Following this issue’s cover shoot with Jim Gaffigan, our associate editor Mia Weber tweeted out an informal behind-the-scenes photo she took on her iPhone of him pointing a toy bubble gun at two of his adorable children, showering them with an explosion of iridescent bubbles. This was our modest attempt at giving our Twitter followers a taste of things to come in this issue. But then Gaffigan, who has over 2 million Twitter followers, decided to play along, re-tweeting the photo with a brief, but brilliant, comment of his own.
“Proof I’m still street,” he deadpanned—and with that set off the biggest re-tweeting frenzy New York Family has ever had.
I like this idea of Gaffigan having fun by asserting his street cred. On the face of it, it’s laughably and wonderfully preposterous! And yet, if we narrow its meaning to refer simply to his life of a New York City dad, Gaffigan gets full props. He didn’t just survive the urban crunch of raising multiple kids in a relatively small apartment, he kind of embraced it. And as he discusses in our cover interview (page 32), he may spend a lot of time exploring the humor in parenting for a living, but as a hands-on family guy deeply connected to his children and spouse, he knows from where he jokes.
With Father’s Day as our inspiration, June is always the month in which we tilt our coverage toward the dad experience, and while Gaffigan is our big fish, I’m also proud to steer you to our interview with Greg Pembroke, creator of the popular blog Reasons My Son Is Crying (page 28), and to a first-person essay by a local dad who, after pursuing lots of crazy adventures in his 20s and 30s, has been deeply surprised by how much he enjoys being a dad and spending much of his free time with his son (page 64).
Not surprisingly, the issue’s other big theme is, in a word, summer. We contribute to the fun with a terrific smorgasbord of ideas and activities—beaches, camping, water parks, nature stops, biking, festivals, and food—in a variety of stories.
Now it’s time to enjoy it all. Have a good June and July,
Eric Messinger
Editor, [email protected]
