It’s Tuesday, January 13, 2026, and I’m doing mandated state ethics training online because I teach for a SUNY college. It’s live and supposed to end by noon, but the moderators of the training are really pushing it to the limit.

Yes, I know that I pretty much can’t accept a gift larger than a cup of coffee from people doing business with the state…

(I wonder if our elected officials have these same rules.)

Thankfully, my office is in the Empire State Plaza, in the Concourse, not far from the Egg, where Gov. Kathy Hochul will be doing her annual State of the State at 1 p.m.

The halls of the Concourse are filled with advocates chanting things and pushing fliers on people, Native peoples dressed in traditional garb — one pounding a drum — and walls of state troopers.

One of the troopers okays my press credentials and points me to the governor’s press area and comms staff. One staffer is a former student of mine. Another leads me and a couple of photographers to our seating in the Egg. Because I’m “print,” I get to sit in the press section’s front row. Video cameras are behind us. Still photographers are led closer to the stage as the event begins.

Party music, mostly from the 1980s, is playing.

The Egg has been recently renovated to much fanfare. Lots of expensive-looking wood panels. I bet that’s great for acoustics.

Because I have lived Upstate and Downstate, I recognize alpha types from both places sitting in the VIP section in front of the stage. Some haven’t aged a bit. They either have full and fancy haircuts, or no hair at all. There’s little in-between.

There’s only a walkway between the press section and the VIP section. The reporter next to me says he’s been covering the State of the State for 39 years and these are the best seats he’s ever had. “Normally they put me way up there,” he says, motioning high up to the Egg’s cheap seats (if they have cheap seats).

I see pols I recognize from their photos in online papers, and I can’t remember last seeing them in print (where, if you look closely enough, they become little dots on pulp). There’s Letitia James. There’s Ed Romaine from Suffolk County. There’s Zohran Mamdani.

An announcer comes on and gives obligatory information about not smoking and where the exits are. No one is listening. It reminds me of the mandatory online training I have just done.

The announcer then calls out many of the VIPs in the audience: Comptroller Tom DiNapoli, Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie.

“They didn’t mention the lieutenant governor,” the veteran reporter next to me says.

(I know. I have written about the rift with Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado previously.)

Relatively young Democratic mayors in the state, including Mamdani, who recently won election, are also announced to much applause, and a bunch of staffers from the governor’s office, to dissipating applause.

Cue the lights, cue the cameras stage left, cue the cameras stage right.

And now let’s hear it for the Syracuse University Marching Band!

A large contingent of uniformed student musicians takes over the stage and the row between the VIP and press sections with a brass section, playing New York-themed songs like “New York, New York” and “Lights on Broadway.”

I wonder how Delgado thinks he can even compete with all this?

A reverend, an imam and a rabbi walk onto the stage …

They pontificate a bit.

The State Police Color Guard raises the flag. Girls Inc. of the Capital Region — cute kids in T-shirts that say Girls Inc. — leads the Pledge of Allegiance. Regina Wilson, a firefighter — I think from New York City — sings a commanding “National Anthem.”

The announcer comes back on. Big screens play an upbeat video led by Fran Drescher of “The Nanny” fame, with many notable talking heads saying the state is going in the right direction, listing many of Hochul’s accomplishments of the past year.

At 67, Hochul is now living her best life and, after four years of having backdoored into the governorship during the pandemic, finally seems very comfortable, even personable, on stage and in charge.

She frames herself as a “mom from Buffalo who knows how to stretch a dollar.”

She says she worked in a pizzeria and lived in a drafty attic in a too-small house growing up in the Western Tier.

She likens our nation’s 250th anniversary this year to patriots overcoming tyrants, and wonders if that’s similar to our national political scene today.

She tells stories of touring the state and names people who are doing better now. Their boutique took off. They were finally able to buy a home. They got childcare.

“I believe the government should be a force for good …”

New computer chip plants. A factory that makes yogurt.

New initiatives like affordable housing, paid parental leave, a higher minimum wage ($17) tied to inflation, expanded childcare.

Revenues and less traffic thanks to congestion pricing tolls in New York City.

Expanding nuclear — I remember that’s what some of the people in the corridors are protesting about.

Reining in big tech. Protecting children and teens from harmful chatbots and AI.

Last year’s phone ban in public schools, she says, has been a great success.

Testimonies from educators confirming this fill the big screens.

Requiring data centers in the state to produce their own electricity instead of taxing the grid.

These are proposals that will be part of the executive budget to be released later this winter, to be approved by legislators.

A GOP response to the State of the State pops up in my email. But it’s not over yet. (I look at it later — it’s full of general complaints about “How are we going to fund all this?”)

Hochul continues.

She makes a joke after praising the Buffalo Bills, who are still in the NFL playoffs.

“I try to unite Upstate and Downstate,” she says, going off teleprompter. “The Bills. It’s all I’ve got.”

Decent laughter.

Improvements to train and subway terminals. The GOP email says the MTA needs an overhaul, though.

She gets into what she’d like to see happen in 2026.

Universal childcare. Free pre-K for all 4-year-olds. Cheap and free childcare by 2028 for ages 0–3, especially in New York City. Mamdani is the first to stand and clap and others follow.

“Republicans have kids, too,” Hochul says. “You can stand, too.”

The governor says the state’s strong economy will help pay for these things.

She says tax incentives will bring more families to New York. Then the big screens show a picture of Bills quarterback Josh Allen and his wife, Hailee Steinfeld, who are expecting a child soon, to more cheers.

Energy. She laments Trump’s stop-work order for offshore wind turbines, saying it’s costing the state millions, and vows to get around that.

She also wants to make energy more affordable.

Talking about the future of nuclear power, an image of Homer Simpson fills the screens. He plays a nuclear technician on TV. More laughs. The governor obviously worked on this speech and presentation.

She says New York has the highest car insurance rates in the nation. The average household pays $4,000 a year, $1,500 more than the national average.

I try to do the math in my head and think I pay more than $4,000, come to think of it, though my home and business insurance is bundled …

She says fraud — like staged accidents and paydays for people who get into accidents while driving under the influence — and a judicial system that rewards big payouts are why rates are so high. She wants to fix that.

She’s cracking down on 3D-printed ghost guns and accessories that can turn a regular gun into an automatic. Printers sold in New York state won’t be able to print guns anymore, thanks to a software patch.

Crime is down everywhere and in all the big categories, she says. She wants to bolster mental health units to help police further.

Stopping antisemitism and Islamophobia. Not allowing groups to protest outside houses of worship.

Affordable housing — $250 million for that; $100 million for manufactured housing; tax incentives for tenants and keeping slumlords in check. New breaks for the elderly and disabled.

Grants to rehab homes helped 71,000 residents statewide. She wants to increase that number by 800,000 more over the next decade.

She touts the success of free community college. Eleven thousand adults ages 25–55 enrolled in eligible majors last year who otherwise wouldn’t have. She says more majors will be added this year.

Back to big tech: “AI-generated images and videos must disclose it, so all New Yorkers know what’s real and what’s not.”

Cue an AI image of Hochul portrayed as a heavily muscled Rambo.

Audience laughter.

“Take a look at these guns,” she says about the AI biceps. “You won’t see them again.”

Protecting abortion rights. Saving health care for those who participate in the ACA and recently had their rates hiked — 1.3 million people, she says.

Creating a vaccine policy composed by “trusted experts, not conspiracy theorists.”

“Standing up to ICE agents who abuse their power.”

A standing ovation. (The press doesn’t stand, by the way, whatever personal point of view we may have.)

The show is almost over — it’s a lot to take in. My overall feeling is that as a presenter, she has improved a lot over the years, and maybe it’s not just the new crop of younger pols who can rally a crowd nowadays. Of course, this is a friendly audience, and governors in this state rise and fall, and she’s in the rising stage, and seems to be uniting a lot of people in this time of state-versus-federal antipathy.

“No one, from the president on down, is above the law, and we’ll hold ICE agents who go beyond their scope of duties responsible.”

She returns to the 250th anniversary, and the patriots …

But the screens show an image of the Bills’ rival New England Patriots, to boos.

“Not those patriots,” she laughs.

She reiterates that the state must fight federal tyranny, concluding:

“Let’s go Bills!”

She waves to key people and to the crowd overall and leaves stage right.

Cue the audience lights.

Cue 1980s party music.

Ushers lead the well-dressed crowd to multiple exits, down spiral staircases that seem to wind forever. Finally, sunlight, and back to the Concourse.

I talk a state trooper into letting me through, because I have an office — right there — in the Concourse, pointing. He’s fine with that.

Writer’s Note: Because there were scores of journalists present who likely were writing this already in a standard style, and because this will ultimately appear in print (which has a longer shelf life), I decided to use a more New Journalism style and found inspiration for this from Donald Barthelme’s essay “And Now Let’s Hear It for the Ed Sullivan Show.”