Brandon Stanton's Blog, page 308

"I need to make it to the NBA so I can get out of the hood and...

"I need to make it to the NBA so I can get out of the hood and help my mom."

"I moved to New York to make music, and I thought I’d have...

"I moved to New York to make music, and I thought I’d have done more by now. But I struggle with discipline. If I have a moment of inspiration, it’s easy to ride that. I’ll have the flash of a verse, or a chorus, or a melody, and I’ll sit up all night writing it out. But if I can’t finish it in one sitting, and I have to come back to it the next day, then it starts to feel like homework, and I just can’t do it. I have a huge collection of songs that are a quarter finished."

"I’ve been a concierge for twenty years.""What’s the...

"I’ve been a concierge for twenty years."
"What’s the craziest thing you’ve ever been asked for?"
"One time a 70 year old woman asked me if I knew where there was any vampire activity. Then she looked at me strangely, ran her tongue over her dentures, and said: ‘I like to get bit.’"

"He’s one day old. I still can’t believe that...

"He’s one day old. I still can’t believe that he’s real and that he came out of me."

“I got a masters in mathematics from Columbia, and for twelve...

“I got a masters in mathematics from Columbia, and for twelve years I worked as an investor. I made good money the whole time. On some days I’d lose, but on most days I’d win, and every year I made good money. But then I got greedy. I thought I’d found a sure thing. There was a pharmaceutical company coming out with a new drug, and I got a tip that it was going to be approved by the FDA. And the sources who were telling me this had always been right before. So I bet everything. I thought: ‘I’m going to double my money really quick, and then I’m getting out. I’m going to use the money to start my own business.’ I even borrowed money to put into this stock. I was that sure. 99%. And the next day I got a call from my broker: ‘I don’t know what’s happening,’ he said. ‘It’s dropping fast.’ And sure enough, later that day they announced that the FDA had rejected the drug. Suddenly I’d lost everything, and I didn’t even own my apartment anymore. I couldn’t get out of bed for months. I stopped eating and dropped to 125 lbs. Then one day my girlfriend tells me, ‘If you don’t get out of bed, you’re going to die.’ So I got a job as a stock boy at a retail store. Twenty years later, I’m managing ten of those stores. I wish that I’d just become a stock boy in the first place.”

"My chihuahuas are at home.”

"My chihuahuas are at home.”

"I’m losing my eyesight. It’s a condition called...

"I’m losing my eyesight. It’s a condition called retinitis pigmentosa. It starts with your peripheral vision and moves inward. It’s not too bad for me yet. Sometimes I don’t notice when somebody is trying to shake my hand. And sometimes it can be hard for me to keep track of what line I’m reading. But I got the disease from my father, and he went completely blind in his 40’s. So I try to spend as much time as possible looking at things like the colors of the leaves and cool cloud formations."

“One time we were spinning with blankets on our heads and we...

“One time we were spinning with blankets on our heads and we spun into the TV!”

"Vonnegut said we live too long. He said: ‘You had your...

"Vonnegut said we live too long. He said: ‘You had your children. You wrote your book. Now don’t be greedy.’ Yet we all live with this fantasy of recuperation. We see an old photo of ourself, and we momentarily feel like that person again. We think: ‘I’m going to get back to that place.’ And we never get back there. But that desire gives us the ferocity to hold onto life no matter how bad it gets."

"Kurt Vonnegut called me his best friend— in print. You...

"Kurt Vonnegut called me his best friend— in print. You know why? Because we had a lot of fun together and I never asked him for a thing."