Brandon Stanton's Blog

“I was seventeen. Only child, not a lot of friends. But I had a...

“I was seventeen. Only child, not a lot of friends. But I had a plan. I was going to become an actress, get a role on All My Children, meet my husband on set– and when that was all over, I’d host a talk show. Kelly Ripa did it; I could do it too. Back then it seemed like every woman on television had gotten their start as beauty queen. So my senior year I decided to enter my school’s Homecoming Queen competition. It was organized like a Ms. America pageant. But this was a rough high school, only one other girl signed up, so I had a good shot. My whole family got behind me. My mom was a seamstress. We noticed that in most pageants we watched, the winner wore a white dress. So she sewed me a white dress that I picked out of Seventeen Magazine. First came the interview portion, and that’s when the trouble started. The judges asked me about the Anita Hill testimony; I wasn’t ready for that. I was ready for world peace. They were supposed to ask me about my goals, so I could say world peace. But that didn’t happen. The talent portion was later that night at the homecoming dance. The whole school was there. I chose a Sheena Easton song; poor choice. Not the right crowd for that. The other girl chose ‘I Feel Good’ by Stephanie Mills, and she had the whole crowd singing along. That’s when I knew it was over. But then, a miracle. The guidance counselor quieted everyone down, and announced the winner: it was me. Me! It was my Kelly Kapowski moment. Everyone was cheering, the other girl congratulated me. But it only lasted five seconds, because the guidance counselor said: ‘Wait a second, I’m sorry. Joanna is the runner-up.’ It was the worst moment of my life. In fact, the only thing that got me through COVID was knowing that it could not possibly, possibly be worse than that moment. And here’s a twist for you. Remember that guidance counselor? Several years later I ended up acting alongside his son in a play at Queens College. In one scene I pulled a gun on him, and the director was like: ‘We need more anger. Think about something that makes you angry.’ I was like: ‘Well, that’s easy. His father ruined my senior year. And quite possibly, my entire life.”

“People see it as a fake sport. Whenever you tell someone you...

“People see it as a fake sport. Whenever you tell someone you play Ultimate, it’s like: oh, is that where you throw a frisbee in a basket? Or is that the one where you throw it to a dog? Whenever I’m talking to someone about it, I just hope they’ll ask me enough questions so that I can talk about UNC Ultimate. That was probably the most special experience I’m ever going to have in my whole life. I was on the team for five years, then I came back and coached. My freshman year we were really, really bad. But at the moment UNC Chapel Hill is triple back-to-back-to-back national champions. And I got to be part of that trajectory. But even though the team kept getting better and better, I kinda stayed at the same level. I never became the elite player that I wanted to be. I have a lot of ‘stick-to-it-ive-ness.’ I’m capable of working really, really hard. And part of me always believed that would be enough, which is the part that burned me out. Because after working so hard, for so long, I reached a plateau. It was physical stuff. I’m just not quick enough. When I play defense I can’t keep up with the fastest offensive handlers. They’re going to score, and that’s a problem. I ended up getting cut from the elite women’s club team I was on. I switched over to mixed, but ended up tearing my ACL a couple years ago. It’s been my life for ten years, but now I’m at a place where I don’t know if I’m ever going to play again. I just don’t know if my body can handle it. I don’t want to have another, like massive orthopedic surgery. And frisbee takes up so much bandwidth; there’s so many other things I want to explore. The list is infinitely long. I’m asking myself: could I be happy playing on a mid-level team where the commitment wouldn’t be quite as high? Or will I only feel satisfied if I’m exceptional? That’s an unhealthy connection I have in my head, I think. That love is something you need to earn. And being exceptional will make me worthy of having connections with people. It would be great to become a version of myself where I no longer feel that way. And maybe we’ll get there someday. We’re working on it. In the meantime, at least I got to talk about UNC Ultimate.”

“To me she’s the most prettiest girl in the whole...

“To me she’s the most prettiest girl in the whole wide world.”

“It’s a love/hate relationship. Hate is too strong a word. But...

“It’s a love/hate relationship. Hate is too strong a word. But she just can’t accept that I’m not a kid anymore. I’m a lot more mature than most fourteen-year-olds; I already have a job and everything. But she’ll shut me down just to get at me. And there’s nothing I can do because she’s my Mom. She’s always on top of me: be careful with this, be careful with that. Won’t let me go to my friend’s houses if they’re a little further than our neighborhood. And we’re both stubborn, so if I try to argue it goes back and forth. She doesn’t want to see her kid be right. She gives me no choice but to be loud and extreme just to get my point across. But look, I get it. She’s got this Google folder on her phone with like 1400 photos of me when I was younger. It goes all the way back to my first day of school. The other day I went into the kitchen to get a drink, and I caught her scrolling through the pictures, and she’s crying. I was like damn. So look– I get it. I’m still mad, but I get it.”

“Walked around the corner, there she was. And zing went the...

“Walked around the corner, there she was. And zing went the string of my heart. Zing! I said: ‘I gotta catch up with that girl,’ and I never did let her slip. There was a big song on the radio back then, about gettin’ married. Everybody was singing it, something about: ‘When we get married, we gonna have a celebration.’ You keep hearing it every day, and you wanna try it too. Never thought it would last this long. It’s been a good ride though. Everybody has a little bump here and there. We had our arguments, and I ain’t never did win one. Ain’t no man ever gonna win when it comes down to arguing with your wife. You could be married for a hundred years, she’s gonna have the last word. So no need to get your mouth all rolled up. Don’t stand there arguing and cursing. Just listen, laugh, and let it go. Kiss her on the cheek and say: ‘you the winner.’ After that, everything will be beautiful.”

“Occasionally I’ll have a beer after work and break out the...

“Occasionally I’ll have a beer after work and break out the sketchbook. But I had wanted to be this great painter. I wanted to do these grand things: big, huge oil paintings. But those days of painting all the time were such a roller coaster. There were these periods of extreme depression, followed by manic states of trying to put myself out there. I couldn’t do it anymore. I mainly felt sorry for my dad. I know it was rough for him. My mom hadn’t wanted me to go to art school. She wanted me to do something more practical, but my dad said: ‘No. This is what he wants to do, and I want to support his dream.’ And then I abandoned it. That was the first time I had to deal with real failure. A lot of times when you’re an artist, it’s your job, it’s your lifestyle, it’s your entire fucking identity. It wasn’t like I failed to do a thing. It was like: I failed to be something, you know? It was a failure to live up to what I thought was my destiny. But then on the other side of that, there was this figuring out that there was nothing wrong with me the entire time. I didn’t need to be something else to have meaningful friendships, or a good relationship. I didn’t need to be something else to be loved and cared about. After work tonight I’m going to meet up with a person who’s in love with me, and I can’t wait. And that person met me long after I gave up on being a full-time artist. They met me when I wasn’t even a chef yet. I was a piss-poor, part-time line cook. But even then, they decided I was worth it. So you know, there’s something there. There’s something there that’s enough.”

“We’ve been dealing with invisibility. We started realizing...

“We’ve been dealing with invisibility. We started realizing we’re kind of fading. So many of our friends say that: that they’re becoming invisible. Everybody needs a welcome from somebody else so that they can feel useful. It’s a real source of energy. And when you realize you’re not getting that as much, what happens is you get scared. And you also say: maybe we could do something a little different. So at some point we came up with the idea of the cute older couple. We were hoping to find some younger friends. We’ve always been attracted to younger people. You know, young people struggle. So we like to support them and wish them well and give them a lot of approval. And young people need cute old couples. They love cute old couples. So we decided to play it up a little bit. That’s what it is: ‘play.’ It’s really play. Have you ever seen two dogs greet each other? One dog will drop down, and bam, suddenly they’re playing. I think that’s what we’re doing. We’re inviting a play response.”

“My first end-of-life patient was a 97-year-old man. He had a...

“My first end-of-life patient was a 97-year-old man. He had a much younger girlfriend; she was seventy-four. But they loved each other so much. Back when their spouses were still alive, the four of them had been great friends. They would double date together. And when their spouses passed away, the two of them became a thing. Every day she would come over for lunch. I’d always cook a little meal for them. I’d prepare the table; I’d lay out my little candles and my little flowers. As soon as she arrived I’d put on music and dim the lights, then I’d leave the room and go wait in the bedroom. They would cuddle and snuggle. And the beauty of it was, even though he couldn’t control his fluids at that point, she never minded the smell. Her love for him was so great that they would still kiss and all that good stuff. When the doctors said that it was time for him to go to hospice, he said he didn’t want to go. He told them that he wanted to come back home and die with me. I was with him in the end. My patients never die alone. Never, ever. One week after his passing I was hired by his girlfriend’s family. She had terminal Alzheimer’s, and I ended up staying with her for seven years. I fell in love with her. We were family, just family. She used to be a tap dancer. We’d sing together. And if she didn’t feel like singing, I’d sing. Even near the end, she always knew when something was wrong with me. When I wasn’t being the Gabby that she knew, she would always know. When the doctors said it was time for her to go to hospice, her children said: ‘We want her to die with Gabby.’ In the final days she wouldn’t eat, she’d lock her jaw. But she would always eat for me. One night I could see the fright in her eyes, and I knew it was time. My patients never die alone. Never, ever. So I climbed under the covers with her. And she passed away in my arms.”

“Just the other day a video popped up on Facebook. It was only...

“Just the other day a video popped up on Facebook. It was only five years ago. We were in the park. I was pushing her on the bike, letting go. We used to have so much fun together. We’d always get ice cream. She’s a strawberry girl. I’m a vanilla guy. Chipwich, actually. I’m a Chipwich guy. She’d give me a hug afterward, tell me I was the best dad ever. We were such good friends. But now it feels like we’re so far apart. She doesn’t want to talk to me anymore. Even when she’s upset, she’ll ignore me and go to her room. It’s like: C’mon. I was fifteen too. I know what it’s like. But she’ll come back, I know that. They always come back. But it does feels like you’re getting your heart ripped out a little bit. But look, I get it. She’s figuring out life. You have to back off. You have to give them space. Cause if you charge after them and get all aggressive about it, you might push them away forever. But they always come back, right? One day she’s gonna realize that I’m not the enemy and I’m really her dad, her friend. I still get a flicker of it, every once in awhile. We had a really surreal moment last year. Her birthday is March 17th. She’s a St. Paddy’s Day birthday. We always take her to a Spanish restaurant on Long Island, but this time we did something special. Her uncle used to be a bodyguard for Taylor Swift, and we still know some people at the company. So they got us tickets to her concert. Fifth row seats. I mean, don’t get me wrong. We paid for them, but fifth row center. She was crying. I got a big hug. A big kiss. A ‘Thank you, Dad.’ It wasn’t ‘You’re the best dad ever.’ But it was a really big: ‘Thank you, Dad.’”

“I’m taking a break from school until I figure things out. I...

“I’m taking a break from school until I figure things out. I guess I have rebel traits. There were just so many things that felt out of my control, and it bothered me. You have to wake up at this time. You have to go do this. You have to go do that. It’s like I didn’t have any originality. There was a certain point when I realized that everything, this whole routine that I had, had been given to me by other people. And the weird thing is, whenever you try to remove yourself from that equation, and stop doing what other people want, you kind of get ostracized and outcast. That’s kinda what happened to me. I have a great family, but it’s full of strong personalities. I had so many people telling me: do this, do that. They said it was a ‘respect’ thing. You know: ‘I’m the adult, so you should respect me.’ But I never understood that. Because at what age do I get this thing called respect? Nobody in my family could ever answer that question. Is it when I have a kid? Is that it? Or is it when I’m paying a certain amount of bills? At what point do I step up on the pedestal?”