than me that she might already have a family of her own, that she might be a mother herself, it felt like kind of out of the reach of my imagination even. Because I think like my as an only child my sort of vision of what it meant to have a sister was like very much that vision of like a sister who’s three years older than you and is you know close enough that she can kind of be a guide to you in life that she’s just a few steps ahead and so this kind of felt out of reach to me and I also think you know in terms of like my imagining who my sister was From the few things that my mom said in that conversation and then later on, it was clear that my mom worried about what had happened to her daughter and that she carried worst-case scenarios in her head about the kind of life that she might have lived. And I think that that might have dissuaded me from that sort of imagining of who she was, right? Because it kind of was shrouded in fear. But in that first conversation, I didn’t have any conscious thoughts of it changing how I felt about my mom. But as I look back now, especially as a parent, I do wonder about kind of what impact it had for me at that age, to consider the fact that my mom had placed my sister for adoption, if it in some ways made our connection feel more unstable, more tenuous, more conditional. Like, I didn’t understand what a home for unwed mothers was, you know? And so I really kind of believed that this was a choice that she made. My understanding later on was much more complicated. But I think at that point, I wonder what was the effect of believing that my mom could surrender a child, my sister. How did that impact our dynamic, you know?

With this book, we have this story of you working to find your sister. In the midst of that, you break down the ripple effects of generations of women who didn’t fit into chaste boxes of accepted femininity. And you mention this conversation you had with your father-in-law in reference to the kind of work that you write about. You say to your father-in-law, “sex workers are canaries in the coal mine.” Which I think is just like that’s a really fascinating and incredible thing to say. Break that down for us—what does that mean?

To my father-in-law’s credit, the fact that he was able and interested in asking me why I wrote about sex worker rights was phenomenal. And so I used that line in part because I was talking about this contradiction between the popularity of porn as one of the most popular entertainment mediums and then the shame and criminalization that’s heaped on sex work. After that conversation, I think my understanding kind of developed more. I ran into the work of Margo St. James, who is an amazing sex worker activist, who made this argument that the punishment of sex workers was a way to keep all women in line, that it was an example that was set by the system, and that the punishment of sex workers wasn’t just criminalization, it was also stigma. And that stigma is what some scholars call whore stigma, which basically applies to any woman who steps outside the bounds of appropriate femininity and respectable behavior. So that could apply to an unwed mother. It could apply to a divorcee. It could apply to queer women. It could apply to women who speak out against domestic violence and on and on and on. But I think especially relevant to just the subject matter in my book, I quote the feminist scholar Silvia Federici, who similarly argues that the punishment of sex workers was part of what got women to accept unpaid labor within the family home. Because they weren’t paid a wage. They were paid in respectability. So it was respectability opposite the shame that was heaped on sex workers. That comes from a part in the book where I’m really drawing these connections between sex worker rights and the kind of shame that was heaped on unwed mothers in my mom’s era. Like they were held up as examples. The fact that unwed mothers were sent away to these homes in shame, the parallels are really clear between sex workers and unwed mothers. And actually, speaking to the canary in the coal mine thing, before homes for unwed mothers were focused on unwed mothers, they started by targeting sex workers for rescue. That just like blew my mind as I dove into this research. Like I spent so much of my career writing about sex, writing about sex worker rights, writing about the porn industry. And then to find that this system that had so impacted my mom and my family originated in this attempt to control sex workers, and that they actually just refocused their attentions from sex workers to unwed mothers, because sex workers essentially would not stick around for saving. They found that unwed mothers were a more captive audience, and so that’s where they directed their attention. There’s a lot of this history that I wasn’t aware of, and especially a lot of the details.

You say that your mom was part of around 3 million girls and women who surrendered their babies between 1950 and 1975. And this is a generation or generations where thousands of parents sent their young pregnant daughters to maternity homes. These homes started as Victorian mansions that housed a family before being used as a tool of the family. To the best that you can, explain how this became part of our country’s history. And in what ways does this still exist?

One of the most fascinating things about this history of these homes in this country is that when they initially started, the idea was that you were going to keep mom and baby together, so women were usually like at the start. These homes were run by evangelical women who saw unwed mothers as deserving of sisterly sympathy. They saw them as having been taken advantage of by rogues and cads who had seduced and abandoned them. And so they were taking them in and the goal was for them to find redemption essentially either by marrying a man whether it was the father of their baby or otherwise or by finding work within a married couple’s home. But they they were often required to sign paperwork as they entered these homes saying that they would keep their babies and then there was a shift in the 1920s where Social Workers started to kind of take over from these evangelical women and introduced ideas around science and treatment. And it was no longer sympathetic. And these unwed mothers, they were seen as a threat to the nuclear family. So that’s this major shift where suddenly now these women are expected to part with their babies. And so much of what I write about in the book is that phase of this project where essentially mostly white women were hidden away behind the walls of these homes and the idea was that they would stay there until they could give birth and place their babies for adoption typically with white married couples who were struggling with infertility and so it became part of this broader project to reinforce marriage and the White Nuclear Family norm by truly relocating babies from unwed mothers who were seen as wrong and undeserving to proper married families. And it was all so steeped in ideas about purity and goodness. Part of the reason that white women were the women who were sent away was because white women were assumed to be inherently pure and good. They were sort of placed on a pedestal and they were seen as having fallen from their pedestal. And these homes were ostensibly a way to return them to their pedestals. Black unwed mothers—because of racist stereotypes about Black women’s hypersexuality—redemption was ruled out, essentially. They were expected to raise their own children within their extended families. And then, of course, they faced a host of associated consequences as a result of being placed on this. White women and Black women were placed on these completely diverging paths. And it was all part of returning these white women from the nuclear family to marriage to proper womanhood. And, I mean, it’s, yeah, it’s a wild, little-known history, I feel like, you know?

That’s actually a good pivot point to talk about your sister. And I want to make sure we have time to acknowledge this person. I don’t want to give too much away. And I know that there are details out there in terms of promotion of the book. There’s mention of the awkwardness, and a lot of us, this is a much longer conversation that I could have with you about sort of our cultural expectations of what a nuclear family is supposed to look like and the labels we are supposed to give people. I’ve got a bunch of siblings. They’re like half-siblings. I’m always having to say, “It’s my brother, dude. That’s my brother. That’s my sister.” You mentioned [this awkwardness], this tiptoeing that we have to do. Do I say our “mom?” How do I acknowledge this right now? What’s it like for you to...I guess all of a sudden, in a way have an identity marker as a sister for you? What does that mean? How has that changed your point of view in life and your own sense of self?

I mean, it’s still like even that word, hearing you say that word, it still gives me chills. Like it’s still something that I’m like, incorporating into my sense of self, right? You know, to have spent so much of my life up until, you know, as a teenager finding out that I had a sister to grow up as an only child. And that becomes like such a part of your identity, right? And then to learn that I had a sister, but to not be able to kind of occupy that identity in any real way because she’s a mystery and she’s out there somewhere in the world and I don’t get to have a relationship with her. And then suddenly here she is, and there’s like, you know, the sort of genetic fact of she is my sister. And then the aspect of developing a relationship and a sisterly relation, right, which is different from the biological fact of it, the DNA of it all, right? You know, I remember, like, after getting the DNA match, How I would just like turn that word that phrase over in my head my sister my sister my sister like it was like you know like kind of with every with ever repetition like it’s like this like gem that I’m like turning around and like discovering all these new facets of like oh my gosh and then in our first phone call very early on she referred to our mom um And I remember the shock and the thrill of her saying that because I was prepared for her to say biological mom, birth mom, you know, these terms that are often used. But it was like very clear and direct, without caveats, my mother. And then is what she said in that first phone call. And then so like, you know, just to speak to the language of it, it’s like, I wasn’t sure, like, you know, did I get to own our mother? Like, was I allowed to use that language? And I remember the awkwardness of our initial emails back and forth where, I mean, looking back, I feel like such a dummy. I was so worried about saying the wrong thing that I ended up saying the wrong thing, which was, I remember one of my first emails with her. I think I was like, I referred to our mom by her first name. Or something like that Like it was like this very formal thing I was like kind of defaulting to facts I was being like a journalist about it Because I didn’t want to overstep And then of course I like endlessly Kind of interrogated myself about that decision And but gradually got to this point of being able to just say Our mother Because my sister you know continued to use that language And so it felt like something that I could also adopt And I think I will say like you know My sister has been a sort of leader in that adoption of language. She was the first to write me an email that started, hey, sis, with an exclamation point. And that was just everything. That email alone just felt like it was a major kind of shift or turn in our relationship where suddenly I was able to like sync further into our sisterhood and like really feel it and believe in it and start to occupy more of that role. But the language piece of it is so, it’s huge, right?

I’m curious about the union that can form in grief, and also about the isolation that can happen in grief. Have you seen a change in your grief, even by being able to apply the label “sibling” and “our mother?”

What immediately comes to mind, which is very fresh for me, is that my sister Kathy has gotten to know our mom in new ways from reading this book. I had tried to give her a download on who our mom was and what the story was, of course, in all our endless phone conversations, emails, and everything. But there’s so much that I could only communicate through this book. And so when she read the first draft, she came to feel as if she saw our mom in a new way. And she saw herself in our mom in a new way. And on further reads, she’s turned to it again now that the book is out. And part of her experience is that I think she’s in a new stage of her own grief over not getting to know our mom. And so it’s the loss of our mom, the lost opportunity of getting to meet her and to know her, that is in part informed by what she’s learning of her from this book. And so it’s, I mean, I just don’t even have words for it yet, what it means to me. I have my own grief for our mom, but I also know I’m kind of there for my sister in her grief for our mom that is distinct and unique, right? Like her experience of that grief is quite different. Like the way that we’re grieving our mother is different. The lived experience of growing up with her, how I’m grieving that and the loss of that, and how she’s grieving never having gotten that. So it’s like, it’s a very complex sort of grief, the way that the grief has sort of expanded, and it is a wild kind of experience that I wouldn’t have known to anticipate. Yeah, that makes sense. I have just a few more questions for you, Tracy, and for the audience. I was going to ask you to give a biography for Kathy, but it feels a little too formal. So I’m wondering if, you know, the thing that came to mind just now is like a dating profile. You know, we often ask, you know, there’d be the people in our life, like, help me write this dating profile, or, you know, give me the info for this dating profile. You know me well, like, what are my key things?

One of the things I really love about this book is that it’s also a sort of a tome to embracing. It’s like there are some good hugs that are in the book. One of the things that I find very bittersweet about life, but also heartbreaking, but also rewarding, is the ephemera of a person when they pass. And specifically the affection that that person gives, the way somebody can put their hand on your shoulder, or a hug that they give you, or the way they can hold your hand. And those things, the disappearance of those things when somebody departs. But it also allows us the opportunity to replicate those embraces, those areas of affection, or rediscover them in the people in our lives. So the question, the two questions I have related to this are what were some of the trademark affectionate touches or moves that your mom exhibited, and how does that show up in you, and how does that show up in Kathy?

My mom is an interesting case in that, in her own words, I remember her saying to me as I was growing up, “I’m not the cuddliest.” And that was true. She was incredibly loving and, like I said, very empathetic, so tuned in to me and my emotional states, almost too tuned in. But there was some physical distance that I now understand as being very related to the loss of her first child, right? And from all the reading that I’ve done about women who were sent away and who placed babies for adoption, and then later went on to have babies that they were able to raise. There’s often this dynamic of overprotectiveness and a kind of emotional distance, which makes perfect sense to me. And my mom had both. And so in terms of like her sort of gestures of love and care, it was often like it wasn’t a physical touch, but it was, it was like a tilt of the head and a smile and an “Oh, honey.” And that’s like that’s like often what I default to in my head when I’m like when I need that mom voice, you know, I picture the oh, honey. And it’s just, it’s like, speaks volumes. It’s like, it’s paragraphs, it’s pages, it’s whole chapters of a book, right, in terms of what it conveys and how it feels. What’s interesting, though, is that, like, Kathy, I would say, is much more physically affectionate and, like, very comfortable with it. And that’s been a really wonderful experience for me, to have that kind of sisterly relationship that has the presence of cuddliness of being able to kind of linger in an embrace is really wonderful. And so what’s interesting with Kathy is like that mix of nature and nurture, and who she is is certainly a mix of that, and part of what I’m getting to know in her is how she was raised by her adoptive parents, who are wonderful. And, you know, so they’re like also present in this kind of coming together, right? It feels like, you know, we have a lot of different people in the mix here.

My Mother’s Daughter is available wherever you buy books (but do it LOCAL, man).

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My final travel itinerary for March went, mercifully, uninterrupted last week. I returned from a brief trip to San Francisco with a slim TSA line, fully staffed. Along with the airline blessings I’m counting this month, my final moment in the airport introduced me to a new fan favorite on SFO’s security team.

Accompanying my backpack and duffel bag, I carried a styrofoam container of grub for my cross-country flight. My first interaction at the screening process was with a security staffer who looked at the container and said, Uh-uh, where’s my portion?

In the catalogue of Five-Second Crushes, my TSA agent understood the assignment.

Most crushes that don’t go beyond anything more than thoughts about attraction last in fives: seconds, minutes, days.

The Five-Minute Crush is like the guest in the work meeting. You’re thankful when they talk because you have an excuse to look at them—thank God for Zoom, though, where no one can tell when you’re just staring at their face.

The Five-Day Crush occurs at something like a conference. You keep running into each other. That sponsored event on opening night—where you find yourself in a group—well, turns out she lives in a town that has your favorite brewery. You both tried climbing recently and are kind of obsessed. There are intentional hangs throughout the final days together. By the end of conference time, you return home to a familiar routine, remember how your crush talked about Dave Matthews Band more than once (something you intentionally ignored during those interactions), and the connection remains tied to those five days in Jacksonville. (This doesn’t count as a Five Day Crush if you’re already colleagues, have a history of any kind, or, you know, hook up.)

The Five-Second Crush is the most impactful. Those fleeting that made my day moments offered by the background players of life. In the When Harry Met Sally narrative of our day-to-day, these are the I’ll have what she’s having Estelle Reiners of the world—the background sirens who steal our hearts with just one simple action.

The Knicks may be a continuous disappointment, but the Five-Second Crushes of New York—that’s where the real points get scored in this town.

For this month’s Other Minis, I dive into some Crushes in Five archives from my journals to celebrate the folks who briefly captured my heart in transit.

SEPTEMBER 1, 2017

Dekalb Ave Station. I was combining two cards—one of them brand-new. MTA clerk gave me a look after seeing the amount, with a sly smile like “Hey, big spender.”

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SEPTEMBER 3, 2017

Leaving Duane Reade, a woman with a cane coming in. She said, “Go ‘head, baby.”

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AUGUST 7, 2017

The Smashburger cashier asked if it was “Mark with a ‘K’ or a ‘C’?”

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MAY 5, 2015

I saw the prettiest conductor on the Q train. She had to tell people to stand clear. I couldn’t stop staring at her. I marked the day of week and time so I could see her more.

(I never did)

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JULY 18, 2015

2am. MTA worker to another worker on the 36th Street platform:

This passenger was complaining that the speakers were inaudible. Couldn’t hear the announcements. He’s got a legitimate gripe but we can’t do nothing new. They use old cars but I’m gonna let someone know.

I’m attracted to women in uniforms.

Importantly, how can someone be so good at their job at 2am?

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SEPTEMBER 19, 2017

The Key Food cashier singing along to Peter Cetera’s Glory of Love.

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JULY 16, 2015

I walked to the gym, and passed by an older woman wearing a Run-DMC t-shirt. I was immediately in love. Sometimes, that’s all it takes, ladies.

I joined Becca Ramos, Tess Garcia, and Briana Mendez for a spirited chat about the impact of Bad Bunny on Welcome to El Barrio.

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A revisit to a wonderful dive in men and friendship with Anita Rao on WUNC’s Embodied (I really adored this conversation).

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Movies. Men. Awards. I have thoughts.

Instead of a deep dive on this year’s Oscar nominees, I’m getting ahead of Sunday’s awards with a few of my own—my version of the Masculine Academy.

Friend, I present the 2025 Other Men Awards for distinguished masculine representation in Hollywood.

Last year, Caitlin bought me a prepper bag as a Christmas gift.

For someone who thinks a lot about what I have to offer in a dystopian world, it’s the only helpful step I’ve taken—or, someone has taken for me—to plan for a potential doomsday.

I frequently worry about what skills I have to offer in the apocalypse. There isn’t a need for cultural analysis on masculine norms when searching for clean water takes up your day, even if I have a lot to say about the suspiciously curated stubble worn by many post-apocalyptic heroes (seriously, it’s a thing).

My deeper fear is a reaction to the masculine traits I value—care, nurture, grooming rituals—and the belief that they won’t be assets in a dystopian world. We rarely celebrate safety and tenderness in relation to masculinity. And, I get it. Tough energy is hard to ignore. The apocalypse is the best exemplar of my personal insecurities about vulnerability. Even though vulnerability is a core value, I also scoff at the blanket “men just need to be vulnerable” rhetoric which ignores environments and circumstances (crime-ridden areas, abuse, etc.) where appearing “weak” can lead to social ostracism (which can feel like death) or, at its worst, targeted attacks (which offers the threat of literal death).

Then, Dr. Ian Kelson proved me wrong.

28 Years Later’s quirky proprietor of the Bone Temple (played to perfection by Ralph Fiennes) is one of the best characters in 2025’s canon of films. Fiennes’ Dr. Kelson shows how curiosity, a belief in the power of science, routine, and deep compassion are, in fact, the strengths needed to survive in a dystopian society. A person who lives by holding onto hope, believing in humanity, and offering a tender heart to help others keeps one sane, alive, and connected. And, ok, yes, being a doctor in a functionless society helps, too.

If we measure film performances and characters as those who make us want to model ourselves after them, then Fiennes and Dr. Kelson win by a Samson Sausage mile (if you know, you know).

I’m eternally fascinated by friendships between women. Almost with a longing sensibility. 2025 gave us some of film’s most enriching bonds in time well spent with the leads of Just One of Them Days and Sorry, Baby.

On the other side of the scale sits a movie that’s one of the most interesting on this list— maddingly so. Welcome to Missed Opportunity City, aka The Smashing Machine, where expectations are subverted for an experience that tastes like tepid soup. Benny, baby, what did you do? You had the best story dichotomy in front of you—two soft-spoken, deeply affectionate friends who also gouge out eyes and support each other in the gouging. Instead, you gave us a Nothing Burger served with Bitchy Wife fries. Not only that, we had Dwayne Johnson as Mark Kerr and Ryan Bader as Mark Coleman—you could’ve called this…

Wait for it...

Just wait…

Almost there…

Stay with me…

Ok…

You could’ve called this…

Oh, Hi Marks.

Sinners should get Oscars for many reasons, including Michael B Jordan for bringing phenomenal twin energy. But 2025’s most fascinating twin/brother story came from Osgood Perkins.

I had a tough time “enjoying” The Monkey—the first of two films Perkins directed last year (the other being Keeper)—those 90-some minutes just felt mean. Then I did some reading on Perkins’ background, and I understood what the director was saying.

Anthony Perkins was the director’s father. This I knew.

What I didn’t know was that Anthony Perkins kept his sexuality a secret from his children until close to his death from AIDS on September 12, 1992.

Berry Berenson was the director’s mother. This I knew.

What I didn’t know was that Berenson was a passenger on American Airlines Flight 11. She died on September 11, 2001, nearly nine years to the date of her late husband’s passing.

Osgood Perkins has a brother, Elvis. I did not know this. Elvis and Osgood are the survivors of their parents’ tragic deaths.

With such morbid absurdity surrounding the loss of your parents, how can you not treat death as a cruel joke that hits you and your sibling over and over again?

(Side note—I highly recommend 1978’s Remember My Name, starring Osgood Perkins’ parents, Anthony Perkins and Berry Berenson as a married couple facing a mysterious stalker, Geraldine Chaplin in one of the decade’s best performances, returning from the husband’s previous life. It’s got layers, man.)

Ay Dios Mio, the guy played Magellan this year and did it in Portuguese.

Let’s give this dude his flowers soon.

OK, OFFICIAL OSCAR PREDICTIONS:

(not what I want to win, per se—this is what I’m betting on, instead)

BEST PICTURE: One Battle After Another (Sinners is a close second)

BEST DIRECTOR: Paul Thomas Anderson (Ryan Coogler is a close second)

BEST ACTOR (tie): Ethan Hawke / Wagner Moura

I predict this will be one of the upsets on Sunday. Timothee Chalamet has been too eager throughout his Oscar campagining. He’s also too early in his career. Michael B. Jordan might suffer the same fate. Hawke is increasingly well-regarded in the industry, plays the politics of Hollywood phenomenally, and has never won—Wagner Moura, who’s gained steam for his performance in The Secret Agent, is the competition between Hawke and the Gold Guy.

BEST ACTRESS: Jessie Buckley

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: Delroy Lindo (Sean Penn is a close second)

This category runs the risk of an upset in a few ways. Lindo is Hollywood legacy. He’s never been nominated (famously, overlooked for Da Five Bloods), and hits the industry’s self-congratulatory pat on the back for—every once in awhile—honoring Black elders. Sean Penn may win more as an anti-ICE statement than for his chilling performance as Greg Bovino Colonel Lockjaw in One Battle.

BUT, there’s a chance Stellan Skarsgård takes the honor—if so, it will lock in a screenplay win for Sentimental Value (see below).

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Teyana Taylor

Taylor’s chances have slimmed in recent weeks, but I still believe she’s top of mind for voters. Amy Madigan is expected to win for her sublime performance in Weapons. However, I predict a Bacall-Binoche upset, harkening back to the 1997 awards where Hollywood legend Lauren Bacall—expected to win her first Oscar for The Mirror Has Two Faces—was shocked, along with the crowd, to see ingenue Juliette Binoche win for The English Patient.

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: Sinners

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: One Battle After Another

The upset here could come from Norway with a win for Sentimental Value. Keep an eye on Best Supporting wins—at least one of the screenplay wins traditionally locks in a win for a supporting performance in the same film (ie, Skarsgård = Sentimental Value, Penn/Taylor = One Battle, Lindo = Sinners).

BEST FOREIGN FILM: Sentimental Value (close second: The Secret Agent)

Joachim Trier’s film about filmmaking hits so many bells for voters. It’s a competitive field this year, though, and Sentimental Value will likely get shut out of wins in major categories, except here, where it will receive some flowers for its Scandanavian team. With a prescient storyline, The Secret Agent does hover in the background as a possible steal in this category.

BEST ANIMATED FILM: K Pop Demon Hunters (they’re gonna win best song, too, folks)

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE: Mr. Nobody Against Putin

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT: All the Empty Rooms

I’m a little uncertain with some of the other technical categories, but I’m seeing big wins for Frankenstein with makeup, production design (Hamnet is my second choice). F1 should take home an Oscar for Sound. One Battle and Sinners will have to battle (sorry) it out in cinematography and editing (I put my money on Sinners for cinematography). Hollywood wants to give James Cameron something for making movie-ass movies, so his team will take home statues for the latest Avatar.

We love a Benicio win, but it ain’t gonna happen this year. Instead, I wrote about our Boricua Brando’s subversion of an old Hollywood trope for Latino Newsletter.

*
brought me onboard to help guide her passion project, Welcome to El Barrio. Last month we sat with some bright minds at On Air Fest to chat about the impact of Bad Bunny’s meteoric rise.

Welcome To El Barrio Pod Substack

Welcome to El Barrio x OnAir Fest Recap

Holi Readers…

Read more

6 months ago · 4 likes · Becca Ramos

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EDITOR’S NOTE—MARCH 2026

Why not open a restaurant? When there’s some thud in the career trajectory, this is my go-to question.

I know nothing about working in food service. Next to nothing. Peaberry’s Coffee in Rockville, Maryland hired me for a short stint during my year at community college. The owners made me remove my eyebrow ring because it was unsanitary. Also, it’s pronounced ES-presso, not EX-presso. That’s about all I remember.

I have no business running a restaurant. But last year, after a period of job bumps, I explored another one of my restauranteur fever dreams. I thought about it for an hour and instead of moving on (like I usually do), I decided to finally read Kitchen Confidential.

Anthony Bourdain says some funny shit in the book (no surprise). Helpful tips too (only order fish on Thursday through Saturday—the kitchen gets it fresh for the weekend rush, everything you get from Sunday until Tuesday is aging). Speaking of fish, Bourdain offers one nugget that made me cackle while reading it on the train. Let’s hear it straight from the man’s mouth (ripped from Bourdain’s audiobook):

Bourdain’s quip sparked an investigation into whether, indeed, the guys who deal with cows are funnier than the guys who manage tuna. I spent the latter half of 2025 and am now spending 2026 investigating my career path in food, with two long-form stories happily occupying my creative time. The first project means I get to spend my time with butchers and fishmongers. One thing stands out—there’s a way men use their hands that builds a certain kind of camaraderie. More on that later.

The other project builds off childhood experiences shared by a colleague, Arturo, and me. As young Latino boys (me, visiting family in Puerto Rico, and Arturo growing up in Northern Mexico), there was an expectation to finish the food that was put in front of us (plato limpio, as Arturo calls it). Now we look at the unexpected ripple effects in adulthood. Like, hot peppers (spicy food, in general). I’ve had many occasions where I consume something too hot for male attention.

Years into recognizing my hot ones habit, I have a clearer idea about why I torture myself. Maybe it’s what I’m after with both of these projects and why the idea of running a restaurant feels like a safe harbor during the storms of a career in media.

When I imagine restaurant life, it’s not that I want to run the establishment. I don’t even have any ideas of what we would serve. I envision walking around, greeting customers as they finish their plates. Importantly, though, the dream is about only one detail during these interactions—the bien hecho shoulder touch from a paternal restaurateur to his satisfied customers.

Apparently, I'd go into one of business's most stressful and riskiest ventures just to make people feel good after they finished their linguini (So, it's an Italian place? I don't know, man. Are you a bank? Don't ask so many questions).

The shoulder touch is the most underrated of mechanisms in the masculine toolkit. Along with the early lessons like how throw a baseball or catch a fish—Jesus, what am I talking about? I never experienced those things. My dad tried playing basketball with me once, and it was like shooting hoops with Marge Harvey Globetrotter Simpson (add 20 years and a Caribbean accent).

But my dad did teach me about the shoulder touch. Inadvertently. You watch an oldtimer like Rafael Magic Jordan Pagán work a room, and you see a man easing men into comfort with a lingering hand placement that turned business colleagues into giddy children.

By extension, I’ve always been on the search for the right squeeze or pat from a veiny hand. The thing is, I wouldn’t go to something like a hugging retreat for men. Nope, not my thing. I’ve got good soldiers in my life who embrace me from life’s battles when I need them. But there’s something powerful in the simple gesture when hand meets shoulder. And when I need my fix, the right restaurateur makes my meal (and day) feel transcendent. That’s why mafiosos make good hosts.

In fact, a lot of my work focuses on what men communicate with their hands. I just realized that while writing it.

As we move out of this dreary month and into the flowers of a new season, I share the whispers of food stories to come and the touches they inspire.

I also have some resolution on this whole restaurant career option. It could be opening a place where the whole conceit is to offer customers their fill of strong shoulder touches. I’ll call it Pats.

Adios, ciao ciao, bye,
Mark✌🏼

ON FANCY DINING

“My lack of restaurant knowledge and expensive dining experiences remind me that my current financial situation means I can't afford a nice meal like this back home, and I can't see a time soon when I'd be able to treat my wonderful wife, who adores dining experiences, to a tasting menu that leaves us blissful.”

***

WHAT I’LL CONSUME FOR MALE ATTENTION

***

THIS ONE SECOND OF HUMAN CONTACT CHANGES MY DAY

Here are some choice reads during my recent food-related research.

1. Hotel Splendide by Ludwig Bemelmans: Wanna know what it was like to work at the Ritz-Carlton in the 1940s and what hasn’t changed since?

2. Care and Feeding by Laurie Woolever: Equally rich in exquisite food writing, secrets of the NYC restaurant world, and a very, very naked look at addiction and recovery.

3. Vibration Cooking: or, The Travel Notes of a Geechee Girl by Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor: Food as cultural identity—quite an affirming read.

4. Eat the City by Robin Shulman: Did you know New York used to be the sugar capital of the country? I didn’t, and now we both do.

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A lot of new subscribers came in this week. Welcome, friend.

If you’re receiving this, you’ve found me through a recommendation or recently attended a Hubba Hubba screening at Nitehawk. I’m glad you’re here.

I release weekly posts on Thursdays centered around the world of masculinity. We also have four seasons of our award-winning series, Other Men Need Help for you to dive into at any point.

Thanks for reading.

10 THINGS I LEARNED IN FEBRUARY 2026

1. I’m getting to know the films of fellow short king James Cagney, who I really enjoy imitating (The Mayor of Hell, The Irish in Us, G Men are some recent favorites, but The Roaring Twenties is a knockout masterpiece).
   

2. The bravest thing I did this month was stop myself in the middle of a spousal argument to admit what I had just said was dismissive. Tempering old impulses makes me want to say, Old dogs CAN learn new tricks. Then, I think of the John Travolta movie, Old Dogs, and I don’t want to be associated with turkeys, so I keep the thoughts to myself.
   

3. Cupid’s Kettle Drums is 19th-century slang for tits and I can’t stop saying it.
   

4. I want to be a dad. There’s a deep affection I feel about moving into that future role. Also, I’m worried about parenthood in this uncertain time. One Battle After Another has been my balm. I only realized why I keep returning to it on this sixth rewatch.
   

5. I was sad to learn Willie Colón passed. I’m more heartbroken he died MAGA’d.
   

6. Two blizzards in New York. Lots of folks with shovels trying to make a buck. A very young guy salting the sidewalk stopped me and asked if I thought the big salt ball in his hand would shatter if he threw it on the ground. He tossed it. It separated like crazy. We both went, whoa. He walked away and said, You gotta have fun somehow. I want to steal his energy for every day of my life, man.
   

7. Anti-depressants have been in my system for two years. Last week, I told myself a bad day is just a day and not a life. I owe that to medication.
   

8. I’m at some stage in my life—God knows what that stage is—where I repeat listen to Toto’s Africa on a random weekday morning.
   

9. The late Rick Aviles played key villains in 90s films, including our last Hubba Hubba selection, Ghost. His dark, ethnic look was a stand-in for urban menace. His appearances haunted me. Years later, I found out he was a comedian, a very talented one, too, with a compassionate, wounded, and gentle demeanor off-stage. I hate how successful Hollywood was at making me fearful of fellow Puerto Ricans.
   

10. There’s a recognizable smell and temperature in the air with an approaching snowstorm. Detecting it makes me feel masculine for some reason.

Adios, ciao ciao, bye,
Mark✌🏼

P.S. What’s the bravest thing YOU’VE done this month?

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Every January signals three milestones: a new year, aging up via my birthday, and my wedding anniversary. The blend is a perfect recipe for a type of nostalgia. If I lived in Brazil, I’d say it’s a period of Saudade—one of the planet’s best words to describe indescribable longing. With the cold, overcast climate of where I live, I’d lean closer to a Finnish word (of which there are many) to translate this time of melancholy. Perhaps Kaiho, which really points to the bittersweet ache that darkness, cold, and eternally damp socks bring out in snowy residents. Let’s say, until the spring equinox, sitting in the past is my sauna, and it is STEAMY.

During this season of Vitamin D deficiency, I start a friendship audit. Last year offered a pinnacle—a peculiar gift choice I continue to unpack. In my season of staring out windows wistfully, I return to that gift, which still stands as a high point of personal ennui.

My birthday means I treat myself to some pampering—a massage, an expensive book, A Bay of Blood 4K release from Severin Films (five discs!). My gift last year was something altogether new—$30 for a criminal report on a former friend (A Bay of Blood 4K is about $75, so let's call my decision frugal).

The ability to recognize unresolved wounds as I enter middle age is my superpower. I would’ve asked for the ability to fly or read people’s minds (even the ability to eat shellfish is welcome). Instead, I’m stuck with the uniform for Mr. Let’s Uncover The Real Reason Why This Is Bothering You as your friendly neighborhood Spiderman (and look, I know it’s a cumbersome name, but it’s a whole other headache to change branding within The Heroes Guild). I assume some of this insight comes from reviewing life over decades rather than the limited observable years or months available in childhood. Dreams are helpful guides, too, especially when some guest stars just won’t go away.

The most recurring characters in my lifetime of zzz’s aren’t deceased family members or my parents. They’re not my wife or exes (though they make the occasional odd cameo). Celebrities pop in now and then—Joe Pesci and Robert De Niro, in particular, always getting us into a tremendous amount of trouble—but they’re not the main cast either.

The most lingering guests in my dreams are Pete, Kamal, and, importantly, Tim—all old friends I’ve lost touch with.

All three of these relationships feel more like sunken wrecks than (friend)ships left at sea. After years of no contact, I searched for Pete’s name on Instagram and discovered he no longer followed me. Kamal might’ve let me go after I posted about attending a protest. Even with his abhorrent politics, I still mourn this loss.

The criminal report I purchased was on Tim. I stopped communication when I suspected he was up to shady shit, involving me without my knowledge (months of calls from creditors and surly voices looking for him tipped the scale towards ghosting our friendship).

Pete and I bonded in our early 20s when access to credit cards led to indulgent pub crawls and shopping sprees at Kim’s Video. I met Kamal during the bumps of puberty, a friend who would continue to reference memories of my father a few times a year. With a dad who died 30 years ago, the memory keepers of his legacy are dwindling—how could I not mourn the loss of one more?

Tim was my oldest friend. We met in kindergarten. For decades, our language circled the absurd phrases we invented at five. After years of silence, he once reached out in the ways we often do now—through social media. He commented on one of my posts with our favorite childhood expression. I never responded, but that masculine pinch still shows up whenever I revisit the last words we kind of exchanged.

These men, whether present or not, represent a part of me that feels irreplaceable. Legacy friendships—those long-standing connections forged in childhood or adolescence—carry a unique weight, even when they become unhealthy or fade into dreams. They are connections holding memories of a younger version of myself, a time when I was smaller in body but expansive in emotional needs—an absence equaling fragments of a lost self.

Somewhere along the way, I replaced ease with guardedness, self-awareness, and fear that comes from making friends in adulthood. Early shorthand jokes—where a single quip about genitals spoke volumes—have been replaced by polite conversations over drinks. New friendships can lack the same depth or purity, not because they can’t grow—it’s recreating the innocence and naivety of those early bonds that proves most difficult.

Maybe that’s the real fear: I may never allow myself to lean into new relationships with the same vulnerability I once did. It’s not just the loss of a friend I mourn—it’s the version of me they reflected.

With Tim, the sting comes from something deeper—the question of whether class differences quietly dissolved our friendship. Tim wanted to hold on; I was the one who left. I quietly judged his grammar. He chuckled too much at the wrong things in Buffalo ‘66. With our mixtape currency, he thought I lost my cred when I added Morrissey songs next to my R. Kelly selects (turns out we were both on the wrong side of history there). But it wasn’t just about taste or geography—it was about the ways our bubbles had expanded beyond the tight-knit villages of our youth.

I understand now the subtle warnings parents gave about “certain kids” growing up. Not because of behavior, but because of the unspoken divide ambition creates. I’ve often wondered if my distance from Tim was driven by class striving. He wouldn’t be the first. In my late 30s, I had a birthday party and looked around a room full of the New York creative class I’d once dreamed of belonging to. But the absence of former friends cast a shadow over that moment, a reminder of the connections I abandoned along the way.

Everything else in life feels concrete—job loss, death, divorce. Even when an ex made our breakup “official” on Facebook, it still signaled an end. But I’ve long had the rulebook (through song, social codes, fiction) for grieving a romantic relationship. No one ever told me how to do that with the guy I first got drunk with.

Part of that is an inability to process loss. All three friendships died without a proper burial. There were no final conversations.

What these reminders of lost friendships truly echo is a legacy of conflict avoidance. This week’s confessional admission includes the words, I have ghosted friends over time.

My 2025 birthday gift was something of a cleanse—a background check to determine whether I based my abandonment on sketchiness rather than class distance.

Tim is alive. I know that. His criminal report tells me where he lives and where he’s likely working. His record is slight but with its bumps. Maybe he’ll reach out again—even to this post—sharing a line from our childhood to see if I respond. If you do make your way over here, Tim, you should know I still have the last mixtape you ever made me.

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This week, I sit in a theater to watch One Battle After Another for the sixth time. It’s quite good. Maybe even Best Picture worthy. But recommending that number of viewings in such a short time is not a hill I’ll die on.

Wanting more time with someone you look up to—that’s different.

If there’s an archetype I latch onto in my pop culture idols, it’s the fella I emulate like an older brother. He’s cool. Principled. Hermano makes me feel calm. Safe, even. If he’s Latino, great. Caribbean, stellar. Puerto Rican—bingo.

2025 was the year of Beni’s—Benicio del Toro as Sensei “A Few Small Beers” Sergio in One Battle and nuestro padre de perreo, Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio aka Bad Bunny. These two tall, dark-haired figures remind us that fighting colonialism cuts a soulful, sexy shadow, where in the face of an authoritarian sneer, a playful heart presents something beautifully defiant.

I spent 2025 revisiting these men for spiritual guidance—Del Toro’s Sensei in One Battle After Another and Bad Bunny’s 2022 Neverita music video.

In celebration of Benito’s upcoming Super Bowl appearance, I contacted of The Moves to break down what makes Neverita such a balm.

Molly and I share a dance background and I’ve always enjoyed her storytelling. But with The Moves, she’s really locked into a welcome tickle spot in soul—breaking down the dances that have stuck with us in the movies, shows, and music videos that echo throughout our lives.

This week, Molly joins us to dissect what makes Neverita such a special moment in Moves lore, and why the video carved a permanent place in my heart.

🕺🏽,
Mark

Despite feeling like I have wide-ranging musical tastes, my exposure to Latin music is woefully low. Bad Bunny is more in my consciousness for his bold fashion choices than for his music, so I was excited to experience Neverita for the first time via music video. And then to find out the video is an ode to Elvis Crespo’s late-90s hit Suavamente, another pop culture moment that I was never aware of? Hooray, new treasures!

When Mark sent me these links, I watched Neverita first, but I want to start with Suavemente here. OK, WOW, this is so extremely 1998. What a time capsule of late 90s fashion, especially these super shiny leather pants:

The amount of editing feels insane, but of course that’s also what makes it special. I’m imagining the production meeting for this shoot where an editor said, “By the way, I have this new editing software where we can put up a green screen and do anything you want,” and the director or another editor or perhaps Elvis himself said, “DO ALL OF IT.”

“Like this thing where it looks like you’re dancing on raw bacon?”

“YES”

“Even this quadrant thing where you’re in the Brady Bunch with different versions of yourself?”

“YES ABSOLUTELY”

I get the vibe that all the women in this video would like to dance as hard as Elvis does, but I think they’re either wearing difficult shoes or need to stay in place for the green-screen positioning. They’re doing their best!

So when I went back to Bad Bunny’s Neverita with more educated eyes, I feel that he’s truly doing a tribute and not a parody. Like, yes, he’s also got some shiny leather pants, but he’s doing it his own way with his classic little fringe braid that gets trapped behind his sunglasses:

The outfits in here evoke 1998 but are still solidly 2022—which is kind of the same thing, anyway, because, surprise, fashion is cyclical! “Y2K” has evolved from being a doomsday fear to a search tag on Depop!

I do appreciate the moments Bad Bunny chooses to copy completely, like the raw bacon dance:

And the Brady Bunch moment:

But I also respect the digressions, like when this girl ends up on another planet and decides the best solution is to dance it out:

She must have been wearing good shoes!

Now I’m extra pumped for Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl halftime show and I hope one of these Neverita looks makes an appearance. Maybe even the floating cow? We can dream!

🐰 🌴 🐬

Since Mark has spent more time with these videos, and I knew he would have some deeper insights and good stories, I asked him some questions:

Molly: What is your relationship to both of these songs? I’m especially curious if you knew Suavemente when it came out and if the video felt cool or cringe at the time.

Mark: Nostalgia’s part of it, for sure. But you can’t deny good pop—and while many have classified Suavemente as a watered-down Merengue, it’s infectious as hell. In the decades of hearing the song, I don’t think I’d ever seen the video until Bad Bunny released his homage through the music video for Neverita. Like many, Neverita became a classic during the summer of 2022 when Bad Bunny released his game-changing album, Un Verano Sin Ti. Both in New York and on my visit back to Puerto Rico that summer, the album floated with me everywhere I walked, ate, and if I were more of a church-going man, I imagine I would’ve heard it while I prayed. In an album full of gems, it’s one of the more mellow, hangout-y songs on Un Verano Sin Ti—which makes it a surprising but inspired choice to act as THE TRACK to visually callback Crespo’s very recognizable hit song (and video). One of the things I love about Bad Bunny is his magpie approach to music and image-making. I find a lot of similarities with The Beastie Boys—artists who proudly announce their influences clearly and with so much damn affection. Similarly, The Beasties and Bad Bunny act as cultural “remix” ambassadors for their scenes and, by extension, their homelands.

Molly: YES, absolutely! I love this comparison and totally see what you mean.

Mark: Bad Bunny, as we know, is someone who deeeeeeeeeeply embraces su identidad y patria. And part of the reason we love him is his decision to make the video for El Apagón a chance to platform a documentary about the current colonial hurdles in Puerto Rico, while in the same year using Neverita as an excuse to remake the Suavemente music video—the balance from high to low, but saying, “they’re all important parts of our cultural history.”

Molly: My Spanish is Sesame-Street level (I can say hello and goodbye and count to ten) so I looked up translations of each song to see if what’s going on in each video matches the lyrics. In Neverita Bad Bunny wants to put sunscreen on a girl, so I guess that’s why the girl is putting sunscreen on the cow? Hahaaa, OK sure! Do you see any other connection between the visuals and the actual messages of the songs?

Mark: It’s funny to think about this answer. On the surface, these two songs are pretty incongruous. But when I saw the video for Neverita and the Suavemente influence, I thought, “Of course, naturally!” And I haven’t really thought about the reason why, especially since there isn’t a tonal overlap between the two. So, Molly, your question got me thinking, and a memory came up from, of all things, my first Bad Bunny concert—a 2022 experience at Yankee Stadium. Halfway through the show, my friend Navani turned to me and asked, “Who do you think is more emo, Drake or Bad Bunny?” When I see this music video, my answer is automatically “Bad Bunny.”

Molly: Agreed! Drake seems to always be protecting himself with a layer of cool, like he’s being open but still trying to impress, while Bad Bunny is fully vulnerable (and also more fun).

Mark: The nostalgia adds a shade of sensitivity to the artist, yes. But it’s the incongruity between the songs that points to something so universal found in Bad Bunny’s music. Suavemente sells a “goal” for men: hot women and getting busy with those hot women. At the same time, Neverita feels like the internal thoughts of a guy hearing Suavemente play at the beach or a party while he’s pining over someone. When you put the visual language of Crespo’s hit on top of the lyrics of longing and nostalgia, it all comes together. That’s some emo shit.

Molly: You mentioned you find yourself re-watching Neverita a lot—what keeps bringing you back to it?

Mark: I love the 90s, I love my Puerto Rican hitmakers, and I love a homage that has great follow-through. Top it off with a major star having a goofy, good time—how could I not keep coming back?

Did you ever have shades like this? I feel like they were everywhere.

Mark: Yes. I had a gold pair, probably purchased from Urban Outfitters, and a funny memory comes to mind about their history. When I was 17, my car got broken into. They stole my stereo and my sunglasses. The stereo I understood. But the sunglasses? You’re messing with a man’s flair, and that’s a no-no. What a bunch of jerks.

Molly: Noooooo, not the shades!! Yeah, absolute jerks!

***

Molly Cameron is a technical and creative writer living in NYC who loves re-watching awards shows from the 90s and sharing true stories. Her writing has been featured in Open Secrets, Memoir Land, and Alternative Milk Magazine, and her stories have been featured on The Moth, RISK!, and Mortified Live. She is still in the market for a good pair of sunglasses.

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🎟️ TICKETS 🎟️

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For three years, I ran a media education program at Brooklyn Public Library branches.

It’s an overcast November Tuesday at a library in South Brooklyn. A few leaves wave on skeletal trees. In between classes, I head downstairs to use the bathroom. Brenda, a librarian, is in the stairwell staring out the window.

I ask her how it’s going.

I’m looking out thinking, Mark. Those bare branches—that’s what I feel like.

Ooooof.

Brenda just celebrated her 60th. There’s still leftover cake in the staff kitchen.

I found a music program at Kingsborough College. I always wanted to go into music. My mom said I should be a secretary. I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life, Mark. Drinking. I’m sober now. Don’t know how long it’s been.

A coworker interrupts me with an urgent question. I head back to the classroom. Eventually, students arrive, and a new class starts.

On Thursday, I’m back at the library in the staff kitchen. No more birthday cake. But Brenda’s there.

Remember the other day I was in the stairwell and you saw me? Well, it wasn’t only about wanting to sing or do music. It was also about my dad. He’d just died. Mark, you’ve got a spiritual center. You know that, right? I was up there thinking about my father, and you said to me, ‘You ok?’ And I could see it in your eyes.

Look, game grief recognize game grief, but most of us rarely know when a question leaves someone feeling less alone. If only I spent more time letting others know the impact their words have had on me. I share my sympathy with Brenda. Anything else I say is cut short by a librarian who comes in to microwave a baked potato.

A few weeks later, I’m at the same library in a pissy mood. I didn’t sleep. Too much ex on my mind. We just broke up.

I will never meet someone again. I bet she’s sleeping with her neighbor. Send a text. No, don’t. Look up her neighbor. No, don’t. Doesn’t matter, I don’t even know his stupid last name.

I want to scream, cry. My heart feels flooded.

In between classes, I make my way to the stairwell to gaze out the window. The rain makes the bare trees shine like wet rubber.

Brenda walks up the stairs. When she sees me, she stops.

Mark, I was just thinking about getting small eyelashes. Like the really small ones. Yeah…

Then she goes on her way.

I’m not sure what that moment even means, but it’s what I needed.

In my favorite time zones, it’s that looking out the window time of year—when a midday grey sky framed by a picture window flirts for our melancholic attention. Quite a pastime.

Each month, we share Other Menis, brief moments that tickled a masculine funny bone. Those private moments that feel odd, hopeful, arousing, shameful, blissful—think of it as the space that says, you’re not that weird, dude.

Today, I share some favorites I’ve collected in the realm of Guides to Recognizing Your Saints—moments where unexpected protectors have shown up in vulnerable moments.

Do you have an Other Meni to share? It’s a tiny tale—we’re looking for stories under 200 words. Email us: mark@othermenneedhelp.com

Entries are published anonymously. Anyone who contributes gets an Other Men button and card from yours truly.

Some of these selections have been edited for clarity.

On the Bus

It’s stupid early in the morning. I’m on the bus on the way to work. I fucking hate my job. I’m in the worst fucking mood you can imagine. I don’t know what to do with my life. There are only a few people on the bus with me. I look over and see this old man across from me just going to town on some corn on the cob. Nothing else. It was 7:20am. I was like, “that is the most defiant shit I’ve seen in forever.”

Dude became my hero.

Chicken and Waffles

Nadine and I haven’t talked since Tuesday. We’ve been together for three years. It’s been a long-distance relationship and Nadine is in more of a need to find myself place than I am. For the last few months, we’ve been dragging our feet about taking time apart. We finally decided to take a break three weeks ago.

My sister Isabelle and I went out to dinner tonight. I was telling her that “I need to lose weight,” and she kept suggesting I eat Chicken and Waffles or try hers at least. I was happy to see a good chunky salad option—something with kale.

Then my sister asked me, “Is Rosa single?”

Rosa is a close friend. We’ve known each other for over a decade. There’s always been a flirtation. Privately, for years, I’ve held a flame for Rosa. I don’t want to ruin our friendship, though. The only person I’ve told about this is my therapist.

I ask Isabelle why SHE was asking. “I dunno, she’s cute and cool. You guys should totally hook up.”

I sort of dismiss it. Then, my phone buzzes. It’s Nadine.

The text says, “I’m just really in love with you.”

I hold it up to show Isabelle. She does this older sister smirking thing when she smells something is up and says, “They always seem to know,” they meaning exes when you’re thinking of someone else.

I don’t respond to the text right away. Instead, I talk about Rosa for the first time with someone who isn’t my shrink.

Drive-by

I’m walking to the gym. At a stoplight, this dude is hollering YO, YO, YO super loud from his car. I look, ready to be defensive, but it turns out he’s yelling at the guy in the car next to him; fella’s got his windows down, music blasting. I’m like, Oh damn, what shit’s about to go down? But the music guy doesn’t look, and he drives away. Then it becomes clear—he’s got a traffic cone stuck underneath his bumper.

Wedding Fingers

I went to help a friend lead a workshop with a large group of teachers. I’m at a point in my life when so many women are married all of a sudden. I’ve taught myself to look at wedding fingers soon after I meet someone I find attractive. “Nora” was one of the co-facilitators. She looked like Nia Long and had a great laugh. I was working out a fantasy in my head of what she’d be like to date when I decided to check out her wedding finger. She had a band sitting there. Then I do what I need to do and tell myself, “Well, maybe that’s just a really nice diamond they’ve treated themselves to,” or “Is that even the right finger? Maybe they’re European and that’s just a ring-ring?”

Turns out Nora’s married, and everyone else in the room was from Long Island.

Today’s Looking Out the Window challenge comes from yours truly.

1. List the sorts of moods you’ll need for your window stare.

2. Locate a few public windows of choice options (a city bus, bay windows at a library, the top floor of Regal Union Square, etc.).

3. When feeling melancholy, head to your favorite window.

4. Stare wistfully as long as needed.

5. If interrupted with concern, offer your appreciation.

6. When the timing’s right, reach out to the person who should receive your wistfulness.

7. Repeat as needed.

Optional: Find a soundtrack to accompany your melancholy. I highly recommend FKJ’s Just Piano—to paraphrase EPMD, I’m a customer.

Adios, ciao ciao, byeeeeeeeee,
Mark✌🏼

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