A Better Life New York
Steve "The Judge" focuses on the art of enjoying yourself through food, fun and frolic. Steve conducts live Interviews on many popular and controversial topics. Steve has candid conversations about fine dining to BBQ, cigars to cars, history making events and everything in between. Recently, we added a special monthly addition ion collecting Antique Phonographs with experts Wyatt Markus, and Collector/Dealers Joe Hough and Tracy McKinney. Sponsored by Premium Botanicals the maker of Herbal Spectrum a line of full spectrum Hemp based CBD products. http://www.mypbcbd.com
A Better Life New York
New York's Sports Fervor and the Met Gala's Fashion Extravaganza: A Dive into Athletic Drive, Information Shifts, and Cultural Pageantry
CLICK HERE! To send us a message! Ask us a Question or just let us know what you think!
Feel the relentless drive and passion as we celebrate New York's athletic spirit, from the Knicks' playoff push to the Rangers' exhilarating overtime triumphs. I'm taking you right into the heart of the city's sports scene, where Jalen Brunson's exceptional plays have become the talk of the town and the Rangers' sheer grit is a powerful display of what it means to fight to the final whistle. As we step back, let's grapple with the broader implications of today's sports ethos, debating the contentious strategy of players resting and mulling over the tantalizing prospect of LeBron James hitting the court with his progeny.
Switching gears, we wade into the glitz and glamor that is the Met Gala, where fashion's zenith meets philanthropy, and the Kardashians reign supreme. Reflecting on my own days allows for a unique perspective on how this event curates not just outfits but cultural narratives. We consider how contemporary icons like Emma Chamberlain and Joe Rogan are pioneering a shift in our consumption of information, favoring platforms that marry entertainment with insight. 'Hot Ones' stands as a testament to this change, challenging our conventional approach to engaging with the world and setting the stage for a discussion on the evolving face of media and influence.
Hello everyone. This is Steve from A Better Life. This podcast is brought to you by our sponsors, premium Botanical. They are the makers of Herbal Spectrum, which is a full spectrum hemp-based CBD. They make salves, liquids and they have a great mixed berry gummy. You can check them out at wwwmypbcbdcom.
Speaker 1:Now our podcast. Hello everyone, and welcome back to A Better Life with George and Steve. Tonight you just have me. George is still in Japan. He's been there for a few weeks, so we've put our podcast to the side. I know it's been a long time. I've heard from a lot of you. When's the next podcast? That's why you have me alone. I hope everyone is well. I hope everyone's had a good few weeks.
Speaker 1:It's finally made the transition to spring. I'm glad it's here. I'm looking forward to doing a little traveling. Over Memorial Day weekend. I'm going to go visit my sister up in Bar Harbor, maine, and I love it up there. I'd like to move there, but unfortunately I live here.
Speaker 1:So there's a few things I'd like to talk to you about tonight. The first thing I'd like to mention to you is about the newly found heart, if you will, of our New York teams. All of a sudden and maybe it isn't really all of a sudden. I'm just beginning to notice that the New York Knicks and the New York Rangers have developed. New York Rangers have developed this ability to fight and to win, and it's not as much winning as they have heart. They leave everything on the ice of the court. They fight to the end. Of course, tonight being Mother's Day, happy Mother's Day, belated Mother's Day to most people by the time you hear this to everyone out there. But the Knicks got their butts kicked tonight and pretty much the first time. It was a close game. They lost two. They're now two and two, but they're not very deep. That's the problem with the Knicks they're not very deep. They don't have a lot of players coming in off the bench. I think the other night, when they were looking, even when they won, the Knicks had three or four points off the bench and the Pacers had 42. So the Knicks have been really fighting. They beat the 76ers, they gave them a real run for their money and they beat them handedly. Every game was close. Every game was amazing.
Speaker 1:New stars have come out of the woodwork. Surprising new stars, at least surprising to me Jalen Brunson. He has played better than almost anyone you can imagine in history for these last few games in the playoffs. We've seen Dante DiVincenzo, we've seen OG Josh Hart, all these players. Now they have three players from the National Championship, villanova Wildcats. So these players are familiar with winning, they have it in their DNA, so to speak. So it's been amazing to watch and it's great to see this resurgence come to the Garden.
Speaker 1:This Knick team, all the old players have all been rolled out, from Patrick Ewing to John Starks to Carmelo Anthony. You see them all there, frazier, sitting on the sideline, the great players from the past. They're all there and they're rooting their team on. It's a great thing to see. Obviously, in my opinion, we're probably one great player away, even though this team could win if their bench was a little deeper, but I don't think they're going to make the cut with their bench the way it is. We have injured players. It's difficult, I think it's difficult to continue to play at that high level and wear yourself out.
Speaker 1:The other team we need to talk about is the New York Rangers. I've always been a great Ranger fan. I used to have season tickets when I was young and it really is something to watch, watching the Rangers fight every play, every puck, fighting through killing off penalties. It's been amazing Overtime games they won. Recently they won two overtime games in a row. In the past three games they've won two out of three. They were a little soft the other night when the Hurricanes beat them, but they did a great job. The other two overtime games, one double overtime game the players have been amazing. Whether it's everybody, rempe, panarin, they've all just played amazing and they really have something other than talent and that's heart. And I have to say that's something I like to see in all teams, in all New York teams. You can't always have the best players, but you can always give the best effort and it's nice to see these professional players in today's time where players don't always give it their all.
Speaker 1:We hear these stories, we read these stories in the newspaper, we hear them on the radio, how players say they're injured and no one really believes it, or they walk off the court or they don't want to play every night. This new thing about resting a player throughout the season that's fairly new. I don't think it would have happened in Dave Stern's era of being the commissioner of basketball, but certainly this new commissioner seems to be a little softer with the players, on the other hand. They're different players today. They look at things differently. They really just don't want to compete all the time. They look at the regular season in a different light than they used to. So that's an issue. But when we see these playoffs, we're seeing teams fighting like we haven't in years, in my opinion, across the board.
Speaker 1:And then there's LeBron James in Los Angeles. Lebron has been a great player for 20 years. Is that possible? It is possible because we've all seen it. People ask him if he's going to retire, if he's ready to give it up. I don't believe so. I think he's going to keep fighting. I think he wants to take a shot at playing with his son, who's in the draft this year. Whether that happens or doesn't happen, I'm not sure, but it is an opportunity for LeBron to play with his son and to keep coming to the game.
Speaker 1:He's been criticized this year, but I have to say he's certainly better than almost all the other players out there. There are other good players, don't get me wrong, but he is at his age, still playing at a a high level, and I give him credit for that. You know the argument right? The argument is he the best ever to live. Is he better than jordan? That this argument's raised in every bar cigar lounge, on every water cooler excuse, the metaphor at every work on every talk radio station. Is he the best that ever was? He played the longest. He's playing long.
Speaker 1:I have a hard time with saying he's the best. I know Jordan is the best I ever saw, but I can't forget players like Bill Russell, who has a ring for every finger, who played in great teams and played a long time. You can't forget players like Larry Bird, like Magic Johnson, like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. There are so many great players, but the eras are different, so you look at things differently. It's hard to compare players from different eras. It's truly hard to compare. But LeBron is certainly in that conversation. It's hard to deny that People do because they're LeBron haters and I don't have to say he's not one of my favorite players, but when you watch him he's certainly something to watch.
Speaker 1:Over the years, the players of the past we remember the highlights. You remember the best. I remember the Larry Bird game where he could do no wrong. I remember Larry Bird in the three-point competitions that used to, when everyone used to be involved in the three-point competitions that took place during the All-Star game and he would go out there and hit every basket long before the popularity of three-point shots took place. If you look back at some of the scoring, the game was different, even when some of the great games by Larry Bird, by Magic Johnson, by Michael Jordan you look at how many three-point shots they actually took, you look at how many three-point shots they actually took and it's a totally different game. It is very hard to compare the points, the assists and the scoring because the game has changed in such a way. But anyway, that's enough about sports. I just wanted to bring it up because it seems to dominate everything going on at the moment in New York. Everybody's talking about it, everything going on at the moment in New York. Everybody's talking about it and it's easy to see why if you just watch one of the games.
Speaker 1:So Mother's Day today is Mother's Day. I of course remember my mother, who was certainly, as everyone looks it was a pillar in my life. She said and did amazing things. She fought for life, for our life, for our educations. She fought for trying to stretch a penny longer than any other person I've ever seen stretch a penny. She did it with a small budget and probably at least one and maybe two children that didn't really understand how tight the budget really is, and my sister and I talk about it sometimes and wonder how she did it. My father was there, obviously, but he was out there working. She was the day-to-day person. She was the one that dealt with all the difficulties and was always there to answer the questions. And I wasn't easy, to be honest, I was certainly not easy, but this is a day. I remember my mother and we remember all mothers. We all don't have wives, we all don't have girlfriends, but we all have mothers. So happy mother's day to everyone out there. It may be belated when you finally hear this.
Speaker 1:I'd like to talk briefly about the met gala, which takes place, as some of you may know, the first monday in may. I don't know how anyone gets invited to the met gala. I don't know why anyone goes to the Met Gala Other. It's the center of the fashion universe, pretty much ran by Vogue. It helps raise money for the exhibition that goes on there regarding fashion. I remember many years ago, when I was a shoe salesman or a buyer or a manager of different, various shoe stores and companies, there was a gentleman who always used to call me and he was one of the directors of the Museum of Fashion, which I think now has been incorporated into the Met and he would come in and look at our entire line of shoes and ask questions and then pick certain shoes that he would buy to put into the collection. It was interesting because I was always amazed on what he collected and what he wanted. Originally I thought he was buying them for himself, but then I realized they couldn't fit him.
Speaker 1:The Met Gala it's funny. There's a theme and people wear dresses that you cannot wear anywhere else. They're made into the theme and it's almost like a costume ball. It's pretty amazing. Some of the things are so strange that you really can't even walk up the steps. People have to be carried. Now, I don't know how that makes any sense, but it's certainly interesting to watch.
Speaker 1:I saw so many dresses that were absolutely amazing and beautiful and so many that just made me scratch my head, and I have an appreciation for fashion, being in the fashion business for a long time before I'm in my present career, whatever that may be at this time. But I always find it interesting who goes to these things. You always see the hot person of the moment, the person that's I don't want to say getting their 15 minutes, but are new to the pinnacle of notoriety. They are now famous. I remember the first Cardassian experience there, and now they're staples. Everybody waits to see the Cardassian sisters' dresses and they range all different kinds of things. And now the gentlemen have got into the act sisters' dresses, and they range all different kinds of things. And now the gentlemen have got into the act with it too. They are all wearing all kinds of different things. It's funny, it's amazing, it's nice to look at.
Speaker 1:If you've ever seen the documentary the first Monday in May, it's entirely about the Met Gala, and if you're interested, it's definitely something to look into. And I think Vogue is doing a good job with realizing the changing movement in America, and that is it's no longer networks, it's no longer television networks that control the information or setting the pace for the Americana of our existence at the present time. It's now these trendsetters, these people that have podcasts not mine, of course these people like Joe Rogan, people that are super popular that have podcasts, that have different trendsetters. Matter of fact, vogue used what's her name? Chamberlain. I can't think of her name off the top of my head, emma Chamberlain, to be like the host and interview people.
Speaker 1:Now, I love Emma Chamberlain. She is a huge sensation on YouTube and other places. She has a podcast and she is the most regular person you could possibly imagine. She travels all over the world, she goes around, she talks about them. She does pretty much only better, obviously, than what George and I do. We experience things and we talk about it, but she's at a level like you can't even imagine In a couple of hours. She has over a million downloads on her YouTube. They're really just amazing and she's known everywhere and she seems like such a regular person and now those people generate millions of dollars when they do these things. She's become a fashion icon. She's a beautiful young girl, no question about it, but she has this following. That's amazing. I think she does the Gucci ads I don't know if it's Gucci or Louis Vuitton and now she's the host for Vogue on the first Monday in May for the Met Gala. It's really amazing to see how these things are all changing, how the power of controlling the dialogue of our lives has shifted from television stations or radio stations who controlled who they put on and what they said to individuals like Chamberlain, individuals like Joe Rogan, all different sides of the gambit.
Speaker 1:People have their own interview shows and stars. Go look at the Hot Wings show. That could be some of the best interviews you ever watched. And for those of you that aren't familiar, I think the group is called the First we Feast and they do Hot Ones and this guy's done it for 15, 20 years already, where he has 10 wings that progress from hot to ridiculously super hot and during that time period he asks questions and he's very well informed. And there is an episode that goes by where the guest doesn't say boy, you really did your research and he really has. And he asks great questions and, due to the heat of the wings, everybody's off guard. They're not guarded. Sometimes they're cursing him because their mouth is on fire and they're drinking water and milk and sometimes ice cream. Once in a blue moon they walk off and say listen, I'm not doing this anymore, I'm out of here. But rarely, very rarely, we've seen everyone from Dua Lipa to Lupa to Chef Ramsay to Mike Tyson all different people and you're amazed on. Some people can eat hot food and some people you cannot, and everyone promoting something goes on it. Why? Because he has millions of watchers and millions of people get to see you and what you're promoting.
Speaker 1:It's really a changing environment. What's come important to us. Even me, the first thing I turn on isn't the news. I don't watch the news anymore. It's too orchestrated. It doesn't matter if you're from the left or you're right. There's no independent journalism really anymore. There may be some on some of the public broadcast, but I can't watch somebody go on and on there's stations out there that just spend their entire day bashing the other representative of the party they don't agree with. They spend their whole day doing that.
Speaker 1:When the United States Supreme Court allowed the Pentagon Papers to be released to the newspapers after a challenge by the Nixon White House and by the Solicitor General, who at that time was William Rundquist, who later became the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court A little side note is he went to law school with Centreda O'Connor and they both ended up on the court and it's pretty interesting. But anyway, the quote and forgive me if I beat it up, but the quote is we must let true information, we must let information flow to the people of America. Why? Because it's only an informed electorate who can vote and make decisions on how the country is supposed to be run. How are we supposed to do that when we're not informed? How are we supposed to do that when we're not being told the facts to make our own decision, rather a jaded view of whatever your affiliation is.
Speaker 1:It's bizarre to me what has happened. It's impossible to watch the news. And I'm not saying I have an affiliation for one party over the other. My affiliation is with the truth. And granted, there is spin. People spin what happened. At the end of the day, there needs to be some truth. As many a day I go out into the world and I see something and I wonder is what this person's telling me about different people who are in power in this country True, or are they making it up? Are they slantening it? How are you supposed to know? I don't know. I just sure hope they're not doing it on purpose.
Speaker 1:And that feeds back to the problem with social media. Social media isn't always truthful. So there's that truth People. That's because they don't watch the news anymore, they watch social media. I do it too. I watch YouTube. I watch YouTube. I watch people on YouTube and I hear about my hobbies or my interests, whether it's cooking, whether it's movies, whether it's antiques. I'm interested and I'd like to learn the truth about so many things and for some reason we're at a point in America certainly a turning point where truth has become difficult to find.
Speaker 1:I'm always reminded by George Orwell's 1984 about the ministry of truth and how they go back in the book and they change the past and they eliminate what they don't want to be true and they delete it. And and they eliminate what they don't want to be true and they delete it. And that's okay that they delete it for us, because we remember it, we're firsthand viewers of what happened. When they delete things that are current, but future generations won't know the truth because it's been parceled and propped up and bastardized in a way that no longer reflects what actually happened. It is at best unfortunate, but anyway it is important. And the reason I bring it up is because it's the changing way that we are getting our information.
Speaker 1:We now look to these people on the internet that we actually have some belief in. Years ago, when they would take polls on who's the most admired man in America, you would get names from newsmen Walter Cronkite. It was a long period of time. Walter Cronkite was the most popular man in America, the person that people believed in. When something happened in the world, you looked to Walter Cronkite to tell you whether it was moon missions, whether it was explosions, whether it was war and, back then, whether it was assassinations. You looked to him because we believed in him. Who do we believe in today? Who is that person that we rely on out there giving us truth? I'd love to know what you think. Please let us know who you think is telling you the truth, if anyone. But anyway, let me get off that.
Speaker 1:On a lighter note, I did a review of a restaurant that I've been to a few times in Mimarinik and I've mentioned it to you before. Nona Corolla is an Italian restaurant and bar in Mimarinik. It's 211 Mimarinik Avenue, mimarinik, and it's been open for a little while and over time it's just gotten progressively better. It has two outsides to the seat, one in the front, one in the back. They have beautiful tables, they're professional waiters. I have a few favorites. They have a great menu and I would say my first favorite is they have a seafood appetizer which is a half a lobster, some crab meat and beautiful giant shrimp, and it is so good, it's so large that sometimes I have it as a main course and then maybe just have a pasta for an appetizer. Or the other day I had their burrata, which was amazing, too Nice burrata appetizer, which had a whole burrata on it with red peppers, tomatoes, and the plate was lined with prosciutto and together they were just a nice combination of a nice burrata.
Speaker 1:What I've been, and not the last time, but the time before I was there they had been kind enough to give us a sampler of some of their pastas. They have it and this is what we had this time. The person I was with ordered it and I was lucky. It was so large of an order that I had a couple and I had the burrata ravioli Homemade ravioli made with stuff with burrata in a light cream sauce Just fantastic. They have ravioli with wild mushrooms, cherry tomatoes in a brandy cognac sauce as a pasta and it just is so fresh, so well made and the sauce complements so well.
Speaker 1:As far as other things, if you like chicken parm, their chicken parm is amazing, but let's not talk about that. I don't eat veal but I know people swear by their veals. I've had chicken scarparello, which is very good. It's all white chicken breast, no bone, but we won't hold that against them. It's still very good. I really like the New York strip. It comes with roasted tomatoes and sauteed mushrooms and they just load the mushrooms over the steak and it's cooked perfectly and just has a great taste.
Speaker 1:If I have a business dinner, if I'm going out with someone special and I want to have classic Italian food that I know is consistently great food, consistently good, that the waiter's serviced, that you don't forget about you, that they always make sure your drink is full, that they have great hot cappuccino with some dessert like biscotti. Have a cappuccino with a biscotti after a nice meal is a wonderful thing. So I suggest that you all go out there and try Nona Corolla. It is so good You're going to be happy you did. They're open all the time. It's a big place, it's always have room, they're caring, they remember you, they try hard. I tell you Nona Corolla. I'll give you the address one more time. It's 211 Mimarinick Ave in Mimarinick, right on the main street in town, on the corner of East Prospect, and if it's a guy's night out, please go down the street and go into Josh's Doc James Cigar Lounge and go have a cigar after your meal. You'll be happy you did. I think that's it. I think I've done enough.
Speaker 1:I hope you all had a great Mother's Day. I hope you're going to have a good week. I hope you're thinking about where you want to go on vacation. Vacations have gotten so ridiculous. It costs just as much to go to Florida as to go to Europe. It's ridiculous. Thank God I have family that live in Maine that I get to visit them that way. But I look forward to a nice summer. It seems like the weather's going to be great. I know that after some of the major storms in Maine, some of the coastlines got beat up. First time in history they got hit by such strong storms. I hope George is back for our next episode. I appreciate everybody listening. I hope you all had a good Mother's Day. Enjoy the rest of your week. I will be back to you all so soon.
