Good Morning and Happy Friday!

And big thanks to all of you who reached out to me about last week’s video. Based on your feedback, I am encouraged to do another (#1 below).

1. Vax Update: To get to 70%, the fence-sitters need to get onboard.

2. No vax means no fun for you!! Playing the FOMO card Hard!

• Kudos to Miley Cyrus and also big shoutout to Bruce Springsteen for bringing his show back to Broadway with a Covid vaccine mandate for audience members. (Source: News4Nashville & HeadTopics)
• Restaurants/entertainment venues are saving their best seats for vaccinated patrons. It’s becoming the new smoking vs. non-smoking section. (Source: NY Post)
• Larry Flynt’s Hustler Club, in Vegas, just announced it’s the first gentlemen’s club in the world to achieve 100% vaccination levels among staff and entertainers. (Source: Fox5Vegas)

3. HUGS ARE BACK (as are handshakes)

I’ve never hugged as much!

• Friends were the first to hug in early April (at which time most of us were fully vaccinated)
• Next came random hugs with people who I had never hugged before (or been hugged by), e.g., the security guy at a bar on my street.
• More recently: Hearty, massive hugs with the waitstaff at all of my favorite restaurants. This past week I got the hugest hug from Erickson, one of my favorite waiters at PEAK.
• Also big uptick in handshakes. Not so much for me (I’m a hugger) but among the men in my crowd. Remember when we were told handshakes would NEVER come back?

4. Gary Vee getting into the restaurant biz (with Josh Capon)

After more than 20 years with Mercer Street Hospitality, the chef Josh Capon has left and formed his own group with David Rodolitz, a restaurateur, and the entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk. The new company, VCR Group, will undertake restaurant and food and beverage projects.

NY Times (June 8, 2021)

I was privy to this news a few days before the NY Times announcement and am very excited to see what these gentlemen conjure up over the next year. Josh Capon is a master of hospitality (on top of being a formidable chef)!

5. “Guest House,” a tech-enabled home-staging start-up is on a roll!

The backstory on Alex Ryden’s start-up is akin to a fairytale (Source: Colorado Inno)

• Once upon a time, Ryden developed a bag brand which he then sold out of his Denver home (because he couldn’t afford a retail space).
• His bag customers started inquiring about his home furnishings.
• Next thing: “We made our whole home shoppable.”
• As the buzz grew, real estate friends asked him to create the same experience for homes they were selling.
• Ta-Da: Guest House was born.
• The company’s 3 core pillars: stage, shop, and sell.
• Interior designers provide in-person installations at for-sale homes and all the products used for staging are for sale. As an extra bonus, Guest House also offers free listing photography.
• The company, which launched in 2016, reports that homes it stages sell 40% faster and for an average of 5% more. If that’s true (even in this over-heated market), tech-enabled staging is a concept to keep an eye on.

6. Mattel’s “Totally Throwback Barbie Tour” is (sadly) ending in Vegas this month.

• Lots of retro-inspired apparel and swag (for adults) including embroidered denim jackets, caps, T-shirts, iridescent vinyl fanny packs, “cassette tape” wallets, and collectible Barbie Polaroid cameras.
• The 60th anniversary Barbie Tour has, unfortunately, been flying under the radar for the last year due to the pandemic. I’m sure lots of people would be thrilled if they extended it! Are you listening Mattel?

7. Transportainment Will boom this summer!

• The Big Drag Bus is one of Nashville’s newest and most popular transportainment experiences. It features drag queens as guides! Guests are encouraged to bring their own booze (and can be as young as 18). Tour sizes range from 12-24 and it sounds like renting out the whole bus is the way to go. Otherwise, WHOA this sounds like it could easily go off the rails. (Source: Nashville Guru)
• Girls5eva (streaming on Peacock) is offering a customized, open-air double decker karaoke bus experience as a lead-up to the Emmy’s. It’s happening this weekend in LA (Friday, June 11, to Sunday, June 13). Those who grab the mic will get swag from the show. (Source: Time Out)

8. Cities (big and small) welcome us back with murals and public art

Here’s some that may not have been on your radar:

1. KALICO Art Center of Montana selected artists to paint locally themed murals on the entrances to four pedestrian tunnels. John Pepion and Louis Still Smoking of Valier (proposal above) is my favorite. Painting starts in July. (Source: Daily Interlake)
2. Wall painting for Austin, a massive work (pics below) by renowned Venezuelan artist Arturo Herrera, has just been unveiled for the reopening of Waterloo Park. (Source: Austin Culture Map)
3. In Pittsburgh, Janel Young was commissioned by the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership to create street murals using her signature bright hues. Outstanding work (pics below). Source: triblive

9. Immersive Van Gogh? Some say it’s breathtaking, others say “don’t gogh!”

• I have tickets for later this month but I am strongly inclined to believe the review my friend, David Moreland, posted on Facebook recently.

In other words: If you haven’t gotten your tickets yet, you may want to hold off. I’m of the opinion that all of these immersive experiences have jumped the shark. I’m DONE with this trend!

10. Subway trendspotting – musicians are back as are the cool kids!

And that’s a wrap — but not before I do a teal hair update!

From the subway: 2 totally different kinds of women, both sporting teal hair.

Also on entertainers and fashionistas

And finally, major shoutout to Kirsten (my downstairs neighbor), for always rocking’ the coolest look!!

And on that colorful note, it really is a wrap. Not only do I have an action-packed week ahead, last night I had A RIDICULOUS AMOUNT OF FUN. First with the Moto Social crowd on Orchard Street and then the Updating crew at Sour Mouse. I will definitely have much to report on next week. In the meantime, have a GREAT weekend everyone!!