While in Prague, we also had the chance to take a ride on the Four Season’s boat they have for guests. The captain brought champagne and homemade pretzels and for an hour we had the best view of the city from it’s famous river.
while in Prague, we stayed at the Four Seasons there, which is an incredible complex of buildings from ancient to new construction that sit right on the river. We could wake up and watch the whole city do the same from the window. Amazing.
As I look back over the arc of my life, I see not a string of victories but rather a long line of opportunities. I was, at every important juncture in my life, provided an opportunity to prove myself. Those opportunities have shaped my past, present and surely my future. This realization came on a run in Central Park 10 years ago, but what took longer to realize was that those opportunities aren’t offered to everyone, that the scales aren’t balanced. See, it’s easy to attribute your wins to “hustle” or “crushing it”, it’s easy to build up your mythology and easier still to start believing in it. What is harder is to look at your little slice of success and understand that while your hard work and hustle DID matter, they wouldn’t have mattered if you couldn’t apply them to those opportunities you got, and harder still to admit that those opportunities were likely granted because of your station in society, not your innate ability. I love the influencer space because it can, at best, democratize opportunity and give chances to people based on the strength of their vision, and not the depth of their personal networks. Sadly, you don’t need to look too deep into the industry to realize that’s not what’s happening, you don’t need to listen that hard to hear the calls for a more diverse, fair system. I am really proud that Fohr has launched the Freshman Class, a program that is built to promote diversity in the influencer space. Diversity of skin color, body type, age, sexual orientation and focus. We are putting our money where our mouth is and selecting 10 voices from the community to come to New York, stay in the Four Seasons, network with brands and influencers and learn from some of the industry’s best. We already have nearly 850 applications and it’s been so heartwarming to see all of your applications and testimonials. If you haven’t yet applied the link is in my profile. PS, this photo is from one of those opportunities that changed my life, when @erikabearman asked me to shoot the @oscardelarenta FNO party.
A few days ago I found myself caught in a unseasonably warm September rain while on a bike ride, and as storms so often do what started as a drizzle turned quickly into a downpour. I usually don’t ride my bike in the rain (I am a baby) but I was already out there and soldiered on. Rolling past 100th street on the west side the sun started rising across the park and through the blinding, pouring rain that sunrise laid an eerie golden light over everything. The scene is begging for an analogy about storms and sunrises and hard things leading to light, but I’ll spare you all of that and say that at 7AM I saw the sunrise in the middle of a storm in the center of the world and I didn’t take a picture because honestly, you had to be there.
I remember the first time I listened to a new Radiohead album. I had recently gotten into the band and had been listening to OK Computer and Kid A on repeat and went to the record store the day “Hail to the Thief” came out to buy it. I got home from the mall as my first run through the album came to a close and my first thought was that I didn’t quite understand it yet but I knew I wanted to. I had a similar feeling leaving Aska after dinner on Wednesday. The three hour, 19 course meal was complex and exciting and educational. A lot of times when you go to a fine dining establishment you expect to have superlative versions of flavors you love, but this was different. Each dish at Aska introduced things I had never tasted before, textures I have never encountered, body parts I had never eaten. There was a caviar dish that did things I didn’t know food could do, each spoonful nearly disappearing in your mouth to reappear seconds later, we ate something that I described as “furry air” and I meant it as high praise.
I don’t have the language or experience to do justice to the food, but I can say that the experience was one of my favorite in New York. As Kristin and I were walking out we kept saying “oh, remember when we ate this” or “how did he make moss taste so good?” it was like when you leave a really good movie and want to talk to your friends about it. It was an experience that challenged by idea of what you can do with food, of what a fine dining restaurant should look like, of what can be achieved with enough ambition and talent. Everyday that passes since I ate there I find myself more and more passionate about it. I find myself wanting my friends to go because I want more people to talk about it with, about the time I spent three hours trying to understand the way my friend’s brain works by eating his food. Magic.
Last night I went out to Jaguar’s shiny new HQ in Jersey for the launch of the two door Range Rover, the F-Pace SVR and the I-Pace. Jaguar has been on an absolute roll the last 5 years and if last night is any indication they aren’t slowing down anytime soon.







