Cowboy Prep and the Friends We Made Along the Way

The Week in Diamond

Starting with a little news about a cool upcoming thing. At the end of the month I’ll be sending out my first post for subscribers only. I get maybe a person a week asking me for recommendations, especially travel tips to a few cities I go to a lot. So I’ll be sending out a Diamond Guide to New York City for my first one and I’ll be updating it monthly for paid subscribers. There will be more stuff to come, but I’m basically going to do a little redesign of The Melt in September or so and there will be a hub for the paid subscriber stuff, including other city guides that I’ll be doing for cities I love like Chicago, New Orleans, Montreal, Miami, maybe L.A. I don’t know. I’ll probably ask some “special guests” to weigh in on some cities, it’ll be fun. There will be more stuff for subscribers dropping soon. I’m just figuring out what it will be. Thanks for sticking with me while I get this thing going.

We headed out of town last Saturday for vacation, so I’ve been feeling a little disconnected since I’m not in my normal routine back in Brooklyn, but I think maybe all of us are feeling a little out of sync these days. Things feel like they’re in a long reset mode, and it’s unsettling, especially given, you know, every damn thing. It doesn’t rank anywhere up near climate change or gun violence, but the little things, like how we get our information and communicate online, look to be shifting right before our eyes. A few days ago, everybody was looking to get a Blueksy code, then all of a sudden, old Zuck rolls out Thread and I honestly don’t know why we have all of these different places for social media or how it will net out, but there’s something very strange about it. It would be nice if we could just have a few things we could count on being there, even if it is something as silly as social media. But it has got me thinking a lot about how when I started online, it was message boards, then chatrooms and AOL, eventually, I was just really using Livejournal, then Makeoutclub became something I found myself looking at more than I care to admit. Friendster, Myspace, etc. Every Internet site or app I’ve used to communicate has either changed beyond recognition or has gone quietly into the night. Yet many of the people I’ve met because of the net are still in my life today, either we follow each other on new sites, or we’re friends in real life. So it can’t be that bad.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that all of this stuff is silly. I could complain I’m losing 30k followers on Twitter if it continues going in the direction it’s heading, but I can also probably admit that maybe a few thousand of those people at best really see or even care what I have to say or post. Meanwhile, I’ve made lots of friends off these sites that have come and gone. I still follow many of the same people I did in 2005; some of them I’ve met over the years are dear friends in real life. That’s why no matter how this nets out, whether Twitter miraculously cleans up its act (not likely), Threads turns into the hot new thing, or maybe more people start using Notes on Substack, I’m trying not to take this stuff too seriously anymore because the people that run these sites sure don’t seem to.

The Melt Stuff of the Week!

Two things I’m obsessed with teamed up for a collab. And After That makes some of my favorite shirts and hats, and Dimepiece has become my favorite watch account to follow on Instagram, so it’s cool that they teamed up to make that shirt above this little blurb.

Drake’s tends to be one of the brands that drops stuff that has me going “I want that” more than others, and they recently posted this sweater vest that has me wondering if this fall we’re going to see a big bump in Cowboy Prep. Like Fran Lebowitz meets Bottle Rocket-era Wes Anderson looks with a slight twist of Hank Williams. That’s sort of what I’m aiming for, and if I can scrounge together a few more paid subscribers, maybe I’ll treat myself to this. Either way, I’m keeping an eye on Cowyboy Prep. I think it’s real.

And before you ask, no, I don’t get a cut if you click the links and buy the stuff. I’d love it if I did, but I’m just trying to tell you, my dear readers.

The Reads

First things first, this counts as a read since it’s a link. It’s the announcement that on July 20th I’ll be in conversation with the author and man of the world, Christopher Wallace, about his stunning new bio on Peter Beard, Twentieth-Century Man: The Wild Life of Peter Beard. I would highly, highly consider picking this book up, and if you want to buy it for a ticket to the event at McNally Jackson’s Seaport store, then you can click this link and boom.

I love Josh Gondelman like family, but even I can admit when he’s wrong. It doesn’t happen a lot, but my guy went in on how great Polar Seltzer is and…I don’t know. I know you Polar fans are serious, but I just can’t get behind it for the most part. The black cherry one, I’ll admit that’s good. But for the most part, I just haven’t really ever been able to understand why people are so obsessed with Polar. But Josh, to his credit, makes a good case and has me thinking I should give it another shot.

Read: “One Seltzer to Rule Them All” by Josh Gondelman at Slate

Ron DeSantis has embraced Patrick Bateman from American Psycho to try and get…I don’t know, the cannibals and guys who hack people to death while listening to ‘80s pop tunes vote? Also, I didn’t see this mentioned in the article, but Patrick Bateman is obsessed with Donald Trump. So maybe, definitely, not the slam dunk Mr. Florida Man was hoping for. Disturbing? Yeah. Funny? Absolutely. But in a sad way. Maybe if DeSantis and his pals weren’t so into banning books they’d have known that little detail.

Read: “Ron DeSantis’s Ghoulish Embrace of American Psycho Patrick Bateman” by Robert Schlesinger at The New Republic

New York City’s favorite son Jayson Buford has a new column where he goes around his city eating food for Byline. For his first dispatch, he wolfs down some Tex Mex at Yellow Rose.

Read: “A Yellow Rose For A Tex-Mex Eatery” by Jayson Buford at Byline

Paper magazine was one of those publications that made me think New York City was a wonderland filled with weird magazines and newspapers and people that wrote and edited them and…it once was! From 1984 until recently when it laid off its entire staff, Paper was a vital source of cool, weird, fun, citycentric stuff. It’s supposedly making a comeback, but we’ll see how that goes.

Read: “Paper Magazine, the Oral History: ‘They Were Wide Open’” by John Ortved at the New York Times

The opening paragraph of the year may have dropped in this very George Saunders-ass, real-life story about the IHOP kingpin of the Bronx named Domenic Broccoli going up against the Revolutionary War buffs story that is filled with wild stuff like “Broccoli insists that he’s not anti-history. He doesn’t dispute the fact that people are buried on his land or that the area is steeped in Revolutionary significance; his vision for the IHOP involves a wait staff in tricorne hats and bonnets.”

Read: “The Battle of Fishkill When Domenic Broccoli set out to expand his IHOP empire upstate, he didn’t expect to find a grave site — or start a war” by Reeves Wiedeman at Curbed

Finally this week, nine times out of ten you start something with “LA’s Viral Sensation” and I will say “Let me stop you right there” before walking away. But I think I need to try Fatima’s Grill.

Read: “LA’s Viral Sensation Serving Shawarma Crunch Wraps and Cheetos Quesadillas Arrives in NYC” by Elissa Suh at Eater