you heard it here first

i can't take sole credit for this one, because it was a joint effort among three friends out on the town last night, but we can, the three of us, proudly announce that the city can save itself the requisite hundreds of thousands of dollars (no joke--the consulting fees on some of our previous slogans exceeded one hundred thousand dollars) on the development of its next PR slogan.

no more nonsense.  ("alive.  unique.  inspiring".  wtf is up with that?)

just an appreciative nod to "come to lowell" dot com for the inspiration.

our new city slogan, and you can use it going forward for free because that's the way we roll:

"succumb to lowell"

you're welcome.

i don't love new york

if you missed tuesday night's hockey game between the boston bruins and the new york rangers, among other things, you missed a cavalcade of high sticks that became quite remarkable after a remarkably short period of time, both for their number, even if not their severity, as well as their complete (and i mean complete--not one high stick call was made during the entire game) absence of consequent penalties.

i'll add a link below so you can watch one particular incident in its entirety, from the stickings to the absence of penalties to the new york crowd's reaction to the non-calls. and then here i will interject what any even somewhat experienced hockey fan knows without second thought or rancor:  there is no high stick infraction as the result of a wind up or follow through of a shooting motion.  none.  it's there in the rules (60.1) and i'll copy the relevant part of the text here so you can see how plain and simple the description truly is:  "a 'high stick' is one which is carried above the height of the opponent’s shoulders. players and goalkeepers must be in control and responsible for their stick. however, a player is permitted accidental contact on an opponent if the act is committed as a normal windup or follow through of a shooting motion"

oh, i'm sorry...  did i say "even somewhat experienced hockey fan"?  i should have said, "even somewhat experienced hockey fan not from new york where they're just bandwagoners and buffoons".

seriously.

here's a recording of the nbc telecast from the original play, through the non-penalized aftermath, to, around about one minute and six or seven seconds, the new york crowd's reaction to seeing the complete play a second time on the jumbotron.

even complete assholes from philadelphia understand this one, and would never react so ignorantly to what is actually a deserved penalty for the new york player's infraction, NOT tyler seguin's.

i'll digress here to poke a little fun at brian engblom's faux-french inflection on tyler's surname--the kid's originally from a almost-absolutely-and-completely-english "town" (whitby--population 122,000, which, as my brother will drolly observe, would be an indeterminate number of americans owing to an absence of a current canadian-to-american conversion rate) on the north shore of lake ontario (just north of toronto) sporting just about as many italian speakers (1.4%) as francophones (1.7%).  too funny...

anyway, not a single canadian city would have reacted that way, and not a single original-six american city with the embarrassing exception of new york would have reacted that way, either.  even expansion cities like philadelphia get it.  but not new york.

no, in new york, they don't understand the first damn thing about ice hockey--they just go to the games and boo anything wearing a boston sweater because, well, it's boston.  yep, there are plenty of reasons for opposing fans to express displeasure and dislike of the boston bruins.  (brad marchand we LOVE you!) but this particular play???  respectable homers in this kind of situation, or at least those who have an even cursory familiarity with the game, know they ought to be church-quiet and grateful their guy wasn't sent off for a couple of minutes and the bruins handed a power play for their trouble.

but, no, in new york, it's like seguin pulled out a machete and assaulted the new york defense with bloody mayhem.

losers.

just plain losers.

i miss the leafs...

buying lottery tickets

public lotteries are, indeed, stupidity taxes.  they pay out only half of what they take in, and we're just the dupes who keep buying the losing side of the proposition. yet, as scientific study of marginal costs and returns will suggest, the relative dis-utility of two bucks to change ones standard of living gets compared to the relative extreme utility of 500 million to change ones standard of living, and buy those tickets we indeed do. which is to also say, the relative dis-utility of lottery ticket money quickly crosses a line when purchasers don't have to lose what they squander, and we all should think carefully before we place our wagers.

i'm put in mind of all this reflecting on the bruins miraculous and historic comeback win over the toronto maple leafs in game seven of their recent playoff best-of-seven series.  among five boston fans (well one was a philadelphian just along for the ride) there were only two who watched the whole thing, and, even then only one who could stand to do it in the same spot where they had begun watching the game three and a half hours before.

rooting for a team against hopeless circumstance is a lot like buying a powerball ticket.  yes, you are always going to be frustrated far more often than you become elated.  (yes, '04 game 4 and game 5, which was originally 3, sox fans, i'm talking to you).  but, someday, somewhere, for somebody, the bet finally pays off, and the real question is whether or not you will have already thrown that potential winning ticket in the gutter because of how "smart" you are about probabilities.

three of the five hockey watchers a week ago this past monday were "smart".  a fourth held onto that ticket but could only stand to grip it in the superstitious privacy of his hotel room.  a fifth sat calmly and appreciatively against all odds and reason, and took each successive goal towards the final one as a series of wins in one of the world's most far-fetched par lay bets ever conceived.

such wins, for all their improbability, are the sweetest.  watching big papi bloop that dying quail into center field to score damon was miraculous enough to have occurred in the fourteenth inning of an elimination playoff game, and after he had already homered to drag the olde towne team within a run all those hours ago in the eighth.  that the walk off, winning hit occurred just an inning after 'tek had dropped THREE passed balls in the same frame without wakefield allowing a single runner to score made it the single most memorable baseball game i know i will ever have seen in my life.  that i was THERE to see it is the power ball.

vinatieri pounding a last-minute tying field goal in a blizzard after brady all-but-legally fumbled it just seconds before.  (tuck rule, yo!).

havlicek stealing the ball.

experience is rife with the payoffs.  we just need to hold on to our tickets.

yeah, 9 times out of 10, even 85 times out of 86, they're gonna come up losers and we're gonna hate ourselves for the pain of it all, and our charlie brown insistence to keep trying to place kick lucy's hold.

lucy is a cartoon character.  the 2012-2013 boston bruins are the big papi's and adam vinatieri's of this year's stanley cup championship.  the ticket holders in toronto remain chagrined and frustrated as we know from experience all too well.

ya gotta believe.  ya gotta keep hope.  and ya gotta take your lumps when everything goes to shit at the final buzzer, as it does most of the time.

because, sometimes, it doesn't.

GO BRUINS!

props and only a slight whiff of crow that's thankfully gone now

some days ago i somewhat prematurely buried the toronto maple leafs when they lost their second home game and went down in the series three games to one.  (http://mindtivo.blogspot.com/2013/05/disappointing-alice.html)  as hockey fans can since tell you, they successfully beat the bruins both away and at home to force a deciding seventh game, and it wasn't until some significant overtime that the bruins were able to desperately finish what they had so convincingly started the week before.  i still stand behind my respect for the hockey fans of toronto, and my disdain for the me-first contract nature of a certain leafs star, and i'd like to further congratulate said leafs fans including said me-first player who really played a whale of a series in taking boston all the way to the precipice and then some including that first home-ice playoff win in so many years.  it was a great show.

i watched the game on a corner bar stool in a chain hotel deep in the hell that is orlando, florida.  i had to outlast a coworker who only wanted to talk about her home renovations, another business associate who gave me chapter and verse and then some on his ailing mother, and a boston-rooting stranger immediately to my left who griped all the way through the game and gave up in premature disgust with about 10 minutes to go in the game.  they all don't love you like i love you, boston bruins.

there was a certain quiet bliss to the torture of watching a beloved team struggle against a deficit of three goals with an unprecedented shortage of time to play.  in the history of the national hockey league there has never been a deeper comeback in a deciding playoff game, and i was there watching it all.  FOUR times, boston willed the puck into the toronto nets against all odds and a dramatic shortage of simple devotion all around them.  you can't even say faith--NO ONE, not even the most insane boston fans, had faith in a comeback with eight minutes to play.  many of us had hope, and, most of all, many of us just wanted to share the moments, however painful, because this team was, indeed, owners attempts at destroying the season aside, worthy of affection.

three nights later i was there on that very same stool again for the first win over the new york rangers.

but now, thankfully, it's extremely good to be home.

three games to none this time.  let's see what sort of excitement thursday night can bring.

GO BRUINS!

the principal's office

in seventh grade, my first in junior high, i became acquainted with the unique bureaucratic phenomenon known as the vice principal.  such was introduced to us in the context of "you don't want to have to meet the vice principal", and his (mine, as were and are so many others, was male, which suits the stereotype quite nicely) apparent and one-and-only responsibility was the euphemistic and, to the average 12 year old, terrifying remit of enforcing "discipline" among the schoolkids.

me and my friends being "good kids", we were quite unfamiliar with whatever went on behind the veep's closed door, but we and everybody else in the school knew within seconds whenever one of the "tough kids" became sent down there for whatever their most recent transgression.  at first, i figured these recalcitrants would have been as i would have been--shaking in their shoes, and terrified of the life consequences that swift and just punishment would earn.  you'd have to be, right?  and then i noticed that there was always a little bit of a smile on the to-be-condemned's faces on the way in, and an even bigger one on the way out, and i started to wonder if i really understood the essence of what was going on in there.

it didn't take long for those habituated to the ceremony to have a pretty strong handle on the reality of their situation.  there'd be a good stern talking-to, some random threats about permanent records and telling of parents, and then an inevitable "off you go, back to class" signaling the moment when discreet celebration would become appropriate.  contrary to stereotype, these were actually, and i have come to learn for sure later in life, some of the smartest kids in the school.  and, no, it didn't take very long at all.

toothless enforcement is, as any 12 year old middle school student can tell you, no enforcement at all.

so it is that we see on the agenda for the next city of lowell license commission hearing (6:30pm on thursday, may 23rd--http://www.lowellma.gov/depts/license/agenda.2013-05-21.2564002518)  "communication from deborah friedl, interim superintendent of police, dated may 13, 2013, allegations of misconduct against the middle street village, inc., dba the village smokehouse, 92-98 middle st., alan f. kaplan, mgr., all alc. bev. restaurant licensee, date of alleged violations april 25, 2013 - m.g.l. c. 138, s. 34, sale or delivery of alcohol beverage to person under 21 years of age; and massachusetts regulation 204 cmr 2.05 (2), to wit: violation of m.g.l. c. 138, s. 34, and violation of m.g.l. c. 94C (controlled substances act)."

for those of you keeping score, this is the same middle street village, inc. dba the village smokehouse which was given the proverbial wrist-slap last commission meeting for hosting an otherwise-illegal open bar, for which the license commission, in its infinite wisdom and consistent inconsistency of practice, wagged a "don't do it again" finger and sent the would-have-been guilty back to class, or, as the situation would have it, breaking the laws of the commonwealth in serving booze in as many illegal manners as their imagination seems to have capacity to serve it.

i once had a dog--a dog that i loved dearly--who i picked up as an adult via the shelter in sterling.  among the countless reasons for which i loved him more dearly than even i can say was his incessant striving to do whatever he could understand was expected of him.  this led him to do many amazing things, like jumping into and swimming across a 32-degree pond in the absolute dead of winter when my frustration at his having run around to the other side of it right before i had to leave for work boiled over into some overly sharp commands to "come here".  (i cried as i was drying him off).  anyway, his first day in the house was taken up with various corrections, starting with admonition against getting up on the furniture.  (he was a fairly large and extremely furry beast--an aussie shepherd cross weighing upwards towards 70 pounds).  he must have had some german shep in him, because the admonition never had to be given a second time--he was one of the most obedient dogs i have ever known.

the next morning, my to-eventually-be-ex and i emerged from the bedroom to find him comfortably ensconced on the living room couch, and i immediately understood his thought process:  "no daytime couch-lounging, but nobody has said anything about nighttime".  so i corrected him that there would also be no nighttime couch lounging, and so we went on our daily routine.  the next morning after that, my to-eventually-be-ex and i emerged from the bedroom to find him comfortably ensconced on the loveseat, and i again immediately understood his thought process as clearly as if he was speaking the words directly into my head.  "no anytime couch-lounging, but nobody has said anything about the loveseat".  that dog never again, in all his years, all 17 of them in all, got up on any piece of furniture, day or night.  and i learned a lot about dogs, and about 12 year old students, and about your average city bar owner in that instant, and i wonder if that lesson might be lost on this entire city licensing process these days.

we already have fights erupting in city neighborhoods (there was another stabbing last night) and the warmer weather will only increase the frequency of this over the coming summer months.  the "downtown disorder" fueled by irresponsible serving has already been observed to cause riots, near-fatal woundings, vandalism and a remarkable amount of public urination.  like the pow wow oak bough coming down, this is one of those inevitabilities that one would think would require drawing on all our collective experience with dogs, vice principals and everyone who winks at their buddies when leaving what was supposed to be a "disciplinary" hearing with no meaningful discipline whatsoever.

brian's ivy hall got four days license suspension for failing to satisfy a GUIDELINE.  (not calling the cops after cops were already on premise).  the village smokehouse has gotten nothing for willfully breaking THE LAW on repeated occasions.  make no mistake--these are two dogs staring lustfully at the living room couch of youthful alcoholic exuberance.  (as they should be--it's their business).  so want to know what i think?  i think that not only will the one indulged continue to be on our furniture on a consistent and regular basis, but the other one looking at the inequity of the situation will grow to be even more so, and you can mark my words because there's science behind that statement to prove it.  (has anyone seen the experiment video of the two capuchin monkeys treated unequally?)

do not get me wrong.  i believe sincerely in the importance of each and every one of our many liquor establishments to our downtown as well as city-wide culture and economic recovery.  (count the number of failed storefronts next time you're down here, and consider where we'd be without the hospitality industry).  i do NOT feel that overzealous enforcement is any kind of a good thing, which is to say, i feel that all our enforcement needs to be is simple, fair and CONSISTENT.

so, in advance of thursday night's entertainment down at city hall, let's all ask ourselves and our city manager and our elected city councilors in addition to our appointed license commissioners "what the heck is going on".  ("lemmetellya"--had to put a little mojo in there).

because it sure looks as if there's potential for more than a little couch/loveseat/toothless-vice-principal shenanigans, and we're all at risk to pay the price for it as any repeat offender skips out with that smile we all know so well that comes from an empty finger-wag.

oh, and i'll add a little vice principal post-script, and the quaintness of our lost national innocence is all over this one:  back in nineteen-mumblety-mumblety my honor roll friends and i decided to have a little fun in the weeks leading up to our high school graduation.  we decided to form a "teacher elimination squad", (yeah, i know), and arm ourselves with what was then high-tech water pistols (jokes by today's blaster standards) and full-body-disguises in order to run throughout the school and douse a few of our "favorites" in what used to be called a "prank", which would now be called terrorism and be met with full armed swat response, and i'm under no illusions whatsoever about that.  anyway, in our anachronistically ironic way, we mapped out our approach, our escapade, our escape and our final getaway, stashing cars and equipment in strategic locations so that it could all run like clockwork.  well, as any idiot otherwise criminal can tell you, everything goes exactly as planned right up until the plan is discovered to be complete horseshit, and after disrupting the library, locking the various principal types in their offices, and then heading to the top floor for our final flourish, we noted that several of the more athletic teachers had started to cordon off various stairwells (no elevators in those days--the ADA, like the DHS, was just a pipe dream) and it quickly became every-idiot-for-themselves with fewer and fewer ways out.  i saw a couple buddies get pinched but was among the lucky who remembered that the back stairs behind the auditorium were inaccessible to the main building and emptied directly outside, so i skated free and never had to visit that VP's office like my friends did.  and they were threatened with expulsion and not graduating and even actual arrest, but, as even these honor roll kids can now tell you, there's very little that certain vice principals will really do, and the whole thing very quickly becomes an eye-winking, back-slapping good time and absolutely devoid of any meaningful life lesson.  (like arlo's experience on the group w bench, the father rapers who otherwise would think very little of a bunch of honor roll dweebs in burkas, come right back over as soon as its apparent that their nemeses are actually pissed about the whole thing, and, truth be told, i have some more varied and better friends because of it and i'm grateful forever for that, as would one of them several weeks later when i smuggled him through a police roadblock after a house party--there's a lot that "good kids" get away with that they shouldn't--make no mistake about that).

where was i?

oh, yeah.

enough is enough.  selective and capricious enforcement is wrong.  consistent and consistently fair enforcement is long overdue.  sauce for the BIH goose needs to be good and fairly applied to the smokehouse, or we're in for an even longer and hotter summer.  they got away with it last time.  what did we all think they would do next?

enough is enough.

pow wow pow

intermission and time for a touch of alice:

there was some world class emoting a few months back over the so-called "pow wow oak", culminating in a a "pow wow oak tree preservation covenant" and a restriction of otherwise necessary public safety measures   (i.e. pruning) to protect pedestrians and property from the inevitable decline and decrepitude of a tree somewhat obviously in serious decline, and in imminent probability of dropping some pretty substantial limbs.

well, today, the "friends of the pow wow oak" can see the futile result of all their wishful preservationist thinking, and the inexorable march of nature--the largest and most obviously precarious limb of the tree has dropped, and, thankfully, no one has been injured or killed.  which is not to say that the intent of preservationists, like the intent of those who would proactively husband our urban woodland stock, isn't for the better.  but i would impertinently recall some of the hyperbole and insult leveled against those who pointed out the obvious--that the bough was soon to fall and possibly take human limb and/or life with it--and suggest that a little humility and apology might be in order.

yeah, the chances of someone being knocked on the noggin by any random tree limb is so remote as to be abstract in the extreme.  but, seriously, pointing out the danger does not indicate any lack of respect for preservation, or the history of this vaunted tree.

if only some fraction of the effort had been devoted over the past years to an appropriate marker/memorial to take the place of the tree upon its ultimate passing, we might be further towards a more permanent expression of respect.  as it stands, we're just looking at a damn unsightly hulk of a dying tree, and just a little bit of thankfulness that no one suffered any adverse circumstance, while we're absolutely no closer to a more permanent demonstration of our stewardship on behalf of unborn generations.

anyone want to start a preservation organization?

ahh, chickens...

i often tell people that city hall is the best entertainment bang for the buck going, and tonight was a veritable jackpot of some of the best stuff i've heard yet.  (did you know that half a dozen back yard chickens will be the end of lowell as we know it?--i didn't until i heard it tonight...)  you just can't make stuff like this up, and i, for one, am grateful to the circus and its performers for a good hearty diversion if nothing else.

which is not to say that there aren't some pretty compelling reasons not to be loading up on city poultry futures just yet--i'm guessing upwards towards 90% of the residencies here are in no way suited to chicken farming at any scale, and the way it's being approached, by suggesting removal of an ordinance that controls other farm stock as well, is pretty reckless to say the least.

i consider myself to possess a useful working knowledge of things chicken, having raised dozens of birds over the years.  to the folks who are spinning exaggerated tales of apocalypse, pestilence and disease, i might suggest giving the hyperbole a rest.  chickens are personable and surprisingly clean animals *when tended properly*, and they're more at risk to be taken by neighborhood dogs than the neighborhood is to anything they might pick up and carry around themselves.  they also control ticks and other disease-carrying insects, which ought to at least be counted in their favor while ranting on about salmonella.  (which, not for nothing, is spread most readily by city-permitted reptiles, and far more by commercial egg farms than by backyard chickens, but let's not digress).

here would be my suggestion:  someone in favor of backyard chickens should draft a proposal for an ordinance that addresses, among other things:

• Minimum space requirements
• Setbacks and other abutting property considerations
• Acceptable nuisance levels of noise, smell and appearance
• Health codes and veterinary regulations
• Licensing, enforcement, fines and other bureaucratic apparatus

And, unless and until this kind of stuff is on the table?  everybody should just chill out.

seriously.

chill out.

no egg props, stuffed noisemaking chicken dolls or grandstanding city council candidates flapping their mouths off about stuff about which they obviously know nothing about, not to mention express little real interest in learning.  more polls from neighborhood groups with points made respecting both sides--pro and con.  and a greater respect for how the cart is well before the proverbial horse here, which, if i read the ordinance correctly, needs to be discussed because unlocking that barn door to allow chickens would come complete with the featured elements of many other various old macdonald nursery rhyme verses.

myself?  i love chickens.  i think there's a responsible way to allow a limited number in very restricted areas within the city.  but i don't think we're even within a country mile of being able to discuss it rationally, which is too bad.

if you've got an acre, and a secluded spot for a coop out of sight, smell and hearing of your neighbors, why shouldn't you be able to choose to have chickens?  now, let's all calm down and ask ourselves how many spots like that are there in this city, and what's the best way to respect respective property rights and the interests of those who rightly believe there should be more urban agriculture where appropriate, all the while protecting all the rest of us from irresponsible gadflies who don't really know what they're messing with in congested neighborhoods that can't accommodate the property-value-detriment of ramshackle coops, the reek of improperly tended birds, and the surprisingly noisy exclamations of your average ordinary domestic chicken.  (those hens make a racket, and if you haven't lived with any, don't jump to any improper conclusions--they do more than just cluck).  and, yeah, roosters have to be, as monty python would put it, RIGHT OUT.

bruins time!

disappointing alice

there's been a significant amount of stuff to potentially dislike about toronto these past few days, from the petty (mlb wannabe dirk hayhurst, he of the 0-2 lifetime record and 5.72 era, accusing clay buchholz of doctoring baseballs) to the profoundly offensive (an idiot bringing a "toronto stronger" placard to a hockey game while the bombing victims were still in their hospital beds).  but, at the same time, the first and most direct responses to the greater abomination were from toronto itself ("canada's national newspaper" columnist jeff blair was one of the first, and he said, simply:  "lord help us.  some guy just held up a "toronto stronger" sign and it made the videoboard.  idiots") and the crowd last night at the air canada centre (i wonder if they all miss maple leaf gardens the way we miss boston's) was one of the most purely positive and hockey-proud i believe i have ever seen and had privilege to hear.  yes, there were the nhl-standard boos every time zdeno chara touched the puck, but not nearly so mean-spirited or stupid as they sound in places like, say, montreal.  toronto loves their leafs the way maybe only red sox fans pre 2004 can understand and appreciate, and, maybe, just maybe, those sox fans don't even understand it quite as well as they might.  (forbes' latest nhl team valuations puts toronto's value at an even one billion, coincidentally and exactly on par with their contemporaneous valuation of the red sox, yet playing in a league with a tiny fraction of the revenue of major league baseball).

and it's been forever (well, since 2008) since the leafs have even played a playoff game, which is an eternity in a league where fully half the teams make the playoffs every year.  you would think, watching the way les habitants du montreal turn on les habs when they underperform, (to make example of another canadian city where the team of their national pastime is more important than reason, as evidenced by the daughter of a life-long ottawa fan being sent home from a montreal area school for wearing a sens jersey on wear-a-jersey-or-as-the-canadians-call-it-sweater-to-school-day, though the happy ending is that senators owner eugene melnyk sent a limo to her house to take her and her family to ottawa for tuesday nights game, and the even happier ending is that the sens came back from a 0-2 third period deficit to tie the game in regulation, and kyle turris netted the overtime winner 2:32 into the fourth frame), there might have grown some frustration and audible angst when the beloved leafs gave away a 2-0 lead to go down 2-3 late in the second period, on the back of a 2-5 drubbing a couple nights before, but, if anything, the enthusiastic chants of "go leafs go" became stronger, more resolute, and more sincere.  it was playoff hockey the way playoff hockey was meant to be played and enjoyed, and i hope my team, the boston bruins, appreciated the privilege as much as i did watching along on television.  the atmosphere was electric, and the teams did not disappoint.

which is to say, if you're not speaking from the point of view of a leafs fan seventy-three minutes and six seconds into things, though, even having said that, on the faces of the fans i could see on the TV, there was also pride in the effort to be mixed with the emotions of having lost so dear a prize--that elusive home-ice playoff victory of which there is nothing to a hockey fan sweeter short of watching your team's captain hoist the cup on that ultimate evening about which everyone dreams, but so few get to enjoy.

i can't dislike this leafs team, even with hyper-ego phil kessel futilely skating his gaudy contract around the ice while two of the draft picks for which that $27 millstone of a contract was traded, tyler seguin and dougie hamilton, skate instead with a winner.  (and, not for nothing, but beyond both segs and dougs, there was all that cash to be counted towards hired guns like jaromir jagr and home-grown studs like patrice bergeron being paid their worth and all on a team that is, top to bottom, one of the deepest and most respected in the league).  it feels to me like watching peyton manning waggle his head in stunned disappointment for so many years while his "superior" talent fails to overcome a superior opponent despite all that cash he's paid ahead of a supporting cast that might otherwise have included the talent and wherewithal to do something more productive.  no, it's easy and almost impossible not to hate the colts and their boorish fans, but i take my hat off to the leafs and especially their fans as they continue to endure an ownership and management debacle that just can't seem to clear the decks and rebuild a winner.  (sung to the tune of lou gorman talking about how much he likes the way the ballclub looks to him this year with andersen in the pen...  *sigh*).

jeff bagwell, we miss you.  (apologies to will, but he ain't it).  tyler seguin, we love you.  dougie, you're the blue line of the future.  and, toronto, we feel your pain, but not enough to feel one ounce less of the elation that putting the exclamation point on a 3-goal night almost 15 minutes into overtime gives those who love david krejci's knack for playing big in big games the kind of chills and thrills that only playoff hockey can give.  and it's complete with gratitude for your fans making the night everything that it could be, short of a long-yearned-for leafs win at home in the playoffs.

if it helps, (i know it doesn't), the phrase we used to cry ourselves to sleep every september/october was "just wait 'til next year..."

"if you can't say anything nice, come sit here by me"

alice roosevelt longworth, oldest daughter of teddy, the great white chief, said more than a few memorable things in her time, the best known of which mayt have been, of president calvin coolidge, "he looks as though he's been weaned on a pickle".  close behind, and favorite of mine, is the invitation that "if you can't say anything nice, come sit here by me".  and she meant it.  she's the one, speaking of her dear old departed dad, who said "my father always wanted to be the corpse at every funeral, the bride at every wedding, and the baby at every christening".  (muah!)  (which is not to be taken for any lack of affection for her father--she adored him--she apparently just didn't like the competition).

i'm reminded of all this having spent the evening at club passim in cambridge--two places, club passim and cambridge, for which i absolutely lack any sort of even negligible affection and generally have absolutely nothing good to say.  yet, here i am, forced to move down the table and away from alice for my shame of having nothing BUT good to say about the beer there last night (cambridge brewing company's IPA) and, supreme of all, the music.  (dave champagne's agnostic gospel, with billy beard on drums, kimon kirk on bass, dinty childs on everything under the sun, and good thing there is no god behind agnostic gospel music, because i'd be damned for forgetting the absolutely wonderful keyboard player's name).  under the general heading of "but wait, there's more", the quintet was fronted by one of the most formidable array of vocalists i believe i have ever had amazement to hear in one venue at one time.

channeling alice's ghost, there was a bit of snark over the last-minute cancellation by robin lane, she of the estimable chartbusters, and one of my all-time boston favorites.  (something about those in the audience "old enough to remember", and an additional playful jab about being sure there was good reason, though said reason for which not being shared with the MC, both comments receiving playful chiding from the peanut gallery and appreciative laughter, both for the affectionate jokes, and for the universal respect for ms lane).  but even without robin, the line up was without match, and there will be no way to put them all in any kind of order because all were exceptional, so i'll choose the order from the event poster:

• dietrich strause (on oh lord, and oh lord were his trumpet and trombone parts later something sweet, too)
• kris delmhorst (on beautiful stranger, and what a beautiful voice and beautiful and sultry presence and magnificence)
• laurie sargent (of course ex of face to face, on among the stars, complete with actual thrift-store angel wings to accompany her actual angelic-ness, and, no, i did not get a chance to tell her about the crush a friend of mine has had on her since nineteen-mumblety-mumblety)
•  ry cavanaugh (on cup of woe, and his rendition of that song silenced the room as only perfection can, right before all the thunderous applause of appreciation for it)
• dennis brennan (on too much water, begging the eternal question of why some voices are not as widely known as their power would otherwise have it--see this man sing if you ever possibly can)
• ramona silver (on walking down the golden stairs, which so perfectly captured the essence of agnostic gospel)
• jess tardy (on the call, and if i had to vote for one and only performance, if not ry's, it would be jess's, and the applause absolutely agreed)
• sam bigelow (on mr dyna-mite, an allegory for whatever imagination might suggest, my favorite being the paean to "slay all my enemies", delivered by sam with both aplomb and anarchic energy on the keyboard to go with it--a fave for sure)
• katie champagne (on drive away slowly, the most beautiful homage to road kill ever penned, and ever delivered with such grace and style and SMILE as katie delivered, and, yes, it's true what they say--tastes like chicken)
• dave champagne (on shot of love in place of the aforementioned ms robin lane, who i deeply, deeply missed not in the least because dave's version wasn't transcendent, but because the song just cries out for the woman who told us all what happens when things go wrong)
• amy correia (on lonely window, and beyond a beautiful delivery of that particular song, highest props for her backup chops that shone among all those bright lights)
• jim fitting (on in the distance, and what can possibly be said to do justice to jim's harp playing, let alone his voice on this song, which along with ry and jess gets my votes for best of the best, but, and back to that harp playing, oh.  my.  god.)

and i'll say it again:  the most formidable array of vocalists i believe i have ever had amazement to hear in one venue at one time--and that's no exaggeration.  i've wracked my brain to come up with something with which to compare it, and i've come up blank every single time.  shawn colvin, bonnie raitt, jackson browne and bruce hornsby together at great woods?  (the closest i can come).  nope.  (though with a nod to alice, i'll add that i had to miss the final encore because a certain ex-wife grew tired and needed to leave before it was all finished, so maybe they had something up their sleeves to put them over the top, but i remain doubtful even so).

with further nod to alice, i'd also like to take a moment to both applaud club passim for final taking down the wall of lesbian fame (aka the hundred pictures of past performers they used to keep on their walls that contained exactly three and only three photographs of men, which i had to count because it was such a remarkable up-ending of the music industry cliche of male dominance) and replacing those dusty relics (yeah, we get it, joan baez once played there) with some fresh color (the photos were all black and white) and aristry, but also razz them but good for their more-vegan-than-thou menu offerings.

seriously--if you have to advertise your ability to substitute "tofu mash" as a replacement for real cheese elsewhere on your menu, i have two problems with the whole thing:  first of all, if you're a true vegan, whatever is the point of having to consume faked versions of animal projects?  isn't that the ultimate acknowledgment that the whole premise of veganism is bullshit?  if we aren't wired and otherwise genetically required to consume animal products, why are you spending so much energy simulating them in order to be able to stand to do something as basic as, say, EAT?  (we can start with vitamin B12 and continue from there for all the dietary necessities impossible to obtain from a vegan diet without chemically-produced supplements, and if you'd like to get into it in the comments section, i'm happy to more widely inform the vastly under-informed about what they're doing to their bodies by starving them of essential vitamins, nutrients, minerals and etc.).  second of all, if you're a restaurant catering to the bullshit-addicted vegan movement, can we please cease to present the menu as if the majority of the customers aren't rolling their eyes and desperately trying to cobble a selection that won't leave them both famished and under-nourished after they've paid all their money for the dietary equivalent of a kindergarten art project, aka paste and cardboard?  naturally-produced eggs and cheeses and etc. are perfectly "ethical", as is, i might add, slaughtering animals for food purposes, or are vegans suggesting we advocate the extermination of all our carefully cared-for food species instead?  (or do you think our beef cattle will do ok vs the cheetahs out there on the open range once we let them all go and stop enabling their reproduction?  i know i can speak directly for chickens that they don't stand a ghost of a chance between difficulties in finding winter feed and local hawks and foxes and fishers pursuing their "happy meals" at the chicken drive-through that was our back yard).

yet, after saying all that, my little pizza thingy with the tomatoes and basil and mozzarella wasn't half bad for what it was, and vastly improved by the chili sauce i requested to be added to it.  i don't know why someone would live in such mortal terror of REAL pizza dough, but i've had far worse whole wheat varieties, so some small credit is appropriate for the accomplishment.

but put a good IPA in front of me and in front of a lineup like was had last night, and the night will be nothing short of perfection.

OH!  and i almost forgot!  (alice, thanks for reminding me).  the traffic inbound from the end of route 2 near alewife was ridiculously congested, as it always is at that time of the weekday evening, so i ducked into the alewife T parking garage for a quick red line trip down to harvard square.  it's a bid rich to get hit with a $7 parking bill on top of another $12 at the T for subway round trips for 3, but i guess that's how we motivate people to take public transportation around here...  which is not the real problem--$19 to avoid having to drive and/or park anywhere near harvard square is a bargain if you ask me.  but when i tried to swipe my charlie card at the turnstile and avail myself of the over $20 i have (or had previously) on account with the MBTA i was told instead that my card had "expired" and i was shit out of luck.  (their screen was not so explicitly profane, but that was the literal essence of it, confirmed by the not-very-helpful T employee nearby who said only at downtown crossing during "regular business hours" could i even hope to ask anybody about what might become of the money they owe me).  so, folks and alice fans everywhere, if you're ever buying a charlie card from the T, pick the absolute lowest amount you can get away with (the shysters are spending your money long in advance of ever giving you a ride for it otherwise) because eventually they will confiscate the rest without even so much as a "thank you for your patronage".

my sixteen year old daughter has a new one, and it's highly appropriate in this instance:

fuckers.

bitter

don't ever let anyone tell you (and, yeah, that includes me) that they're "over" their divorce.  maybe, MAYBE if they don't have kids and their ex lives on another continent, you can indulge them a mulligan, but to everyone else just look 'em right in the eye and say "if you say so".

the love of the many

two (three) of the closest-to-home tragedies of monday's outrage are those of jeff bauman, and celeste and sydney corcoran.  friends of jeff's and celeste's have created donation pages on the web where we all can do our parts to help.  (a wise person once shared with me the secret of figuring out how much to give in these sorts of situations--we are all working hard just to make ends meet, so it's never about giving until it hurts--just give until it feels good).

jeff's donations can be made either through paypal, or gofundme.

celeste's and sydney's donations can be made via gofundme.
 
the photo below was taken by NECN reporter kathryn sotnik at the vigil tuesday night for martin richard, the eight year old boy killed in monday's blasts.  her colleague, matt noyes, shared the photograph on facebook, with a caption that read, in part:  "let it be abundantly clear that we are not afraid. avoiding large crowds isn't how we roll in boston and new england. we are family, we come together. this is our spirit, this is love - both of which will endure, now and always, for martin, for krystle, for all of the other victims, and for our hometown".