New Patrick Connolly Writer/Interviewer blog

I have started a new blog on Tumblr to focus more on my writing and panel moderating.  To showcase it, publicize it and just get it going a bit more.  Man Hat In will continue, but it is more personal and
"Patrick Connolly" on Tumblr is, if you can believe I am even writing this - more (self) promotional.

My aim is to delve further professionally into writing and digital and social media.  Tumblr seems to be a place that the folk are playing these days.

There is SO much out there in terms of social media and the places to get your stuff seen.  Facebook, of course. And LinkedIN, and Stumbelupon and Digg and Twitter and Delicious.  It is massive out there.  And where to start and what to share and where to link and how to do that and what is the best way to express oneself professionally and what am I as a brand, as a person, as a tree?!

Too late in the night to be thinking about anything, but I got excited when I saw my latest Virgin.com post got published.

And why do it at all?  Because I love to connect, create the conversation, pass on the conversation, be a part of the conversation.  For example Honey Badgers are IN and I want to be the one to get them on the map!

So please go to my new blog site and follow me, link me, forward me.  Thanks.

New York City - Scotland Week

http://www.virgin.com/travel/news/new-york-city-scotland-week/

I wrote this piece for Virgin.com    Please go to site and click ROCKED if you liked it or LIKE on Facebook or link it and spread it.  But spread it fast as Scotland Week is coming to a close soon.

The Promise at 59E59

Scotland Week is once again upon us.  My first venture out this year was to see the Scottish play (not THAT Scottish play!) The Promise by Douglas Maxwell.  Lisa and Carri and I were guests of Scottish Development International and had a wonderful time as the event surrounding the New York premier of this play.

What a play. Wow. It is a one-woman show, but not really, it is a full play with one actor in it, a woman.  She is played brilliantly and untiringly by Joanna Tope.  Ms. Tope is one stage for 90 minutes of straight dialogue sans water.  They treat prisoners better than this!  How she did it is incredible. Well, I guess that is why they call her a professional actress.  There is no place for her to hide should she forget a piece of the rapid-fire dialogue. There is no break, no quick walk off stage. She is with the audience without a net and with an amazing story to tell which I will not ruin here.

Me with actress Joanna Tope at after party.

There was an reception afterwards. Lisa, Carri and I love receptions.  They had Scottish whiskey, wine (not Scottish I do not think) and Scottish canapes. Scottish canapes?!  WTF?  Well, there were wee meat pies, Haggis with a turnip coulis on a bed of oats, Cock-a-Leekie soup in wee cups, and fish and chips on a poke.  It was delightful a few pies I might add, but they were small.

We got to talk to Joanna Tope and she was so delightful. I found out the play originated at the Tron Theatre in Glasgow where I worked in the 1980's and I got to tell her so. She has performed this play in London, Glasgow and Edinburgh and now in New York.

Go see it through April 17th at 59 East 59th Street Theatre.

Wisco Girls Take Manhattan

New York City is not for owning, it is for sharing.  When friends visit it is okay to pass on joining them to the see the Statue of Liberty (but only if you have gone in the last 5 years) but to miss out on the joy of a visit and the joy of their joy of being here is a shame.

 

Many friends will say "I am here to see YOU, I do not need to do any touristy stuff."  This I will not allow.  You can see me, but you must see me while we are walking through Central Park or while we are strolling through the Frick or while we are strolling along the Hudson or taking a coffee a Joe.  I insist.  Think "Woody Allen Movie" before they got creepy.




You walk and talk, but New York City must be a backdrop for the conversation.

My friends Lisa and Carri came here to celebrate the "20th Anniversary of their 30th birthday" this week and it was so good to have them.  I was going through "a thing" and they kept me buoyant and laughing and eating good food.





I had never goofily played in front of the jumbo screen in Times Square.  (we are on the bottom left second row)



and we got to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge which is never not a thrill and meander through Central Park. 



We also had one of the small town experiences that I love here:  I wanted to show them my old beloved block on the Upper West Side where I used to live and we crashed into old neighbors and dogs and it was just a delight. 

New York is for lovers and friends and is not to be hogged like Halloween candy when you were a kid.

A Manhattan Party

It has been a while since I have been to a party in a highrise in New York where the view is that classic New York view of loads of cut out highrises with lights sprinkled throughout.  Like they use for backdrops in Broadway plays about New York or in Woody Allen movies.  There was a bartender serving cocktails and loads of New York type people all waiting to talk to me I am sure.

I didn't really know anyone as I was invited as a friend of friends.  They were very nice getting me out and circulating and reintegrating.  Tough, but I must.  I talked to a few people including a guy who quite forwardly, well, I won't say. 

At one point in the evening this woman in fishnets and a rose comes in with an accordion and starts belting out Edith Piaf.  She was so fantastic that stopping a discussion about police watch in troubled neighborhoods was not a problem.   (These are the conversations I swear our parents used to have and now I am at that age and I am having them. Wow.)  Everyone just stopped and listened to this very talented woman.  She sang flawlessly in French, English, German and Russian.  While playing the accordion.


I was so taken with her as was everyone else. She really made the evening. Her name is Mira Stroika and if she gets a gig out of this post I would be very happy.  Check her out here.  She is quite amazing.

Mr. Beller's Neighborhood. It's a small one.

Today I accepted a Facebook invite from a friend to Mr. Beller's Neighborhood.  This is a website that supports writers who write on New York City.  A monthly reading is held and this time it was at The Happy Ending Lounge in Chinatown.  I swear this place looked like a front for something, not a cool cafe New York stories reading venue.  I entered cautiously as I have white slavery issues and inside I saw my friend Steve and a friendly crowd of writerly types.

Steve Turtell is a writer who has a book of poetry published that is available on Amazon.  I had never heard his stuff before it was quite fine. I loved his story and his poems.  Way to go Steve! You can read his stuff on the Mr. Beller's site linked above.

Before I even went a friend wrote to me on Facebook that he saw that I was going to this and a guy from his work, Andrew, was going too and I should say hello which I did. Once again social networking makes the world smaller.  A little creepy, but I liked it.

The first reader was a woman whom I recognized immediately.  Leslie Nipkow.  OMG. We used to both be in Weight Watchers together. I hope she doesn't mind me writing that.  She is an Emmy Award winning writer and essayist. (Who needs Weight Watchers when you have an Emmy! Screw everyone else, I say!)   She is also the one who told me about taking dance classes at Alvin Ailey.  I had no idea mere mortals could do that and I did thanks to here.  What an odd, small world way to reunite. It was really fun to see her and catch up.  We are now Facebook friends.  I loved her stuff too.

Mr. Beller's Neighborhood may become mine once I write some essays on my life here in the Big Apple. But meanwhile it remains less and less big!  I keep running into people and meeting people in the darnedest places! 

On my way out The Happy Ending Lounge had velvet ropes and a bouncer outside and was turning into a nightclub for the evening.  I went home and turned in. Period.

I Choose to Be In Love.

I remember when I lived and worked in LA and people would be out from New York on business I would think, "How glamourous. They actually LIVE in New York.  What must that be like?"  Well, now I know.  I have lived here for 3 years.  And it is like living anywhere else in some respects and like nowhere else in others: there is laundry, grocery shopping, and the gym.  Except here everything is much harder and more expensive! But, no matter, I love it. And then I forget and I just exist in it.

Whenever I feel like I am taking living here for granted I put my ipod on RANDOM, make life into a musical and go.  This morning I was heading to the subway for work listening to Sinead O'Connor and I passed by St. Vincent's Hospital.  This hospital is now sadly closed due to bankruptcy and will be more luxury housing. It almost seems ironic, if it weren't so shameful. Anyway, I don't want to kill my buzz here.  But as I was passing and the snow was gently falling I recalled how this very place took in Titanic survivors, 911 survivors and was one of the first major AIDS hospitals in the world. It was humbling and moving.

Down I went into the subway. A system like no other and I was happy to be in it among the masses.  My music made it so much more palatable. 

I alighted at 50th Street and just as Madonna's Vogue started I walked across the street to behold bright and shiny Times Square.  Lately I have had nothing but disdain for this gaudy, tourist-infested tourist trap, but this morning thanks to Madonna I was empowered and inspired by it. 

It all boils down to perspective. New York is either a crowded, expensive, filthy, crime-ridden dump or it is a bright, exciting, never to be outdone metropolis of possibility. Or both.  I choose today to be in love.