High life | 3 May 2012

New York

I have settled into my Bagel routine as if I had never been away: up early, a 25-minute walk through the park, one hour of judo working with three opponents, walk back, have breakfast and collapse with the newspapers. In the evening it is karate with Richard Amos and a couple of other black belts, then dinner at home. Three times per week I go out and get hammered in case I get too healthy, more often than not with Michael Mailer in the Boom Boom room, André Balazs’s downtown extravaganza. The women are mostly young, tall and thin, and much better than the men, except when either sex is Russian. Then they’re both awful. I’m trying to find one of those old communist hammer and sickle pins, in order to draw their attention, as I once did in Gstaad, by wearing a CCCP judo jumper. It was my favourite system because it kept people like you locked inside, away from us, is what I hope to say when and if anyone asks.

Spring is in full bloom over here, cherry blossom and wisteria reaching a peak, so to speak, the latter cascading magnificently around Rockefeller Center, not that anyone takes notice. Everyone’s much too busy texting. I run across these morons daily when crossing the park. Not a single person, not even those dumb tourists, ever looks up. Trees, grass, nature, birds, all go unnoticed as the decibel level decreases in direct proportion to the people present. No one speaks, everyone’s plugged in, and even the homeless are texting. These are the idiots weaned on reality shows who also wear headphones like that poor radio officer on the Titanic. They are listening to crap music, texting moronic messages to fellow morons, and speaking on mobile telephones while reading emails.