handicapping the daily deal

last week over 120 people opted in for the "sun daily deal" at viet-thai. ($16 worth of the best vietnamese food in lowell for $8, limited 2 per customer, but sorry to tease you if you missed it, because, well, you missed it). just out of curiosity, because i thought that 120 people reading the sun on any given day, let alone responding to an offer in their paper, was pretty remarkable, i went back today to see how this week's deal is doing. upping the ante to $25 worth of free food, today's deal for $50-worth of "puerto rican/american infused cuisine" for $25 has had a grand total of one taker since the beginning of the week. one. (ouch).

the deal is for reservations restaurant, (you remember stur, nee mickey's, nee sangrias, nee something else i'm sure many times before that, right?), and the sum total of my experience with the new concept are three-part: 1) a friend ate there soon after they opened and said the food was pretty good, 2) other friends tried to go there once and were turned away because one was wearing a baseball cap, and 3) walking past it's not always clear what's going on in there, as most of the guests seem to prefer to mill about the bar area, and not sit at the dining tables.

i do feel like a bad down-townie having not patronized the place yet after so many months, but in a very bizarre way the lack of up-take on this particular deal gives one a bit of pause. i suppose it's reasonable that, if one were to take a chance on this place, doing it at half-price would be a decent way to go. and it's fortuitous that the expiration on this particular offer is still three and a half days out, since i'm still a bit on the fence.

anyone with more experience have a story to tell? should we take the offer? pass?

inquiring minds want to know!

on a roll

across over twenty-five years in the software industry, i have almost daily given thanks for the privilege that provides my livelihood--and it's not just for the livelihood, but also for the fascinating and varied mix of things that software can do and about which i get to play, which can so often be heaven for a guy like me.

so it is that i wonder if lisa redmond, my personal nomination for whatever lowell version of the pulitzer prize might be awarded around these parts for the inimitable and sublime way she has with any story, feels anything akin when she gets to start one of her pieces with a gem like "a 45-year-old lowell man is facing assault charges after he allegedly threw a skillet of bubbling hot sloppy-joe mix at his girlfriend..."

it's hardly a significant story in anyone else's hands, but lisa fills it with absolute gems like "when the officers tried to arrest [him], he began to swing his arms and thrash his body... 'he was grunting and screaming like an animal', police wrote", which put you right there in the courtroom with a guilty smile on your face. (being amused at the misfortunes of others is one of the most perverse of god's jokes on the human race, and if you know how to resist chuckling at something like this, please tell me because i certainly don't). "officers found [him] in the driveway of the...building, wielding a metal pipe at two men who were trying to keep him from climbing the back porch into his apartment".

there absolutely is no place like home, and hats off once again to lisa for ensuring we all get to appreciate it.

worth reading

the atlantic this month includes an extremely worthwhile piece by mickey edwards: "how to turn republicans and democrats into americans". it captures the disquiet i have felt for years as party partisans continue to put their party ahead of their country each and every time. if you call yourself patriotic and yet belong to a political party, i'm calling you out right here and right now--read this piece and then tell the rest of us how you rationalize your partisanship, and why mickey has it wrong. (he doesn't, but you go right ahead and embarrass yourself trying).

we need more of this, and less of everything else that goes on in our party politics, that's for sure.

finding ways to pass the few remaining days until le tour and tim wakefield's next start

today the us women's world cup soccer team gave north korea every opportunity to do something remarkable, and then, in the second half, after the PRK's couldn't score on hope solo despite being handed every reasonable opportunity to do so, abby wambach did what abby wambach does, and set up a spirit-breaking finish by lauren cheney to start the rout. my favorite player in the tournament (aka my shameless crush) ali krieger (she's a defender, she's awesome, and, yeah, she's that hot), did everything but put the ball in the net herself with a beautiful shot off the crossbar which was soon to be finished by rachel beuhler in the chaotic aftermath for the 2-0 win. (things won't be as simple on saturday, when le tour kicks off in the morning and the us meets columbia at noon, but a little tivo will ensure whatever overlap may develop doesn't get in the way of enjoying both).

working from home (and selective "mute" on conference calls) rocks.

"you can ask my mother"

there is nothing so galling to me as the current succession of chief executives who produce their own "experts" who (quelle surprise!) produce convenient legalese "rationale" for why it is that whatever the chief executive prefers to do must be legal. it smelled like a fetid splash in the cesspool when dubya did it just a few years back on (pick one) torture, extraordinary renditions, incarceration without due process, invasion of sovereign nations, etc. etc. etc., and it smells even worse now that the guy who lied about "transparency" in order to get elected trots out his lackey harold koh to say it's ok not to ask congress for permission to wage war as it's quite clearly specified in our constitution, when it's only a "little" war, and not "full blown" and otherwise requiring "war powers" circumspection. (reminding me of nothing more amusing than nancy reagan's "itty bitty gun", though close behind is michael palin's sir galahad's entreaty to be allowed a "little bit of peril" in monty python and the holy grail.).

if you're a republican and frustrated with the excesses of the current semi-fascist administration, you have only yourself to blame for supporting the last guy who invented most of these bad behaviors. if you're a democrat, get ready to eat your own crow the moment one of the republicans recovers that big comfy chair in that big oval room in the big west wing, and finds that he or she, too, thinks it's a grand idea to disregard the constitution in pursuit of whatever agenda suits them.

if you're everybody else, it's high time we stepped up the rhetoric calling this spade the dirty, mephitic spade it truly is.

one of these things is not like the other

i liked CNN's version best for the photo of the old gray men conferring with each other at the podium, but everybody in journalism seemed to like the story earlier last week of far-lefty barney frank and far-righty ron paul collaborating on legislation that would end federal pot regulation in favor of state-determined statutes. documenting a bit of an early leap, (my fave) lisa redmond of the lowell sun today recapped yesterday's arraignment of a 66-year-old city resident accused of growing his own. (links not made to sun stories while they continue their paid access model so everyone can enjoy from a level playing field here).

at first blush one might be tempted, as was i, to note the age and the substance in question, and wonder, but then you get to lisa's dependable coverage of the detail: the guy wasn't just growing his own, he was growing his own 20 plants. and the guy wasn't just growing his own 20 plants, he was growing his own 20 plants in his FRONT YARD. in point of fact, (according to the charges), the guy wasn't just growing his own 20 plants in his front yard, he was growing his own 20 plants in his front yard in order to amass a stash of already-bagged retail packages, augmented in supply by seven more plants in his back yard, a fifth of a pound of coke, two unlicensed firearms, and an assortment of other pills and drug paraphernalia. just to be sure, the cops also confiscated his computer and home dvd collection in search of kiddie porn, so more on this story as it develops.

in lisa's classic style, her newspaper story doesn't leave out the best parts: following up on the defense attorney's assertion that there are "problems with the search warrant and consent to search", we learn that, while the cops were there receiving the guy's story that, yeah, the 20 plants in the front yard were his, but the reason two of them were gone was because "birds had taken them", a kid walked up and tried to make a buy, (i'm not sure, but i might have paid attention to the city vehicles out front and waited a bit, but, hey, that's just me and i don't smoke pot, so i guess you could say i'm not the same kind of an expert), immediately confessing to the cops that he's been buying his weed there for two years. the legal contention then begins, of all places, when the cops offer to do a "protective search" of the premises, and find a frozen image of a prepubescent female on the guy's computer screen, the explanation for which was that "sometimes when you download porn, some child pornography gets mixed in". it was all the cops needed to secure the warrant, and the rest, as they say, is in the funny papers.

nope, somehow i don't think this is what barney and ron had in mind...

"tea party"--the ultimate expression of political nonsense

news of michele bachmann's (one "L", two "N"'s) presidential candidacy has brought out all the usual non-sensical political buzzwords, including her self-assumed favorite, "tea party". (e.g. in this ap article beginning with the sobriquet "outspoken tea party favorite").

as prima facie proof the entire premise is a crock of nonsense, you don't have to look any further than the last four paragraphs for the ultimate in political opportunism, populism and hypocrisy: she's on the one hand credited with calling for "more abortion restrictions and constitutional amendments to ban gay marriage", and on the other hand self-congratulatorily saying things like "i don't believe the solutions to our problems are washington centric".

which is it michele, and all your tea-besotted acolytes? do we nanny-state ourselves with proscribed behaviors, or do we err on the side of liberty and let the people choose their own lives, liberties and pursuits of happiness? you can't have it both ways. (unless, of course and i guess, you're a "tea partier", and know exactly how best to tell everyone else how to live).

libertarianism is nowhere in the tenets of "tea party" as it has come to be exploited by the most crass and historically illiterate of our candidates. (yes, i'll keep repeating it, because it's telling, it's funny, and it's not to be forgotten amidst her disgust for all things massachusetts, that michele bachmann thought that the battles of lexington and concord were fought in new hampshire, ostensibly because that better fits her "narrative" than the actual truth). that anyone would continue to organize under that moniker is to deny self-evident truths that the entire premise is now republican, federalist, and xenophobic, if it ever weren't anything else. (unless of course anyone of local tea party affiliation would like to garner some headlines by coming out as a group in opposition to michele bachmann's decidedly un-libertarian approach to social issues, and reclaim the oft-claimed-though-seldom observed original objective of those who resurrected/usurped the term from better patriots several hundred years ago).

of course, on a lighter note and for those who oppose ms bachmann's electoral partisanship, i'm willing to wager that the electability of democrats this coming political season just went up a whole bunch of notches... (you know the D's are salivating to have something easier to snipe at than the mittster's business-sensible centrism while their track record in the white house continues to struggle beneath the multiple burdens of economic malaise, questionably legal military adventurism, and insolvency).

payback is a you-know-what

for those who recall my good friend's ongoing life tragedy at the hands of bank of america's both fraudulent and incompetent mortgage operation, it will come as little surprise that the soon-to-be surrendered condo is in the process of being gutted of anything and everything not legally attached to the mortgage as collateral. this includes a refrigerator, kitchen shelves, lighting fixtures, and, centerpiece of the collection, a complete set of arke brand modular stairs. the stairs are worth thousands new, (though less because they now require de-installation first), but will be given away for as little as free to the first contractor or home-improver who wants or can use them--simply because not leaving them to the benefit of bank of america is the #1 priority here. (a little cash to the owner would not be turned down either, but let's be clear about the reason for this sale).

if you have a truck and can use the fridge, make an offer. (if it's more than zero, you're likely to win). if you want a great deal on some great modular stairs, same goes double. if you have any use for open-kitchen-presentation-quality wooden shelving, come have a look. most of the electric fixtures are already spoken for and gone, but you're welcome to whatever is left.

this all has to happen fairly quickly, so don't wait. you'll be making somebody very, very happy while you're getting yourself the deal of the year on good stuff cheap. it'll also make the condo that much more inexpensive for its next owner, helping to get this stalled recovery back on track.

everybody wins.

only a little over 10 hours left!

i mentioned earlier this week the current sundailydeals feature of $16-worth of viet-thai for 8 bucks, and i've noticed today that they're up over 117 takers with over 10 hours left to go.

does anyone utilize these things often enough to know if this is some sort of record for the daily deals promotions? i'd like to think so, but i also know that 117 isn't nearly as many people as need to introduce themselves to viet-thai as could be. don't wait! (and buy two--you're allowed).

yet more essences of the problem

i am often tempted to think (almost every day, in fact) the sun has gone about as far as it can with its editorial emptiness, but the "two brothers" feature piece on today's front page (purportedly about billy and whitey bulger, but, as we'll see, not quite) yet again raises the bar.

stylistically, right from the top, we can admire the way that the piece starts by presenting three successive paragraphs of exactly one sentence apiece, (9 words, 15 words and 18, so at least they trended in the right direction), though it may be pedantic to cling to strunk's elements of style, and recall that chapter III, elementary principles of composition, begins with a discussion of how to construct proper paragraphs. who is to say? in any case, yeah, this part is pretty petty, so lets observe that in a more literate world, it would be the job of an editor to address these sorts of things, but let's not hope for too much here, and let's continue on to the meatier stuff, shall we?

paragraph four trots out a rare excuse for originality amongst the regurgitated reporting from other sources (hey--this is a blog--you don't come here for primary source material and stop talking about my kettle) including billy b quotes via the boston globe and discussions of "other news outlets" camping out in southie hoping for a scoop. (nope, not news yet...) quite clearly, the entire piece is built out of and around quotes from a doddering old statehouse reporter whose single apparent qualification for citation is having mailed it in during the particular time period being discussed in the piece, and they're each so devoid of insight to be in and of themselves funny. the first quote comes complete with a thematic reference to jimmy cagney, a name about which i'm willing to bet at least half the sun readership has no frame by which to understand the reference, which further and erroneously misstates the plot of "angels with dirty faces" to suggest siblings out of what were in the actual source material childhood friends. (facts? who needs facts). the piece-capper and big finish is "but it is a fascinating story". anyone want to wager upon whose suggestion the quotes were solicited? (i'm taking the pinheads that hired him to fill column upon column with alternating deval patrick and barack obama bashes for years upon end, but you can pick whomever you like).

know what? if all the editors can do is prioritize and pass along quotes from one of the most notoriously lazy axe-grinders in the history of massachusetts political journalism, (yeah, "white will run"--let's check the facts and citations on that one, shall we?), who can't figure out that the only part of the story he's ever going to be from now on is the ass end, just to plump up their pet fish-wrapper, it's pretty clear it's all just yet one more tired attempt to claim relevance for the decidedly ir-so. (seriously--we're paying for this stuff--do you guys there at the sun think we don't notice or care?)

of better value is erin smith's recounting of the ongoing barranco scandal, and my personal hero lisa redmond's double duty, recounting the relevant historical details of the (local! omigod!) mcdermott slaying alongside present-day courthouse coverage of the indictment of a lowell police officer, both complete with relevant quotes from people close to the cases, and actual literacy. (what a concept). not as much meat as a couple of hundred dollars a year used to buy, but, hey, beggars aren't choosers in this particular newspaper market.

yep, there's some great reporting going on in this city. too bad it's so often buried by the atrociously bad editing...

the whitey smile

the mona lisa kept her secrets, but i have a sneaking suspicion that the secrets behind whitey bulger's booking photo smile aren't going to wind up as close to the vest as all that, even if i'm sure we'll never know even the slightest hint of the real truth behind much of it. for starters, we could muse on the coincidence of bulger buddy john connolly's pending florida murder incarceration after 10 years of relative country club federal racketeering time, and whitey's reappearance just in time to possibly offer evidence sufficient to allow that entire case to be overturned--connolly never rolled on whitey, and who knows how these sociopath quid-pro-quo's work. we could also wonder on the identity of the multimillionaire snitch, and whether or not some kick-back might be due whitey in the same tradition as he used to split mass lottery jackpots with folks. (grabbing a million to exonerate ones gang buddy, solve the soul-crushing ennui of having to listen to his moll go on and on and on with "girl talk" in the elevator for 16 years, and get some get-back against all the self-righteous and dirty cops who have been trash talking him for the same length of time doesn't seem so far-fetched to me, especially at age 81 with the years in which to do such dwindling).

yeah, yeah, being rich and free doesn't suck and who would want to give that up, but, seriously, trying to put reason into the head of a sociopath isn't as smart as some people might like to pretend. the guy has anger problems and a short fuse, and a whole lot of people at whom he's quite likely very pissed off.

me, the one thing for which i'm rooting is the smoking gun that puts brother billy in the same dock as is currently sitting sal dimasi. the smarmy, self-righteous "good brother" act wore threadbare thin with me the moment it was first put on, and you know it's all a crock. ("i spoke with him, but he didn't say where he was going" has to be the lamest excuse ever accepted by an FBI interrogation team i have ever heard).

here's to some justice at the very least, and some further sunlight disinfectant on the towering hypocrisy that is massachusetts politics.

copa oro

it's becoming a biennial tradition--us vs mexico for the gold cup. (the canadians won in 2000, but it's been all more-southerly north america both before and since). the opening round story was the bunch of mexican players sent home for testing positive to what is likely the results of over-medicating mexican beef cattle, but, well, that's still the country's own bed in which it lies, isn't it. either way, the remaining mexican squad was more than capable of running through their matches (the latest being a 2-0 dispatching of honduras in the semis) and standing for the championship. the americans experienced far less adversity, though no less surety in taking care of business, on their way to meet them. (the historical record is 5 for mexico, 4 for the us, and 1 for canada).

the final is saturday night at 9pm from the rose bowl in pasadena, and we'll see how many of the 90,000+ seats are filled with mexican vs american supporters. (either way, it's going to be good).

in a perfect world

in a perfect world, resources currently squandered in pursuit of questionable geopolitical goals would be available to the citizens of this country in defense of their homes, communities, and way of life. no less destructive than any terrorist, the rising floodwaters of the souris river in northern north dakota would be met with the same sort of decisive action that we blithely cast about the world against other foes. as it is, these people are largely fighting by themselves despite dismal hopes of a positive outcome. (doubly frustrating is that the oil resources and air force base in this area are receiving scant attention compared with those half a world away).

ok i'll bite

in the upper right hand corner of the front page of today's lowell sun (just because i think the editor is semi-literate doesn't mean the reporters aren't awesome and i don't read it every day, or at least what small portion of it is still allowed to be local reporting while said editor fills the rest of it with bloviations and illiteracies big and small) is a "steal a deal" for $16 worth of viet-thai for $8. (visit sundailydeals.com to grab yours).

if you haven't yet eaten at viet-thai, let me be the first to congratulate you for being in for the restaurant deal of your life. (if you have, i know you've already clicked the link and secured your deal, so congrats, too). the deal allows 2-per-customer, but i'm warning you now that even if you bring a group of 4 you're going to have trouble using up a whole $32. (for $16 in cash up front on the website--you cannot beat it). this is one of the best restaurants in the city, (my personal favorite), and if you're looking for menu recommendations, you might consider as appetizers the spring rolls (with peanut sauce) and fried squid (so lightly breaded and uniquely cut, and don't you love a restaurant that doesn't go all pretentious and faux-italian with the "calamari" nonsense), and for a main course my favorite is the pad ke noodles, but you seriously can't go wrong anywhere on this menu. (i like my pad ke with beef, but you can pick your own protein).

get yours, too. i'm already planning my own party.

the world hide and seek championships

first osama, now whitey. i wonder who earns the title now?

yeah, that's my paper

"FDA issues grissly [sic] cigarette labels"

i'm always amused at the dependably frequent sparkles of illiteracy displayed by the overpaid and confused editor(s) of my local paper. (of course i must also admit that even i didn't know the urban slang for "grissly"--the unshaven face of a homosexual man--until i went to the web to see if anybody anywhere were using the word "grissly" for anything at all). yes, this(these) is(are) the guy(s) who believe we need to read the loco-emotive not one but multiple days each week, and you remember the loco-emotive, don't you? one of the most famous massachusetts headlines ever, our own local "dewey defeats truman", aka "white will run", was one of loco-emotive's, suggesting either he's an embarrassingly bad columnist, which we here all well know, or such a putz that white's guys couldn't resist tweaking him one last time before they cleaned out curley's desk, which we here also well know, but let's not digress too far.

later on in the paper, not once, but twice, to be fair, the editor(s) got it right: "grisly". but it's the first time that's the charm, and thanks again lowell sun for brightening up my morning.

public polemicism 101

a good number of high-profile politicians have been grinding a good number of pet axes these days without much regard for reason or the truth, but it's remarkable how simple the solution to their constant foot-in-mouth disease could be, if only they'd make the slightest effort. no, i'm not talking about anthony weiner putting away his cell phone camera for a minute and asking himself "what would bill clinton do", but, rather today's "stupidest public commentary since sarah palin rewrote the battles of lexington and concord to be about warning the british, which was the stupidest public commentary since michele bachman placed those battles in new hampshire" award, which goes to sarah's political foster father, john mccain for blaming the arizona wildfires on illegal immigrants.

now i can't claim to know who set the wildfires in arizona, nor argue that john mccain isn't correct in his assertions, but i can absolutely tell you that mentioning "substantial evidence that some of these fires have been caused by people who have crossed our border illegally", without actually citing the source(s) of that evidence, is pretty freakin' stupid. that is, "pretty freakin' stupid", on a par with donald trump trumpeting that he "can't believe what his investigators found" regarding barry o's birth certificate, with the looming possibility of standing there with egg and half his bad comb-over on his face while barry's folks trot out the long form. if johnny really has a reliable source, we all know he's a moron not to put it out front, and we all now presume because of that that he can't possibly. and, if he can't possibly, ipso facto, he's an even bigger moron to have bought this lottery ticket to possibly step firmly into the geraldo rivera winner's circle for absolutely no reason at all. (you remember when geraldo bought TWO ENTIRE HOURS of prime-time tv in order to open al capone's empty vault on the air, right?)

let's say the border-jumpers did it. public polemicism 101, and andy breitbart can tell you as well as any other public polemicist all about it, would suggest that you get a little video testimonial or some other compelling testimony in support of your assertions ready before you start talking trash. anthony weiner can tell you how effective the tactic can be, because your opponents being no smarter than anybody else, can't wait to put their geraldo act into gear, either. (right, anthony weiner?)

it's easy. have your facts straight, and your attributions. make your point. sit back and collect your political winnings.

remarkable that even one-time presidential candidates haven't figured out how it works.

an embarrassment of musical poverty (history rant--proceed and read at your peril)

a friend's facebook observation of the relative absence of 80's albums in his collection (yeah, facebook, i know) spurred a memory dump of 80's music-that-mattered from my highly-biased perspective. (his observation was spurred by his having purchased a smith's greatest hits compendium for his collection and feeling like throwing up shortly after putting it on the stereo, which, as anyone who has suffered through any of marr and morrisey's hopelessly self-indulgent and pointless caterwauling can relate). the list i suggested as possible counterpoint included ac/dc, b52's, beastie boys, cheap trick, dead kennedy's, del fuegos (and other boston bands), earth wind & fire, elvis costello, joan jett & the blackhearts, the knack (one album, but it's incredible), los lobos, (and i can't believe i said this) michael jackson, the motels, nick lowe, the pretenders, prince, queen, the ramones, REM, red hot chili peppers, run DMC, sinead o'connor, steeley dan, stray cats, suzanne vega, talking heads, thomas dolby, tone-loc, the tubes, (and i can't believe i said this either) U2, van halen, XTC and ZZ top. yours may very well vary, but for influence and excellence, i'm willing to let mine stand against any and all others and let the discussions begin. yeah, there were chart toppers from others, but 30 years on, i dare you to find any that have survived the test of time as well as these.

the real reason i felt compelled to burden you all with this is having taken the time to dig out elvis costello's '78 appearance on saturday night live, in replacement for the sex pistols who were kept out of the country and off the program on various trumped up and bogus fears by establishment (i.e. 60's types) who didn't understand the essence of counterculture when it ran counter to their own. (video here). elvis' record company insisted he do "less than zero", which was ostensibly about an obscure english politician, but i'm quite convinced elvis was thinking more about the spirit of johnny lydon when he said "there's no reason to do this song here" and launched into a properly vitriolic version of radio radio instead. he was, of course, banned from SNL for it, though, happily, he's since become one of only three people ever let back after a ban from that show, and here he is sabotaging the beastie boys "sabotage" on the 25th anniversary show with yet another great rendition of his now-classic song. no, not technically part of the 80's when it was first written and performed, but no better essence of that wilderness has ever been written, and we shouldn't be dismissing it just because it was so far before its time. (the fact that lorne michaels was so against it during its time is the funniest part in light of his happily cashing in on it at his earliest opportunity a few years later, and elvis' line presaging it all, "they really think we're getting out of control" is one of the most prescient ever written, except for the fact that even elvis had to know he was writing yet another sequel to one of the oldest songs in the book, even if, like clockwork every generations, nobody seems to get it--just like when i was the only guy in the place at that rancid show singing/screaming along to "pump it up" during the lead-up to the curtain).

so, yeah, the 80's were a dark time, despite ac/dc's attempts to keep the flame lit. i have a lot of vinyl from throughout the decade that is among the best i own, (los lobos "will the wolf survive" for example), but it is remarkable how quickly the overall quality dropped off after the end of the 70's. one can even argue that a lot of the best of the 80's was really from groups that got started in the 70's, (like ac/dc, los lobos, elvis costello and countless others), and you wouldn't get too strenuous an argument from me. (and you know that rancid wasn't formed until 1991).

so there's your challenge for the afternoon--name a band started in the 80's that isn't a pile of crap. it's not so easy to do. i'm not even sure i can do it.

an embarrassment of musical riches

friday night was opening night at lelacheur, and we got rene rancourt fresh from his stanley cup winning anthem renditions at the garden giving us his encore from the banks of the merrimack river. priceless. not to be outdone, saturday night was opening night at boardinghouse park, and we got local and soon-to-be legend amy black opening (with bob sevigny and the rest of the latest incarnation of the red clay rascals) for chris isaak on the grass in front of the boott mills. amy's set of beautiful originals was a remarkable coming out party for a talent who began just covering her musical heroes like bonnie raitt and emmylou harris just a few years ago. her sound has emerged fully realized, with a suite of backing musicians who are as incredible as they are diverse. i'm going to need help tracking down the exact credits, so, please, if you can, help out here--the ensemble was perfectly americana amazing--with just a fiddle, upright bass, telecaster, acoustic guitar (yo bob sevigny!) and drums. watch for amy opening up for the courtyard hounds in just a few weeks--she's something special.

from there, and i hope chris isaak wasn't insulted, we ducked out just a wee bit early so that we could catch the lamplighter series hall of fame induction of frank morey via melvern taylor upstairs over at the worthen house cafe. melvern had to catch a quick ride to worcester for his annual party at nicks (to which i've been twice before--something to make the effort to see for sure) but arte k was there to deliver a fitting set of originals (and a few choice covers) with his friend steve esposito on keys to honor frank's headline sets.

and what a couple of sets they were. scott pittman is a musician's drummer who can deliver more sound from a basic traps kit than ought to be humanly possible. and matt murphy is able to make the upright bass sit up, talk in complete sentences, and then whistle dixie on top of it all alongside. when you wrap that kind of musicianship around frank's simple and simply awesome songs (and you'll never forget his voice when you hear it, either) you get something that stops time, as well as stops an entire charity bar crawl, like nothing else. yes, the mike mcneill charity bar crawl was inching through town, and from overhearing frank's sets upstairs, turned the worthen attic into a sea of red t-shirts and rabid fans. dancing. singing. the living and loving of life. it was all there.

and, piece de resistance, the evening was capped by frank and scott and matt launching into a raucous cover of cheap trick's "surrender" which brought the house down. frank observed later that a lot of younger fans never realize from whence the song came, (the think it must be an original like the rest), but it's easy to see why the mistake when you appreciate just how at once personalized as well as recognizable the song becomes in frank's hands. magic.

an embarrassment of musical riches. (and that's missing effect's birthday party over at the smokehouse that i understand was a kick-ass blowout of a show, too--too much to make in one night, but awesome that downtown lowell is once again coming into its own).

we all really need to get out more!

arguing with idiots

as we all know, we are well-advised never to argue with idiots, (lest a bystander have trouble determining the difference), but what do we do when a screed to the editor of the local paper is concluded with excoriation of "immigrant groups who wish to destroy america".

al qaeda notwithstanding, (and look up "anarchist" in the history books to see that this is not a new phenomenon), it's hard to swallow characterizations of lady liberty's "huddled masses yearning to breathe free" as having morphed to pure nihilism in one or two quick generations. last time i checked, the reason immigrant groups want so desperately to be here is that they want to join and PRESERVE what we have here, (it's why they send their kids to our schools), not tear it down. in fact, reading the rhetoric, it's pretty clear that the "citizens" wanting to roll up the welcome mats, pull up the ladders, and close the doors on the place are the ones who actually want to change things the most and ought to have spent more time in class.

there's nothing sadder than becoming an immigrant nation bent on war with our own immigrants. there may very well be sense to balancing the resources of this nation to more fairly support its citizenry, but we are certainly never going to know while idiots bloviate nonsense like this.

(and, not for nothing, but those immigrants' payroll deductions via their bogus SSN's are paying into our social security and medicare/medicaid programs without benefit which is a pretty good deal to the rest of us if you ask me, but, yeah, who's asking...)

sox or bruins?

there's no question every true boston sports fan loves both the sox and the bruins, but if you've ever wondered if you're first and foremost a sox fan, or first and foremost a bruins fan, how is anyone to tell?

i know one way.

famous bostonian (and constant sox-cap-wearer) steven wright was interviewed recently about his relationship with these boston bruins, and this newly-won stanley cup, and he articulated the awe at which every boston sports fan views this trophy: "it's surrealistic. i'm looking at it right now. i've seen it on tv, but it's weird. it's like seeing neil armstrong in your backyard. you're always seeing him coming down the ladder onto the moon. you never see him walking down your driveway". true enough. but he's a sox fan, and there are two accompanying and telling quotes that reveal that truth beyond the proverbial shadow. (the first might make it literally obvious, but the second explains it so much more eloquently).

the first, and most literal: "i've only seen a few minutes in the last 39 years. i lost interest in it. then about five weeks ago i thought, let me watch one game and i just watched it and it was just so intense and amazing that i thought, i've got to watch it again, and i watched it again, and i watched it for the last five weeks. it was so incredible". yes, incredible, and it was obvious to everyone from boston who watched even a minute of it.

but the second and most telling quote as to where ones heart lies: "when they were up 4-0 i was like ok. but in the back of your head, because you're a red sox fan, there's a freak factory in your head that's going like, well, probably not, but you can hear the announcers, 'can you believe it, five goals in three minutes? i can't believe it'. but you have to beat that down. then reality tries to take over".

as i sat in the stands through the 12th, 13th and 14th inning during game 5 of the 2004 ALCS, my entourage of die-hard, lifelong red sox fans was distraught to the point of distraction. the most frequent utterance, especially as tim wakefield threw his third passed ball ('tek never likes catching the knuckler) in the top of the 13th to load the bases, was "i can't watch". but i could watch. the yanks had drained their pen, and had no one left to throw with any ability whatsoever. the sox had one of their best starters who could throw another six innings if he had to on the mound, and still no true sox fan could feel beyond despair. bruins fans, for whatever reason, don't know any better than to watch with both eyes open. maybe bobby taught us that. maybe we're just different. but we are different. no, there's no claim here that i expected the miracle that ensued. but i wasn't afraid to look. i'm a bruins fan.

a sox-fan friend of mine offered on facebook after two periods this past wednesday night "let's not blow it in the 3rd guys", and said all that needed to be said about primary loyalties. (and that's not to dismiss the deep and abiding devotion present there for the bruins--just to illustrate the subtleties of the distinction). on the other hand, when the second goal went in, (not even the third one, when bergeron willed that puck past the half-hearted tire-deflated luongo and it was so obvious even everyone in vancouver knew it), i was already euphoric. many of my entourage watching the game with me BEGGED me not to post my ensuing FB post. ("that's an easy save if you're in the blue paint"). those were the sox folks. those were the ones who had to wait, many of them for the fourth into the empty net. but not me. i was ecstatic and it wasn't even 13 minutes into the second period.

no, i'm not professing clairvoyance or denying that anything can always happen. i went to see the cup in calgary with my cousins in '89, and refused to have my picture even taken near it, let alone with it, while they cavorted like kids in a candy store. oh, how jealous i was. i know the importance of respecting the cruel ways any hockey puck can bounce, and biding ones time until it IS ones time. but i'm a bruins fan. two goals for tim thomas is four touchdowns for tom brady, and a dozen runs for the sox. (even then, any true sox fans will tell you, it's still the third out of the ninth inning that allows breath to be taken). you could see it coming, and it was all the sweeter because you could. just like in the days of orr.

bruins fans. you know who you are!

sounds like home

boston dropped a couple to the canadiens, and one more to tampa bay at the garden this playoff year, but the comforts of home served the bruins in great stead throughout the stanley cup finals and on to the championship. (by an aggregate score of 17 to 3 over the canucks--yeah!). who knows what the magic really is, but, to me, the heart and soul of it is the sound. no, i'm not just talking about classic anthem voice of rene rancourt, but moreso the soft and gentle tick, tick, ticking of my great grandparents' oak gingerbread kitchen clock, once again gracing my living room.

it's not a valuable piece, (i think they used to call them $3 kitchen clocks, though i can find no historical reference to such), nor is it particularly beautiful, (the over-ornate oak carving is kitschy even a hundred years later), but it has a tone to its chime that is one of a kind, and everything about home to me. i have had the good fortune to know lee smith of classic clocks in wayland for almost 25 years, and it's by his hand once again that all is again right with my home world.

this particular clock was the almost-forgotten one among my grandparents' collection, overshadowed by the original family heirloom clock (hundreds of years old now) and the simple and simply elegant mantel clock that was the centerpiece of their home. everyone else preferred the show, but i had always been in love with this one, hidden away on top of the credenza in the back of the dining room--not often wound, but whenever i begged my grandfather to start it up again. it's sound, as i said, is one of a kind.

the chiming mechanism is an deceptively simple coil of metal, struck by a small hammer, and set off on the half hour by the progression of the works. the clock has always been susceptible to the random nature of wound time, (humidity and temperature change the pace of life, so why shouldn't they ones kitchen clock?), but always true in it's tracking of the hours as adjusted every week when its the treat of the man of the house to wind it.

the winding is part of it. the soft tick, tick, ticking too. sounds like home.

lefties and righties speaking truth to america

i find it both incredible and telling that political ideologues from either side have knee-jerk negative reactions to one of these, and instant affinity for the other, depending on their party affiliation. from the middle, it's abundantly clear they are BOTH right, and deserve to be heard, considered and acted upon by BOTH sides together. can you disagree?

lefty likey, righty retchy

righty likey, leftie retchy

what do you think?

opening weekend

tonight it's the spinnah's at lelacheur facing the connecticut tigers, and saturday it's the lowell summer music series at boardinghouse park with chris isaak, opened for by local favorites amy black (and, i hope, all of her red clay rascals, featuring local lowellian bob sevigny, who, i just recently discovered, played with the goodtime string band in the brendan fraser/brooke shields kid pic "furry vengeance", clips of which you can see on youtube and elsewhere, and, yeah, that's hangover star ken jeong goofing around from the highlight reel, but i, of course, digress).

oh, and, of course, it's the boston bruins victory parade starting at the gahden saturday morning at 11am, an easy train ride (there's one that leaves lowell at 9am getting you there in plenty of time) from here, too.

it's a great weekend to be in shangri-lowell!

the pantheon

i have in my apartment photographs iconic of their respective championships--adam vinatieri's snow bowl field goal from 40 yards out in a raging blizzard for the patriots in '01, (signed, as a matter of fact, tyvm), big papi's game-winning hit from game 5 of the '04 ALCS, and, heart of the shrine, bobby orr's flight into history, scoring the first of his two stanley cup winning goals in may of 1970. (i do have his signature beside it, but not on it...)

for photographs, i know a lot of folks prefer vinatieri's winner over the rams in the actual super bowl if not something with tom brady's name on it, and the ball in mientkiewicz's glove from foulke to clinch the series on top of everything pedro and manny, but they don't capture for me the moment when the crowns became possible. subtract one tuck rule, and the pats never make it out of the first round. leave out papi's back-to-back game-winning hits over the yankees, and the sox never make it back to new york, let alone st louis. if vinatieri doesn't make the greatest kick in the history of the nfl, the rams cruise to yet another super bowl. if david ortiz doesn't complete the greatest clutch hitting performance in the history of major league baseball, the yankees beat up the cards for yet another title. those moments, though not the ultimate, are the most enduring to me.

so it is that i remember the reebok logo emblazoned across tim thomas' hockey stick, turning aside yet another sure goal, and delivering each and every series in turn as his team marched on with him towards the cup, and i wonder, will that be the picture that is added to the collection? no, i think it will be the one of him with the cup raised over his head, with the smile of decade upon decade of loving to play the game all over his face. tim thomas, playoff mvp, and the giver of the greatest stanley cup goaltending performance in the history of the stanley cup.

boston salutes you, and i salute you. welcome to the pantheon.

39

i shook hands and high-fived and toasted the championship with countless people aged 38 and younger last night, and found it difficult to put into words the difference between being 9 years old, 11 years old and 50. there is something beautiful in misunderstanding the way the world works, and believing in magic, and that a man can truly fly. there is also something deeper, and more meaningful, in understanding the length and depth and breadth of 39 years in the wilderness, and this, to me, was far more emotional than any other championship experienced in my life, and certainly much more than my small portion of 86. (i truly don't know what it would have been like to have only been able to survive for 85 of it, but i imagine there is something there the rest of us will never now know).

i was six years old when bobby orr came to the bruins as a rookie, and i knew all about it because my father had once explained to me that the incredibly poised and gracious gentleman in the top hat and tails at my kindergarten graduation was none other than johnny peirson, all-star bruins winger and father to one of my classmates. (johnny would within a few years join don earle in the television broadcast booth, in time for bobby orr's stanley cup greatness, as well as don's memorable "he hit the post--he hit the fucking post" broadcast lapse that packed him off to philadelphia in favor of the master who was and is fred cusick, and for fred today i am most nostalgic--he would have loved to see the cup raised again). it was four seemed-long-then but oh-so-short-now seasons before the love and faith of a boy were rewarded, and to this day my favorite number is always four, and my favorite position on any field, court or rink is defense.

despite the incredible run of celtics championships taking place at the time, and what we all know is the deep and abiding love for the boston red sox that courses through the veins of this town and always has, in the 1960's boston was a hockey town first before all, and foremost. "jesus scores, but esposito scores on the rebound" festooned more bumpers than all the other stickers combined, and the excitement building towards the stanley cup run in 1970 was like nothing i could describe to anyone who wasn't there. the rights to bruins telecasts had been purchased by a UHF station, WSBK TV-38, and the recent availability of HD had and has nothing on the impact of this move on the sale of new TV's in and around the city of boston. (most sets in those days were VHF-only, and new ones were not cheap). it had been 29 years since the last cup on causeway street, and people were feeling it was time for the drought to be over. every game that season was a slow and deliberate step on a march toward coronation.

the season was punctuated not only by orr's ascendance, (120 points by a defenseman was beyond unheard of), but also by the supremely entertaining coincidence of detroit hanging themselves good and over after clinching their playoff spot, and hardly bothering to resist the ny rangers scoring 9 goals in their last game, putting the rangers 4 goals ahead of montreal for the tiebreaker, but in need of a canadien loss to make the playoffs. enter the chicago blackhawks and their star goaltender, tony esposito, (brother to bruin great phil), who then proceeded to roll up to a 5-2 lead by the middle of the third period, thus inducing montreal coach claude ruel to play the last ten minutes of the game with an empty net. (into which chicago poured five more goals, to the delight of every hockey fan on the planet not from montreal). habs fans are still crying "fix", but nobody in boston minded not having to face the habs on the way to destiny, via new york. (the first minute and a half of boston's first game in ny took an hour and a half to complete, setting a record for penalty minutes and forever endearing derek sanderson to bruins fans everywhere as the target of ranger ire--which reminds me to point out that brad marchand and derek sanderson have a lot in common, and that's the highest compliment to be paid brad you could name).

the finals by then were an anti-climax. (think red sox vs the cardinals in '04 times a million). boston was an "original six" city, and fiercely proud of it. the blues were the perennial expansion team enjoying their annual free pass into lord stanley's dance, (the way they built the divisions, even philadelphia was situated in the "west", and expansion clubs only had to face an original six contender in the finals), and this was st louis' third try at winning a single stanley cup game, let alone a series. boston swept them, of course, and put the exclamation point on the necessity for the league to reorganize and mix the clubs for the next season, so that the weaker would be forced to get stronger. (ironically at boston's expense, and have i told you how much i abhor kate smith?) it was all so obvious to everyone who followed the game--of course bobby orr would do it--and it was no less sweet for knowing it would happen. magic. we had the best team and the best player, and the stars aligned as they should and must.

so, you know, as i've said before, they really ought to call this game "goalie", and it is in this distinction that the greatest difference between '70 and '72 and today exists. 1971's bruins were even better than the '70 version who had already run away with their first cup, but they encountered a rookie goaltender by the name of ken dryden who contributed the greatest goaltending performance in stanley cup history right up until the one we just saw this year. you'll never see it in ken's 3.00 goals-against-average for that year, but to have seen the talent arrayed against him, and the number of incredible saves he was forced to make to save the season for his team, is to never doubt. it was his "worst" playoff average in his stellar career, but it was the best i have ever seen, until today. just incredible. (but bobby and the boys got the cup back in '72, so it was never an enduring disappointment).

so, fast forward to the early days of 2006, and the random good fortune to have been given bruins tickets on the first starting night of tim thomas' renewed tenure with his first and only nhl club, well into his 30's in age, and supposedly well past the prime of any reasonable goaltending prospect. tim had entered in relief of andy raycroft in the two previous games, but he was essentially an unknown, and appearing only because hannu toivonen was out, and raycroft obviously wasn't right, either, and needed to be rested. the season was a bust to that point anyway, (the bruins had won only 15 or 16 wins out of their first 40 games), so what did the team have to lose?

i remember vividly the style, or complete lack thereof, displayed by thomas while backstopping an inferior team against a clearly superior opponent. (dallas had won 30 games out of their first 40 at that point, and i was under no illusions as to why that particular game had been the one whose tickets were donated to me). time after time the dallas stars had glittering chance to put the game away, but time after time this unknown full-grown-man of a goalie refused to give up on the puck, and stopped them. the shootout didn't go boston's way, but they earned a point from a single goal, and, that season, thomas ended up only losing 13 games in regulation out of 35 starts, for a team that was, to be charitable, terrible.

the rest, as they say, is now history. this year thomas set the nhl goaltending record for save percentage over the course of a season, at .938. thomas bettered that in the playoffs with .940, and then blew it away in the stanley cup finals with an astounding .967. (not for nothing, but he compiled his best-ever percentage against more shots than any other goaltender has ever faced through the playoffs). looking back, the bruins do indeed again have the best player and the best team, but you couldn't have known that even a few short weeks ago. these were lunchpail guys without any standout star--no tom brady, no big papi, and no larry bird--and winning only as a team. subtract tim thomas and you have a first-round exit and a fired GM and coach. add tim thomas, and you have the beginning of something special. (brad marchand is the only free agent needed to be signed, and the whole team, other than mark recchi, who is retiring, is back).

so what, in the end, is the difference? the difference is knowing how hard it is to do what these men have done. the bobby orr aura is replaced by something more tangible, and a 50 year old man knows better than a 9 year old boy that these things truly do not come around all that often.

so sweet.

boston bruins, stanley cup champions.

did you see it?

a lot will be written about certain vancouver fans and their post-game expressions of disappointment, but the enduring image for me will be the stadium full of canuck faithful, quieter, perhaps than they had ever been, but still present long after the final horn sounded. their team came out en masse to salute them, and it was one of the most moving images i will remember from watching this historic game. had it been new york, or philadelphia, the seats would have been empty long before the last puck slid down into timmie thomas' glove. but this was vancouver, where hockey fans are real hockey fans, and even the most emotionally painful moment in sports would not deter them from feeling their love and pride for their team.

the rogers arena pa crew even pumped through a rendition of the standells' dirty water for our boys.

hats off, vancouver. may every city understand and aspire to the example.

and congratulations, boston bruins. historic.

number four, bobby orr

it's four hours 'til, and i'm climbing the walls.

first, here's the original TV38 bruins telecast theme music, complete with bobby orr highlight reel to keep you (and me) distracted. second, it must be said that, though there may have been many confused by gretsky and/or lemieux since, there are none who saw him play who will ever allow any other player to be called "the best ever" than bobby orr. look up his +/- stats sometime. it took larry robinson almost an entire twenty year career to marginally surpass what bobby did in ten, and nobody will ever touch his '70-'71 single season record of +124. (gretzky's best season doesn't even crack triple figures, and even ray bourque has better than gretzky does for his career). and the guy was on every power play and shorthanded situation, too, the stats from which don't even enter into the +/- calculation. phenomenal. there will never be another.

9 hours...

not only is this quite possibly the most brilliant picture book ever written, it's sheer brilliance when read aloud by samuel l jackson.

enjoy!

(14 year old daughter rule--bad language warning).

kudos to adam mansbach (words) and ricardo cortes (illustrations), and for sale here.

game 7

game 7.

what else was i supposed to do today?

no worries--if it's important they'll ask me for it again tomorrow.

game 7.

truly amazing

i'd heard about it, but had never seen it. newsweek declared grand rapids a "dying city", and the citizenry demanded strenuously to differ--and here they have created something transcendent, and truly inspirational to everyone who believes in themselves. (6:24 and thereabouts is where i believed beyond doubt, too).

if we can dream it, we can do it.

your moment of not zen

buddhists advise "mindfulness" to quiet the inner roilings, but for those of us who will not be able to maintain a lotus position for another 28 hours, we simply have to find something else to keep us from climbing the walls. it perhaps explains a lot about me to observe that, despite the ongoing gold cup and imminent tour de france, two of my all-time favorite multi-day sporting events, i have been all bruins all the time, with the possible exception of the fact that i saw a report that tito would be screwing over wake yet again to pitch beckett tonight in hopes for the 10th in a row, and if anyone in boston thinks that it's "not fair" that the current 9-game streak is virtually unheralded in favor of stanley cup fever, they can look up tim wakefield in the baseball almanac to get a better idea of what "unfair" is all about, and then kiss my and every other proper bostonian's black and gold ass--it's june, get a grip.

of course, it's not as if i haven't kept my eye on the US dispatching canada and falling to panama, and doughty guadeloupe nursing the hurt of a couple of one-goal losses and pinning their entire national hopes on doing in los yanquis tonight, and it's a lucky thing, because now at least i know how to pass at least a few of those 28 hours tonight. panama, costa rica, honduras, mexico, jamaica and guatemala are through and el salvador is desperately interested in either the canadians or americans losing, or barring that good fortune, at least a canadian tie to put them through as well. every one of the group C teams still has a chance. granted, guadeloupe needs the canadians to lose, as well as to paste a 2-goal advantage over we americans, but a chance is still a chance, and everybody playing tonight has theirs.

for the US it's win or draw and move on--though if they lose by only one, they still have the chance of the panamanians dispatching the canadians after that to fall back on. (isn't soccer grand?)

hockey is much simpler. skate til the extra puck goes in the other guy's nets. but we don't get to enjoy that until tomorrow night.

edited to correct an incorrect notice i received about tonight's sox starter. the unfairness tonight was the total power outage at the plate--wake pitched great to no avail.

all in

if you're from vancouver, and you're looking for comfort, you can recall that the bruins have managed a grand total of two goals in three entire games up there, and that your jekyll and hyde goalie seems to be plenty jeckyll when he's playing at home. fair enough. but if you're from boston, you know better.

for one thing, in six games, including the ones vancouver managed to steal at home on late, flukey bounces, they have managed one single goal in the first and second periods--that's one single goal in the equivalent of four entire games--and only eight overall. (boston has poured that many into the vancouver nets in one game alone). for another thing, in the most recent four games, including the one vancouver managed to steal at home on a late, flukey bounce, the boston bruins have scored seventeen goals and given up only four.

the truth, of course, is somewhere well in-between, and if you watched the 'nucks repeatedly fanning on open nets last night, you know it's absolutely never exactly as the scores imply. (well, that 8-1 game was pretty much). but the bruins are skating like they mean it, and have only to play one complete game to prove it.

i'm in

five to two

tonight, playing at home, the boston bruins scored as many goals (five) as it took the vancouver canucks THREE GAMES at home to score. meanwhile, tonight, playing away, the vancover canucks potted as many goals (two) as it took the boston bruins three games away to score in vancouver. the rest of the goals in these stanley cup playoff finals, all scored in two other games in boston, are 12 for the bruins against 1 for the canucks, but all that means nothing--it's three games to three, with one left to play, wednesday night in vancouver.

there's a president's trophy awarded each nhl season to the team possessing the best regular season record, and this year, along with the coincident privilege of home ice advantage throughout the stanley cup playoffs, it belongs to the vancouver canucks. the boston bruins know that if you can't beat the best team in their building, you haven't earned better than the disappointed side of the handshake line, and they know for sure wednesday night is for all the marbles. if vancouver wins, they'll have earned it. and if boston wins, they will be the undisputed stanley cup champions just the same.

you simply can't ask for better than this.

go broons

wow--don't know who mitt hired, but these are the folks to get 'er done

romney's first salvo.

we here in massachusetts know more than most about the mittster, but if this is the sort of media approach he's going to take, then i think we're going to have a very frustrated group of obamacrats trying to back-pedal from their pollyanna.

there's no easy way to cast things as both better than they were, and someone else's fault.

score one for the mittster.

the proverbial two wrongs

nothing says republican like the use of the pejorative "nanny state". so what do minnesota republicans think is the best way to improve their welfare distribution policy, and guard against their own nanny state? why, restricting people on the dole from carrying any more than $20 in cash, that's what. or, in 3rd grade terms, "here's your allowance, and we've made sure with mr hooper down at the general store that you can't spend it on baseball cards". well, any bets on whether more or less of minnesota money gets spent out of welfare benefits on things other than booze and smokes?

i'm astounded at both the hypocritical arrogance, and the stupidity.

taking the second misfortune, stupidity, first, it's pretty clear to me that, human nature being what it is, there will be a scam invented, with profits to the progenitor(s), to better enable welfare recipients to purchase booze and smokes despite the restrictions, leaving all that much less of the benefits to buy milk and other more-essentials. and, first misfortune, hypocritical arrogance, second, it's pretty self-evident, that the hubris to deny individuals the freedom to make their own (possibly, even likely, bad) decisions is so much more nanny-ish than giving folks an allowance, that it borders on textbook definition of such.

just the same as obama is bush-the-2nd (3rd?), and democrats are clueless to their coincident culpability, the republican party is so much more of everything they blather on to fox news that they hate that it's impossible anymore to listen without doing the proverbial spit-take with all that state-purchased booze in our mouths.

if it's welfare that needs fixing, i know for sure this isn't the way to do it.

grace kelly's elbows

john waters did an eight-part photographic homage to grace kelly's elbows, and such as much as any other artifact describes the transcendent feminine beauty achieved by the hollywood studio system from the 30's through the 40's. no, to be honest, many of these women weren't all that before the process got started on them, but by the time things were done, there is no question countless things akin to de milo's venus were achieved, and all over the place, and even (especially?) gay men get it.

the reason i now know about waters' little photography project, was that my companion referenced it in our thoroughly enjoyable discussion of obsession-worthy (or not) hollywood camera fodder. (i had never heard of it before, but absolutely approve of the concept). my (female) companion complained about many of my suggestions, but, A) she's a woman, and, B), if anyone can possibly complain about garbo's cold, detached androgyny, there's no useful argument beyond nikolas muray's photography in attempt to settle the point. (votes, anyone?)

i think the general objection to many of my examples was the decidedly un-womanliness of many (most?) of hollywood's biggest female stars. to this i would whole-heartedly agree, but only point out that the dearth of natural figures is entirely a deficiency of the sample set, and is hard to hold against the artists doing incredible things with their images, or the appreciative men in the audience. or, put another way, though you can't make kate hepburn smoulder, generating a certain amount of residual heat is still a beautiful thing. (philadelphia story!, and, not for nothing, but if you secondarily consider all of the work it took to dull ruth hussey's presence, the cumulative achievement becomes all that much greater).

larry carr wrote (collected) a couple of books--four fabulous faces, (swanson, garbo, crawford and dietrich), and more fabulous faces, (davis, hepburn, del rio, lombard and loy)--and compiled an incredible array of amazing images of a short list of the most amazing images of hollywood. (for these women in their movies and in their publicity were indeed manufactured images, and perhaps hepburn's wrestling her career back from the studios proves that more eloquently than any other argument). of this whole group there's not a d-cup in sight, and more than just a little mannishness, a point about which we can all draw our own conclusions.

for my part, my favorites never seem to appear on such lists, though, admittedly, de havilland wasn't all that busty, either. (i'm widely acknowledged to be ironically ambivalent where bust size is concerned--you can ask my better-endowed associates with whom i keep frequent company--but i like to think of this as being eclectic, and not limited in my appreciation for the female form). my other against-type preference is for brunettes, (de havilland over fontaine any day of the week, and the aforementioned twice on sunday, along with loy, colbert, et al. etc.). but we also these days have to keep in mind that hugh hefner almost single-handedly created the national and now global obsession with breasts, (look at playboy models as compared to the others who came before them), and back in the 30's and 40's we were a nation of leg men (not for nothing, but the #1 pinup poster in ww2 was not russell's breasts, but grable's legs) for whom a lot of those images of the female form were designed. (though film release of "the outlaw" didn't happen 'til '46 or perhaps things might have been different--who knows--and i liked bob hope's quip best, that "culture is the ability to describe jane russell without moving your hands").

so, in hopes of making this long self-indulgence at least a little bit shorter, let's just close by saying that i love being able to see 30's and 40's hollywood movies on the big screen, and wish there were more opportunities to do so, and for others to see what i'm on about. even when they're bad, they're oh so good, and oh so much better than what we meekly suffer through at the box office these days. (though i will say gone with the wind is every bit as bad as titanic, so it's not like the parallels don't survive). i do hold out a special place for salma hayek, (dark hair and breasts--how anti-old-hollywood is that!), but mostly because she's the image she is without even that old hollywood studio machine behind her. dolores moran in to have and have not is far hotter than bacall, but she could never have delivered the dialogue, nor smoked a cigarette quite like lauren did.

you know how to whistle, don't you steve?

noir

yesterday's treat was a film noir double feature at ArtsEmerson's (i hate it when i have to capitalize something, but artsemerson looks too much like art semerson) noir nights festival at the rebuilt paramount theater on washington street in downtown boston. our selections did not include the vic mature, ray milland or ginger rogers pictures, (yes, believe it or not, fred's dancing partner did noir), but we were able to catch joan fontaine (with dana andrews in fritz lang's "beyond a reasonable doubt") and olivia de havilland (with lew ayers in siodmak's "dark mirror") in back-to-back would-be potboilers.

i say "would-be" because, well, to put it bluntly, i think "beyond a reasonable doubt" proves beyond a reasonable doubt that there was good reason for it to be lang's last american picture. possessed of absolutely none of the heat of "the big heat" (lee marvin could really play the mean guy--not hard to wonder how he lost the palimony precedent) nor any of the sweep and scope of "metropolis", it plays out like the incredibly wooden recitation of dialogue that you have to believe had to be lang's peevish intent in the first place. (fritz didn't much care for the confines of the hollywood studio system, and if you interpret the film as a nose being cut off to spite a face, it makes a bunch more sense than from any other point of view). the burlesque queen buffoonery yields some reasonably funny one-liners, but the enduring impressions are of the utter preposterousness of the premise, as well as the absolute ugliness of joan fontaine within it. (the bullet bras being just the icing on that extremely icy cake).

in contrast, "dark mirror" sparkles from start to finish, and its noir is nothing but stylish, and not at all stilted. (i'm extremely glad i saw the two films is this order, too). thomas mitchell brings no grit to the dogged cop character, but it's ok because he's exactly the right kind of foil for de havilland's scenery-chewing that makes the entire picture in the first place. (i noticed credit up front for "dialogue direction", and wondered why they phrased the dialogue coaching that way, until i marveled after the fact at the incredible amount of dual-screen dialogue between de havilland and herself, and how completely perfect the timing and delivery continued to be throughout the entire film, and i don't know how much credit is actually due phillys loughton for that work in addition to olivia, but my imagination likes to give her plenty, too--it's amazing--and it makes perfect sense why de havilland would have spent the following summer in one of loughton's stage plays in westport, where she would meet the man who would become the fulcrum in her all-too-campy public feud with her sister, fontaine). yes it's easiest to take the dark mirror at face and surface value, and as a typical hollywood stereotypecasting of good and evil twins, (lew ayers is hardly better than comical in the romantic lead), but from my seat i absolutely got de havilland's cool fatale turn, and would absolutely have taken her in a heartbeat over her milquetoast sister, despite the hayes code all but forbidding an audience to feel that way. (kudos to siodmak for getting as much of it on film as he did--there's enough there, for sure, in the first half of the picture, where, as always, the real stuff is where the censors are concerned). other treats were richard long's third-ever big screen role, (what a goofy kid he was), and garry owen's absolutely perfect noir lieutenant. (well, lieutenant's lieutenant, as mitchell wasn't a captain, but you hopefully get what i mean). highly recommended.

yeah, i'd do olivia seven days a week, and twice on sunday if she played the twin thing for me...

the early returns

the night, of course, isn't yet over, but i've got a game in the morning, so this'll have to do.

first off, the punk night at the lamplighter series upstairs at the worthen house cafe was a legitimate hit. the crowd was full, the bands were on, (at least the first two--i ducked out partway through to catch corey b at furey's), and the LPD was there on a noise violation, so you know it was done right all the way. continued kudo's to johnny mo for putting a great night of music together each and every week. (and ya gotta love harpoon IPA in a bottle).

second off, corey b with his friends patrick and donny (flaherty and mchale, yo) put on some great sets at furey's of originals and tasty covers, too. (you know it's on when it's graham parker time). there was a worthwhile moment of zen for me there as well, though it'll remain undescribed here out of respect for the establishment and their refined taste in live music. (ask me about it sometime and i'll tell you--it was a fascinating observation about the fabric of our city, and it's all good even if face value might not seem that way to other people not in the know about just how good we have it here).

and i just figured out i spent an entire $13 on my entire evening's entertainment, and $4 of that was in tips to bartenders for the beers.

you absolutely can't get anything this good anywhere else on the planet.

punk

won't talk about last night's game other than to observe that A) the canucks were the better team on the ice and it was a fair result, and, B) not many people understand or care for metal. (or punk for that matter, and more on that matter in a moment).

i happened to have chosen the smokehouse to watch last night's game, and it was much as could have been expected: the food was middling, (though the wings are just fine at .25 cents apiece during the games, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that), the beer was among the best in lowell--as far as tap beer goes, nobody beats their lineup, and though the old court matches 'em pretty well on suds, and then otherwise wins on food, the clincher last night was the big screen on which to watch the game, and there the OC still has some ground up with which to make. the first and second periods were nail-biting and not without prime chances for both teams, but timmy thomas didn't have the answer during that breakdown in the third period, and there was your difference. in the end, vancouver had the edge in the faceoff circle, along the boards, and everywhere else on the ice for that matter, but it was the reaction of the smokehouse crowd to the sound check between the first and second periods, and the mini-set between the second and third that is all i'm willing to talk about past that.

it was a metal band. (lowell locals thurkills vision). it was a metal band with a pretty healthy following, based on the number of non-hockey folks in the house. though it was either a metal band without much sense of irony, or a metal band with a pretty healthy sense of humor, as they came equipped with a guitar rack with 6 or 8 backup axes for a sound that absolutely needs no more than 2, and they describe their sound as "melodic metal". (melodic is a funny way to put it--it's metal--and if you need a second guitar to play it, you are one of those folks proverbially and absolutely unclear on the concept, though clearly these guys do get it, guitar rack notwithstanding). coincidentally, it was a metal band that annoyed each and every one of the folks around me without bothering me at all. (for the record, i liked them a lot).

first of all, the commentary for these stanley cup playoffs, like the ones before it in recent memory, is so lame that it's laughable. honestly, watching with the sound off is only a disappointment in that you can't hear the roar of the crowd which is really all that you need to know. (and vancouver's crowd, measured to be a dB less than boston's at its loudest, seems to be every bit as into it as any on the continent, and that's alwasy a treat). that we might have had to listen to metal instead of doc emrick would be no great loss, and that we get to listen to good metal would be an absolute treat. but the band was respectful of the hockey, and made all their noise during the intermissions when saving us from mike millbury's blatherings is a service to mankind worthy of nothing but praise and gratitude. and, in all seriousness, for a metal band, or any other kind of band for that matter, they were just fine for me.

i didn't stay for their sets, though i would have under different circumstances. (i am under the proverbial weather this week, and losing a hockey game takes whatever air might be left in a fan's sails in that condition). i know none of the folks with me would have, but that's ok--there's music for everyone, and then there's music for just some folks. which puts me in mind of tonight's downtown lowell music lineup, and the punk night at the lamplighter music series upstairs at the worthen, and corey b's solo show over at furey's. i know few of the lamplighter regulars are likely to feel the same way tonight as they felt two weeks ago for the john fogerty birthday bash, and that's ok. i, for one, am hopeful to shake whatever it is that's ailing me enough to get out for at least some of it--i love punk, and even if it's bad punk, it's still punk, and there's something to be said for the attitude. i'll wrap it around or insert it into the middle of catching corey b's show at furey's, and i'll feel very good about myself for getting out "in my condition". (my head is a brick, and i haven't felt like eating for days).

the real headline, however, and i know it's the weather that'll make the difference for most folks, is farren-butcher-inc (FBI) at the riverfest this afternoon. if you like music, you will love this show. (saw them at voices twice, and they were awesome, not to mention so many times individually back in the day that no one will ever be able to count). charlie farren (local chelmsford boy these days) and jon butcher are two of the most talented guys to ever pick up a guitar in boston, the vicinity, or anywhere else for that matter, and hearing them together is a rare treat that comes around often enough these days that no excuses should be left not to have done it at least once.

if the weather clears, BE THERE. if the weather doesn't clear, i have no idea how you can figure out if the show is still on, as the organizers never saw fit to offer clear information on the venue or contingencies. (when they say it's at the concord river greenway, i have no idea if they mean outdoors, under a tent, or inside in case of rain). maybe they'll say later, i don't know. 92.5 the river is co-sponsoring, so maybe they'll broadcast info later. either way, it's yet more evidence that the "cultural organization of lowell" doesn't do as "alive, unique, inspiring" a job as them might, and though their slogal hardly seems to inspire organization, it does at least aspire to otherwise support culture in between. (seriously--a street address and description of the performance facilities would seem not to be unreasonable requests for next time--not everyone knows where the "concord river greenway" might be, nor what adverse weather might mean to it).

either way, it's local music saturday, and i'm all for it.

the best sports analogy to on-ice hockey discipline

unique among major professional sports, the game of baseball puts into harms way on every pitch, in their turn, every player on the field. actually, this is not quite literally so anymore, at least not in the american league, as the agents of that potential destruction, the pitchers themselves, are no longer put in the batting-box dock for judgment and justice, and there's something to be said about the difficulty of that.

i'm reminded of all this in the wake (pun intended, and more on that in a sec) of last night's sox/yankees tilt, and a yankee fan's observation that, over the past 15 years, there's a dramatic disparity in the number of yankees hit by red sox pitching over the number of red sox hit by yankees pitching. (141 to 100 if his numbers are to be believed, and there's no reason not). this whole discussion, of course, became relevant after jonny lester plunked a couple of yankees the night before, sending one of them, mark teixiera, out of the game with a bruised knee, and that's no aspersion on mr. teixiera's toughness, as jonny boy is one of the hardest-throwing fireballers in the game, and that pitch hit mark square on the softest possible spot just above the kneecap, where, if you've ever been hit, you know you don't quite walk right for some time after. unfortunately, with the way the game of baseball has been warped and twisted over the past going on 40 years, american league pitchers never stand in to take what's coming to them, and benches are warned at the slightest provocation that ejections will (hopefully) serve to police the game.

well, as at least one yankee fan will tell you, this is far from a perfect solution, and, speaking as a hockey fan, i will tell you that i do not disagree.

mitigating the lopsidedness of the totals, it should be pointed out that tim wakefield leads all active major league pitchers in hit batsmen, and, at barely over 50 miles per hour, his knuckleball hardly carries the same sort of weight or consequence as a normally-thrown baseball. in fact, i'd bet most major leaguers would gladly make their living trotting to first base after a plunk by that sort of floating roulette wheel of a pitch. (derek jeter, the most-plunked yankee over wakefield's tenure, has said that he's quite sure even tim doesn't know where his pitches are going to land, and the most common report of a wakefield-hit batsman is that the batter failed to get out of the way, rather than any other possible way around).

anyway, in the old days, as it is now my aarp-eligible way of putting a lot of things these days, you never would have seen this magnitude or disparity of nonsense, because pitchers knew they were going to be next to suffer for any potential lack of control, and the boys on the field all worked it out for themselves. yeah, walter johnson (live-ball era record-holder at 205) was intimidating and most guys simply chose to bail out rather than stand in, but ty cobb himself used to dig in even deeper against him, because he knew that johnson knew that anything inside was going to hit him, and that retribution would be swift, painful and effective.

THAT is how baseball is meant to be played. ice hockey, too.

edited to add: cc sabathia plunked david ortiz last night in obvious retaliation for the earlier hit batsmen as well as papi's decidedly un-professional display after jacking his second home run in two days down at yankee stadium. nobody is complaining, least of all david ortiz.

"this is the stanley cup--it's dirty time"

the game of ice hockey is not what it was when i was a kid, and there's no better spokesperson for the difference than the greatest who ever laced on skates, the immortal robert gordon orr. remarking on the travesty that is aaron rome and his gutless perfidy the other night, number four's comment was "who cares if they suspend him--i'd want him in the lineup".

ab-so-LOOT-ly

yes, sadly, the way this game is meant to be played, though never will be again, that would have been the answer, as well as the reason why nathan horton would still be skating in the finals today. the way this game is meant to be played, the players police themselves, and anyone old enough to recall will tell you--you never saw that kind of cheap head shot back in the day because there was justice to be had right there on the ice. (as sick and ironic as it sounds to say it, ted green is the exception that provides the proof--there have been none dirtier, nor any done as dirty).

unfortunately, today, the only punishment is exactly the kind of "time out" that a weasel cheap shot artist would prefer--a nice, safe spot on the couch while those left standing play on.

there are only two ways to solve this problem. one would be to let the players play, and work it out for themselves, which we all know will never happen. the other is to make the suspensions mean something, and to banish from the league anyone who takes that kind of a shot.

until then, i'll leave you with more from the greatest of all time: "the officials have got to stay out of it and let the players police themselves. this is the stanley cup. it's dirty time."

not enough

it's still not enough. 12 goals in two games and only one against and it's never going to be enough.

any doubt that nathan horton is now the beating heart and bleeding soul of the 2010-2011 boston bruins is long since gone. last night tim thomas pitched the first stanley cup shutout for the boston bruins since cheesy did it in '78, and nathan's teammates pasted a loss on the vancouver canucks for the ages. you can bet the louuuuuu is going to be hearing the ringing cheers of the boston garden crowd for the next 36 hours, and his confused and confounded teammates are going to be trying to convince themselves that it was just another game, and that hope remains for their season, but the truth of the matter is that something has changed, and it's changed in a very big way.

there is no tougher or better loved team in the nhl this year than this year's boston bruins.

182

six starts, three wins, and tim wakefield is showing yet again that he's nowhere near done. last night it was the vaunted yankees who wound up six runs shy of what they would otherwise have needed to beat him, and wake (DA MAN) now sits just 10 wins back of cy young for the franchise record. if tito abandons his faithless disrespect and gives him the 15 or so starts he deserves through the end of the season, timmy stands to be within spitting distance of something remarkable.

there is no one more deserving in baseball for the chance, nor who has put half as much of himself into the best interest of his team despite all personal sacrifice necessary. (game 3 of the 2004 ALCS being just one of many cases in point). he got the big win in game 5, and he's in line to earn another big one in 2012. watch and enjoy.

whip 'em out wednesday

opie and anthony are the icing on the cake. the authors of such viral (vile? nah) pranks as encouraging women to flash truckers from bridges, cars and where have you every week on "whip 'em out wednesday", (the stuff of legend--you still see the WOW signs around the area even today) have today leaked breitbart's stash of weiner weener pics via twitter. (huffpo coverage here, and, sorry, the 14 year old daughter rule stands, and there will be no lewd photographs linked via this blog).

yep, you knew it was coming--congressional genitals.

i'm guessing the resignation can't be far behind, but, you never know with these tools, i mean fools...

finally

the first democrat congressperson has stepped forward today to become the first of her party to call for weenie-weiner's resignation. kudos to allyson schwartz of pennsylvania, and to ex-democrat party chair tim kaine, for telling it like it should be. everybody else on that side of the aisle is either "no comment", like the white house, or "send it to the ethics panel because i'm also a gutless punk", like nancy pelosi. allyson's words: "having the respect of your constituents is fundamental for a member of congress. in light of anthony weiner's offensive behavior online, he should resign."

oh, and did anyone happen to catch the news a few minutes ago? yeah, that's right, mrs. anthony weiner, aka huma abedin, is recently pregnant with their first child. no, not dying of cancer a la mrs. john edwards, but, seriously, if a guy can't see his obligation to his family ahead of his avarice, he's got bigger problems than an overactive penis. or was that his swollen ego we were looking at all along?

edited to add kudos to my congressperson, niki tsongas, for yesterday joining allyson schwartz in calling for the weener's resignation.

itunes inches towards legitimacy

you can measure any music store by its selection, and, up until yesterday, you could argue quite convincingly to me that itunes wasn't nearly all that...

until yesterday.

populuxe has arrived.

the deafening democrat silence

when fellow ny rep chris lee was sexting photos of himself, the democrat donkey-braying for his resignation was resounding, and, for his part, majority leader john boehner ensured a rapid and final resignation to pay for the embarrassment brought to congress. fair enough. now, today, when an eerily similar set of circumstances has been brought about by a democrat doing what amounts to the EXACT SAME THING, all i'm reading from democrats up to and including nancy pelosi is "sadness" and nothing else of any substance.

pelosi is proving herself a gutless figurehead, and democrats are proving themselves en masse to be the kings of the hypocrisy game this morning. i'm always eager to invite partisans to defend themselves under these circumstances, but i guess i do it precisely because i know they can't and they won't. know what i think? i think you're all full of it, and there's good reason to dismiss everything else you say at the podium and in front of the microphones each and every day. you're craven cowards, lacking principle and possessed of such corruption that it's no wonder our country stands in peril of financial collapse.

think the rhetoric sounds harsh? think about why that is. think about why you might feel unfairly castigated, while you yourself wink and nod while your party brethren commit every offense at which you feign outrage when it's committed by others. maybe some day you might stand up for your country ahead of your party. maybe. but i'm not holding my breath.

change of pace

i need to clear my head. the impact of watching aaron rome's crime against the game last night simply won't leave me, and i know this will be a hard, frustrating day. there aren't goals enough in the world to offset what happened last night, and there isn't justice to be had--we all simply have to live with less than we shall ever want, or that nathan horton deserves.

(as my daughter would say, "meh").

tonight, at the all arts gallery at 22 shattuck street, the lowell film collaborative is screening eric ellena's and berna heubner's tribute to rita hayworth's artistic retort to alzheimer's disease, narrated by one of my oldest and truest screen loves, olivia de haviland, and told through the eyes of rita's daughter, yasmin aga kahn, now the president of alzheimer's disease international. i only hope the art proves as soothing to me as to those it portrays.

burning

aaron rome is a gutless embarrassment to the game of hockey, and deserves far more than any suspension the losers in toronto will give him. there are no words to express it forcefully enough.

the "gotcha" question:

here it is--here is the "gotcha" question that "got" sarah palin (though if she's so right, it's hard to know what's "gotcha" about it, other than the inarguable truth that she got "got" all by herself):

"what have you seen so far today, and what are you going to take away from your visit?"

yes, THIS is the kind of unfair journalism that prompts only a moron to sputter a moron's inanities, and then sputter further moronic inanities to cover up the first set of moron's inanities, only to be trumped by the crowning moronic inanities of some "experts" who bought her twisted "poetic license" excuse, on the grounds that paul revere talked to a small knot of british army sergeants on the road after they captured him that fateful night, who had threatened to "blow his brains out" (that was the literal threat--mr. revere quoted it several times in his affadavits and letters afterwards) while he then told them that there was to be an armed resistance to british sortie into the countryside about boston. most interpret this as a bold boast calculated to expedite his escape, which, by the way, was successful, though, apparently, there are still some morons who will tell you that paul revere's original and final intent was to warn the british as they marched out from boston that the militia was on to them. (or something like that).

heres' some of the actual truth: paul revere's remit was to warn hancock et al. that the british army was out to seize them and their papers. (the british army was actually out to destroy weapon stores they believed were in concord, but, hey, who's counting). in point of fact, NOBODY was out trying to warn the british army about anything as part of any of this--the british army was invading a hostile countryside, and looking for stealth any way they could buy it.

brendan mcconville can kiss my self-educated ass on this one. i've read daniel french backwards and forwards to the point of almost having his book memorized. i've read revere's affadavits and letters. i've read the whole brouhaha over whether or not dr. church was a spy, a double agent, or just a guy who liked one particular british army officer a little more than seems seemly, even in silk stockings and a powdered wig. i've walked the entire battle road from lexington to concord, reading every single marker and engraving along the way, and even gone the whole nine yards and the rest of the way out to barrett's farm, too. i've sat and contemplated life from the bloody angle, and risen hours before dawn to walk the route of march of the boxborough companies from littleton through acton and on to the hillside beneath buttrick's house where the militia companies finally assembled for the battle, and listened to the park historians recount the orders and the formations and watched while volunteers re-enacted the battle time and time again. i can tell you that isaac davis told his fellow revolutionaries that "i haven't a man who is afraid to go" just moments before he and abner hosmer fell before reaching the bridge, and i can tell you that captain laurie was an idiot not to realize that the colonials would flank him in addition to charging the bridge. i can tell you the names of the first three english privates to fall in the war, (smith, gray and hall), though i can't recall the names of the four officers and sergeants who fell wounded and left the british soldiers without leadership to stop them from panicking and fleeing the field without even carrying off their wounded. (hey--nobody knows everything who isn't named palin, right?)

there's more i know about a crazy local lunatic wandering the battlefield trying to sell hard cider to the combatants, and a legend of a hatcheted british casualty, but none of it, and i mean NONE of it was, before this day, ever interpreted as a "warning" to the british as opposed to a rebel call to arms, and subsequent armed resistance. if brendan mcconville would like you to believe such tripe, then he can perhaps produce for us today anything he's ever written before this day espousing such an opinion. i, for one, am completely unaware of any such thing, and i'll invite anyone at all to disabuse me of that opinion, and brendan mcconville most of all.

i'll say it plain--brendan mcconville is a horse's ass, and so is the braying donkey of a publicity whore he's attempting to exonerate for her unparsimonious bullshit. paul revere rode to warn the colonials, full stop.