favorites

with two demi-semi-final games to go, the six remaining euro squads are practically the exact who's-who of non-south-american soccer: england, france, italy, spain, germany and portugal. (the dutch are notably now absent from this list, but, hey, you play like that in a major tournament, and your cred gets dented). the germans and the spaniards are the consensus favorites, but none of the other teams is counted out by a long shot. anything can and will happen. and the beauty of the european cup, and the world cup for that matter, is that everyone is given the exact same chance.

so it is (finally) here in the state of massachusetts, where any two people (not directly related to each other) can petition the state via their municipality for a license to pledge themselves to each other for life. some will fall short of their aspirations, as i did and did the dutch, but others, (unlike the european cup where they can be only one winner), possessed of the love and the dedication and persistence through all better and worse, are able to win for themselves and their family and their children the privilege to live out their days with the one they love. it's something for which that we all, through being part of this community, can't help but both root for all, AND have our favorites.

two of mine are pledging themselves today, and i could not be more happy for them, and stoked with the love of life, that it contains inspirations so worthy. these are two of the most loving and devoted people i have ever met, and two of the best parents there can be. (a child born of a failed "traditional" union, and virtually abandoned by the other-sex parent, is one of the luckiest people on earth for it, and knows it, and its a beautiful thing). to them, and to you, i celebrate life and love today. human devotion is our most powerful strength to face all adversity. that we can as a community embrace it this way, and defy fear through its celebration, and pledge ourselves in friendship to stand by each union for its intrinsic worthiness, lifts us up, too.

marriage is under siege right now, yes, but not as "traditionalists" would have us believe. marriage is under siege because we cannot all come together and insist on its highest ideal, and live our lives in support of *everyone* who pledges themselves to it with a pure heart and the courage to see it through. i read my bible very clearly on past practices, such as selling women as chattel, and i know that we have spent millennia redefining this institution, oh so slowly, to become what we all yearn for it to be--simply a union between two who pledge to each other their life and their love, for better, and for worse--to build their families on the ideals of same.

"everybody just wants to say i do"

their example is clear:  don't fear.  love.

see?

the irish and the italians had at it over in poland for their final first-round euro championship match today, and there wasn't much else to do but laugh. over the past few years, fifa (the governing body of world soccer) has done yeoman's work in eliminating the worst of it, but today's game between the I's and the I's was a throwback/throw-up of classic shirt-grabbing, short-grabbing (one guy's was hauled down almost to his ankles) gunshot-wound-faking good old-time soccer. (if you haven't seen the soccer sniper video, you absolutely must take a moment to follow the link here--we'll wait til you get back).

it surprises me most that there isn't more national pride and outcry to fire these miscreants lest they continue to soil the national reputation. or, as i might put it, being divorced from one:

see?

better late than

over at right side of lowell, cliff posted a thoughtful item about "progressive regret" in wisconsin. its premise is that much was lost when the collective frustration of 100,000 citizens was co-opted as a political cudgel by one party against another, without any regard for the interest of the 100,000. as you can see by the comments, i agree with the sentiment, to which a partisan participant in the discussion raised an analogy to the question "at what point do the sports fans effect the score?"

my reply, likely lost because of my delay in offering it, i will presume to post here as well, in case that can continue to discussion:

"that's a bad analogy that betrays the fallacy of your own point--it's not a game to be won, or lost. only partisan D's and R's can't see the forest (the interests of our "we the people" nation) for the trees of their mindless and endless opposition to each other. a better analogy is the futility of trying to be heard in a crowded room while everyone else is shouting at each other. the constructive first step is to stop shouting. the next step, is seek the reasonable conversation, and support it".

i would posit that the evidence is overwhelming that the democrat and republican parties have devolved into a permanent shouting match against each other, without the least bit of demonstrated interest in solving problems. if the choice is between solving something, or defeating the opposition before they do, the choice these days is to always try to defeat the opposition. refusing to participate in that kind of mob v. mob political violence is not analogous to spectating. it is returning to the actual actions of government at its most elemental level. (as tip famously said, "all politics is local").

get involved.

step 1: drop out of the war between the competitive D vs R rackets
step 2: engage in politics as a citizen intent on solving problems
step 3: prepare to be attacked by both D's and R's who will prefer to perpetuate their co-monopoly on misused power than to actually do what's right for our country.
step 4: keep your eye on the goal, which is fair constitutional government of, by and for the people.

edited to add the salient portion of the response from the d-addled correspondent to the aforementioned sentiment: "you are self pleasuring to political kiddie porn".

you tell me if you think this sort of political "dialogue" is what might be needed.

sapere aude. unenroll. stop aiding and abetting asshole politics. don't remain part of the problem. become part of the solution.

more truth of more matters

a little for-fun facebook snarking (i won't dime the guilty) prompted me to look up exactly what wally bayliss had meant by "bikers", and his suggestion that responsible parents would have to keep their children off the street the saturday of folk fest weekend because said "bikers" would be running lawless in the streets.

i'll post the link to the event itself here in case you're interested, but let me paraphrase by observing said lawlessness is actually a "veterans assisting veterans" motorcycle run and concert starting at hanscom airforce base (if you're up for a 40 mile bike ride and have your own bike) and concluding with music at the lowell memorial auditorium, which will be featuring james montgomery, skunk baxter, (session player with the doobie brothers and steely dan among others), barry goudreau, sib hassian and fran sheehan, (the last surviving members of the band "boston" not named tom scholz, and brad delp we all surely do miss you), sandy mcdonald, (of the commitments and hootie and the blowfish), david hull, (joe perry project), the uptown horns, (you've heard them backing the stones, j geils, james brown, the b52's and others), and american idol's (and your junior senator's daughter) ayla brown. (yeah, all very hells angels, huh).

the event itself is to benefit american war widows (afghan-iraqi wars), american veterans with brain injuries, and the massachusetts fallen heroes memorial. tickets are anywhere from $29 to $75, and even if you can't make it over the river from downtown to support the worthy causes in person, you can still donate to any and all of these charities any time you feel so inclined via "veterans assisting veterans -- attn: dianne roy, enterprise bank, 222 merrimack street, lowell, ma 01852".

though, of course, wally bayliss would have you believe that johnny strabler himself (you all remember and love brando in "the wild one", don't you?) and his black rebels motorcycle club is coming to straight to town in order to ruin folk fest, rustle up the nearest kathie bleeker to defile, and the start various riots inside all the otherwise responsible liquor establishments up and down merrimack street. or something like that...

"selflessness is the best thing you can do for yourself. you're not special, everyone is"

the complete punch line to david mccullough's wellesley high school class of 2012 commencement address is apparently lost amidst the pundit bloviation on the shock value of "you're not special", but as long as we're indulging our obsession with opining on others' opinions, please let me relay it in its entirety here, in case you missed it:

"selflessness is the best thing you can do for yourself. you're not special, everyone is".

i suppose it's not surprising that the headline writers economized and increased the font size on the "you're not special" part in order to sell more of whatever it is that they're selling, but i hope you can agree that the entire meaning of the phrase changes quite dramatically when it's written in its full context:

"you're not special, everyone is".

for those interested, the text to david mccullough's complete speech is full of good solid lines. the last one is a winner, but so are so many of the others. "the empirical evidence is everywhere--numbers even an english teacher can't ignore". (david's an english teacher, natch). "astrophysicists assure us the universe has no center, therefore, you cannot be it". and on and on.

the video is best, however, and i sincerely hope you can find 12 minutes to go here to watch it.

i'm not often proud to be from where, as david mccullough puts it, children and adults both alike are incessantly brainwashed that "good isn't good enough". (most mistake wellesley's arrogance to infer that the town and its school system are in the singular business of propagandizing how good and how much better than others they are, when something not quite like that is true--speaking as a product of said town and school system, i can assure you the incessant and overriding message sent is that no matter what your actual interest in life, or how hard you work, or how much you achieve at either, some other person is going to be taking your spot at princeton (matriculation to an ivy being the sole purpose of a successful high school education) because their science project/english lit grades/varsity sporting achievement is better than yours, and the resulting asshole-ism is just the perversity of human nature taking out the pain and frustration of perceived inferiority upon others in a futile attempt to try to make oneself feel not quite so loathsome, (ironic, huh), and all this is not to excuse the unpardonable and shameful results, but i hope it helps to at least explain).

but mccullough has it right. selflessness is indeed the best thing you can do for yourself. (we're not the special ones--everyone is). david would have us climb everest to better see the world, not to be better seen by it, and though i'd perhaps add a blurb to more explicitly remind us to practice kindness along the way, it's in its essence exactly the sentiment i would hope every child in every school can learn.

today, for a moment, i am proud for that town. but i'm still answering the "where are you from" question with "lowell", and i'm proudest of that most of all.

the score

first-year lowell high school pitching coach dan sargent is going to spontaneously appear on a lot of college and professional program radars this summer. his staff, through four post-season games, (all victories of course), has given up a grand total of 2 runs. last night's starter, matt tulley, with his throwback knee socks and high leg kick windup, was hitting 91mph on the park radar gun, racking up 8 k's in 7 innings. his 8th and 9th inning relief, cam latta, held newton north hitless and punched out out #27 with gusto to to guarantee the 2-1 win. it was playoff baseball for absolute sure, and it was a pleasure to enjoy.

the weather for the game was perfection. the purple and blue-dappled sunset was a picture if ever there was, and the glowing mists of twilight that backdropped the bright lights of lelacheur on into the evening were mystical and magical and a wonder to behold. and the kids were phenomenal.

congratulations, red raiders, and on to the semi's!

america, america

folks considering the merits of hating on f. scott key's little ditty would have been well-served to have had the privilege of attending last evening's massachusetts division 1 north sectional championship baseball game at lelacheur park. yeah, i know, i know, i've heard the arguments time and time again--it's range makes it tough to sing. it's glorification of violence takes away from alternate expositions of our great land's innate beauty and awesome grandeur. folks really like america the beautiful a lot. it's all true.

but, seriously folks: i had the experience last night that trumps it all, and if you were there, you know it, too.

the newton north tigers earned a somewhat improbable invitation to take on the favored lowell red raiders for the north sectional portion of the massachusetts state baseball marbles. (winner to meet the south champ in the state semi-finals this week). lelacheur park, prepped for spinners' opening day, was resplendent in the late afternoon sun. the public address announcements of team lineups was all duly completed, with the requisite clapping from all in attendance. a moment of silence was respectfully observed for the passing of a beloved coach. (my shame to be unable to provide you his name this morning--please, commenters, if you could be so kind as to help me). and all eyes turned, caps doffed and hands over hearts, towards the stars and stripes for the playing of our national anthem.

first, nothing.

more silence, as everybody knowingly smiled that someone in the PA booth was having technical difficulties.

then, quietly at first, and then murmuring louder, the first bars of our old war horse of a national anthem could be heard stirring from amidst the lowell supporters in the third base stands. it was a bit chaotic through the first lines, as hundreds of people sought the pitch and the meter upon which they all would agree. then, louder, as families among the newton supporters on the first base side added their voices. "what so proudly we hailed, at the twilight's last gleaming..."

it was perhaps an hour before said last gleaming along the banks of lowell's merrimack river, a couple months shy of 198 years after francis scott key first became inspired by old glory, but nobody was counting. everybody was singing. "by the rockets red glare..."

there is was. the emotion of that melodic uplift took hold of the small crowd and lifted it up along with the music. there is no line in any song anywhere that is as much its own essence as that nigh-impossible climb that bedevils amateurs and professionals alike. yet, last night, at lelacheur, the pitch was as fine and as true as ever i've heard such a crowd achieve it. there was a lust to fulfilling its promise, and a groundswell of volume as, seemingly, every last voice reached to add its number to the throng.  without leader or backing music or any such crutch at all, our beautiful national anthem was honored to its perfect glory.

just some little baseball park, in some little city, on some such late spring/early summer evening where simple families come to enjoy a game. and more patriotism in that little moment than anyone would be lucky find in an entire lifetime, yet so simply and understatedly expressed that everyone was become a part of it.

yeah, i live here. lowell, massachusetts. shangri-lowell. best place on earth.

licensed to ill

first of all, adam yauch, we miss you.

second of all, anyone not availing themselves of the free entertainment offered by the lowell city licensing commission on thursday nights at 6:30pm is surely missing one of the best entertainment values in the merrimack valley.

(ok, everything so far, from the title to the gratuitous pot shot just taken above, with the outstanding exception of the props to adam yauch for the pun, is unfair).

nobody was ill a the license commission meeting last night, and everything progressed more or less fairly and more or less as expected. it's just that an independent observer to the petitions and repetitions of this particular little circus can't help but conclude that we still have a long way to go to make this process and this bureaucracy everything that this fair city deserves and is owed.

the best evidence of this is the pointlessly adversarial position and tone taken by commission chair wally bayliss to an extremely respectful and reasonable request by the police department to entreat that license requests for the upcoming folk festival weekend are thoughtfully and responsibly screened in light of the past year's unfortunate impromptu curfew and the potential for public safety issues to once again arise. a reasonable response might have been, "thank you for your concern, which is respected, duly noted, and will be assuredly taken into consideration during all our upcoming deliberations". even further, if any particular commissioner's nose might be out of joint at any perceived implication that the licensing was at all contributory towards last year's unfortunate impromptu curfew, the response could have been extended to say "and observing that no license issues were brought back to this board as a result of last year's unfortunate impromptu curfew, it would also be important to ask the police department, as agents of this board, to be especially vigilant and bring any and all issues back here so that we can continue to improve the processes around this particular joint responsibility, which is the safe and lawful pursuit of happiness by all involved". (to which a polite and respectful police response might be "will do").

this all should have and could have taken 30 seconds. however, perhaps to ensure we free attendees to the circus got our money's worth, wally bayliss took it upon himself and no one but himself to drag it out for another 15 minutes, taking every possible opportunity to disrespect anyone and everyone BUT the license commission and its licensees, from the police department, to the lawful venue owners pursuing lawful utilization of their venues, to "bikers", a pejorative which must have been used two dozen times in as many minutes. wally, here's a suggestion--any hope you may have had to point out reasonable responsibilities for those other than the license commission and its licensees is quickly lost because everyone in attendance can only be thinking to themselves, "when is this guy going to shut up?". and, speaking as someone whose grandfather, astride a 1915 harley davidson, was a "biker", and whose aunt, until her death at age 80, was a "biker", and whose cousins, nieces, nephews, friends and neighbors all are happy to be "bikers", your whole schtick reeks of the sort of unfounded prejudice that should have someone expressing those opinions recalled from their position.

public servants serve the public--not the narrow portions of the public they prefer. wally, if you're unclear on that, there are a lot of people who would be happy to shake your hand on your way down off of your podium.

ANYWAY!

the next act to hit the circus was a series of sadly perfunctory approvals for various licenses to dispense liquor and amplify music, that, having seen a bunch of these so far, so assuredly lack bite to go with their bark that it's pure comedy. a neighbor to one, who has been coming before the board for FOUR YEARS to petition for relief from noise in clear and unanimously stipulated violation of the licenses granted was essentially ignored, as he and his neighbors have always been, in favor of taking the word of the offending party that they were "really going to try this time". seriously??? can there be no effective enforcement of the limitations of these licenses handed out by the commission like so much candy? i'm not advocating shutting down the party. you KNOW i'm never advocating shutting down a party. but, seriously, there need to be fines and other consequences for disrespecting the commission, its licenses, and the public for whom the entire process is to serve in the first place. would that be so hard? i'm quite sure, if it began to cost what it ought, that the licensees would be much quicker to do right things. am i the only one who sees this??? instead, nothing has changed or will change, and you can bet your paycheck the same conversation will be had again next time the scofflaws come back for their rubber stamp.

the other portion of the spectacle i was unable to watch completely, having tickets to a show at that scurrilous venue that would dare pursue their business during the sacred folk fest weekend, was the license approval for the soon-to-be finn's pub downstairs from brian's ivy hall on merrimack street. brian's, if you recall, is a sometimes target of noise complaints, though, by all accounts, a model citizen in terms of alcohol distribution. the owner(s) asked for a license to open a restaurant on their ground floor, and a bar and pool hall on their second, along with a piece of paper which would allow them on these additional floors to do the very same things as they are accused of doing on their third, which would be not doing quite all that can be done to save their neighbors from unwanted and unlicensed noise over and above that for which they are properly licensed. the owner, for his part, swears he has no interest or need for such, observing he already has that on his third floor. the neighbors, for their part, would want the various pieces of paper handed out to make it necessary for him to follow through on that oath.

the uninvolved bystander thinks to himself "gee, such a perfect time to use one of those restricted licenses the new regulations allow".

the neighbors, however, attribute malice to this particular business owner asking for everything to which he might be entitled, and everybody else jumps in to take sides.

can't we all get along?

a well-run restaurant filling that void on merrimack would be a very good thing. businesses that are complimentary to the nightclub on the top floor would also be very good things. no more noise than is currently lawfully allowed would also be a very good thing. we have the means to provide for all. let's do it!

oh, and one last thing: props to commissioners akashian and weicker who continue to provide thoughtful balance to the bombast and belligerence that is chairman bayliss. a license holder skating close to the edge of their obligations to the state department of unemployment assistance was artfully placed in a position to either comply, or forfeit their license, as is in the best interest of all. kudos to commissioner weicker for the solomon-like motion to force some right thing to be done. sure, chair bayliss obfuscated and obstructed and did everything he could to soften it, (pushing out the deadline for a week because his bloviations make the quantity of business for the immediately following meeting a bit on the heavy side), but in the end a good thing was done.

more!

lunch, dayne?

some weeks ago, a fairly impassioned downtown resident resorted to some borderline-hysterical hyperbole in objecting to the granting of a license for major's pub in the old dubliner space downtown here on market street. (think of the impact on the neighbors!) there was even some suggestion of impropriety in the process of fairly revitalizing the always-seemingly-on-the-verge-of-despair downtown.

well, i'm today thinking on the impact on the neighbors, one of whom being me, and i'm excited like crazy to see the joint finally open for business. dayne, if you would have some time, anytime, for some lunch, i'm more than eager and willing to put my wager where my mouth is, and treat you to something out of corey belanger's new kitchen, to see, exactly, what the joint is going to do to/for the neighborhood. my take is that it's going to be very much to the very good, and better than its several predecessors in that space, and all to the positive for us as neighbors.

and, if i'm wrong, you can write all about it, and i'll post it here, so that everyone can see that i'm more than willing to eat my words in addition to lunch if the circumstances warrant.

but i'm betting they won't.

welcome downtown, majors pub!

really?

i travel to germany a fair amount, and have experienced intimately their extreme dedication to law and order. (if you also have a german grandmother, you will know from which i speak). these are a people for whom even the most obvious and compelling opportunities for leniency are almost never (and i mean almost NEVER) indulged. i once walked home from a heidelberg bar in the so-wee-they-weren't-so-wee-anymore hours of the deadest of dead of nights in the cold, dead of winter, and came upon a man standing at the verge of a crosswalk, waiting for the walk signal to change. mind you, i had been walking for 15 minutes and had not seen a single car in any direction, let alone one that would be threatening this orderly man standing at attention upon the curb in front of a signal saying "don't walk", but this man, at 3 am on the emptiest of empty streets and on the bleakest and coldest of winter nights, was going to wait the full cycle so that he could cross with the signal. (these are, indeed, my people). alone. with no one around to see him whether he did or he didn't. (remember, i had walked up upon him--he had been waiting some time--it was the bismarkplatz, and as the main city center, the light cycles were quite long). because that's the rule. and germans, if nothing else, strive to follow the "rules laid down for their behavior". (reverent props to dan seymour and to have and have not).

so it is that i also recall another late evening in heidelberg, on the night of greece's ascension to the pinnacle of european soccer--the european championship. (second only to the world cup in terms of international soccer prestige). the greeks were nobody's pick to ever amount to anything in that year's tournament, nor, let's be honest, anything ever in the world of international soccer, but for this one storybook tournament, the greeks could do no wrong. during the course of one sweltery night on the fourth of july, 2004, while this one american was feeling just that wee little bit homesick for a good celebration, during what is often touted as the greatest upset in international soccer history, the greeks pinned a 1-0 loss on favored portugal to crown themselves kings of the world. in heidelberg, as you can imagine, the locals passed this amazing feat with hardly a shrug, their squad being ignominiously shown the exit during the first round, except for exactly two highly ecstatic to the point of delirium greek celebrants who could not contain their emotions, their pride, and their primal compulsion to celebrate both with a loud and exuberant outburst of downright rule-breaking.

these kids motored all around the bismarkplatz on a dirty little motor scooter, sans helmets, sans shoes, with a bright blue and white greek flag held aloft on the passenger's outstretched arms over his head, yelling at the tops of their lungs, and honking the little buzzing scooter horn with endless abandon. i can't recall how many trips around the platz these two crazy kids took, but it was so much fun that even the germans turned out of their doors to watch and cheer them on. i remember so clearly the smiles on the faces of the polizei, standing beside their little green polizei car, and marveling how indulgences could be so cheerfully given in a land where even stepping off the wrong curb at the wrong moment would get you the full treatment.

so it is that yesterday evening, if i'm not mistaken, the lowell high school class of 2012 enjoyed their graduation.

down market street, upon the conclusion of the commencement, i was similarly amused to observe a convertible carload of happy lowell high graduates, holding caps and sheepskins aloft in pure and unadulterated (a pun there for sure--don't miss my good ones) celebration. i'm here to tell you right up front there was rule-breaking going on in that car. the seatbelts on the rear seat passengers were most definitely not fastened for the most obvious thing, (the kids in the back were standing as they celebrated themselves down the horn-echoing brick and concrete canyon of market street), but myself and more than a few other good red-blooded americans were nevertheless smiling at the sheer joy of the moment.

we live in a city where high school graduation is anything but certain for far too many of our kids. to see any four celebrating their overcoming of the odds in such pure and joyful fashion is a wonderful thing. so to see the flashing blue lights of our own local polizei giving that moment a pause is just a little bit disappointing.

i will tell anyone who will listen, and even the rest who won't, that the lowell police department is, hands down, the best it has ever been my good fortune, pride and pleasure by which to be protected. but i will also say that i could not bring myself to look at the number on the bumper of the squad car so i would not have to know which one of these city's finest saw their duty necessary to break that moment. i can only hope that just a warning was given. if a fine, then i will promise right here and right now, if the driver of the car or any other passenger receiving a citation will get in touch with me, i'll pay it myself because i, for one and for many i am sure, am with you in your celebration because you earned it.

congratulations, lowell high class of 2012. well done!

lisa redmond

lisa redmond can say more in 41 words than the rest of us can manage in an entire afternoon.

http://suninthecourts.wordpress.com/2012/06/05/banned/

"lowell—[a woman], 52, of lowell, has been banned from lowell city manager bernie lynch’s office after she allegedly threatened to “shoot dead” one of lynch’s secretaries because lynch wasn’t in the office and the secretary wouldn’t say where he was".

(where can the rest of us get loyal help like that?!)

i loves me my daily lisa redmond

is it real or is it...?

their website hopefully suggests they're the musical equivalent of saturday night live--the cast changes, but the quality remains (several recent SNL season shows notwithstanding)--and this thursday night blood, sweat and tears comes to the lowell memorial auditorium for us to decide for ourselves.

yes, i did come by tickets.

many folks decline to recall that david clayton thomas was himself a BS&T carpetbagger, and there are always al kooper's arrangements to contemplate--as much a star to any horn afficionado as the players who breathe them to life--and, of course, there are al's and DCT's and berry gordy's and carole king's and laura nyro's songs, as always, to consider. no, it's never going to be the "real" BS&T, (the consensus being that was long gone the moment BS&T 4 hit the shelves and the balance of the band hit the bricks), but was it ever REALLY the real BS&T the moment they showed al kooper the door because he didn't sing well enough for radio? (or whatever "creative differences" meant at the time--after all, kooper was the guy who arranged the organ part on dylan's "like a rolling stone" ON THE SPOT just because he wanted to crash the session, and he discovered and then produced and played on the first three lynyrd skynyrd albums, songs from which include "sweet home alabama" and "freebird", and who knows whether he wrote a book, too, just so he could jam out and be musical director with stephen king and the rock bottom remainders--and, oh, yeah, kooper also teaches songwriting and record production at berklee).

the lineups over the years have featured guys like "blue lou" marini and tom "bones" malone, (ok, i'm a sucker for that original SNL house band--they were AWESOME), and there's no shortage of "left to play with..." side notes to attest to the quality of the players who have come through the group on their way up (it's not a place for has-beens on their way down, DCT's reprise notwithstanding) and made their mark in the musical world. and there's no critic who has ever argued that the new guys couldn't play, no matter how many times they shuffle the playing cards.

so it is that thursday night i'm in. it'll be my first time seeing them (whoever "them" may be) live in my life--the band i loved having gone long past their cultural relevance long before i was 15. but, yes, that's a bit harsh--i guess you have to say they're always culturally relevant, in the same way that folks will turn out to see a million were-beens (like dennis deyoung--i cannot believe i'm gonna pop $35 to see someone i never liked just so i can see jonny butcher rip up boardinghouse park, but what else can a poor rocker do?) just because they know that those parts of our collective musical history are relevant in their way, too.

so i'll let you know how it goes. any rock and roller will tell you no show is irrelevant that sports a top-notch horn section and some nice, tight arrangements to let them shine.

thanks, al, for those memories and these sounds we still hear every day of our lives, and all the rest.

"the child is father to the man".

yes he is.

food for partisan thought

the title of this study is just as dry as the clinical descriptions of the experiments--"visceral states are not projected onto dissimilar others"--but it illustrates a fundamental point that's glaringly obvious to those of us without major party political affiliation: republicans and democrats are sociopathic in their opposition to each other. this would be little more than a clinical oddity were it not for the consequence that republicans and democrats waging their political war against each other are tearing apart and destroying the very nation they would lie through their perverse and prevaricating teeth to us that they love. (study summary here: http://www.sitemaker.umich.edu/eob/files/final-dissimilarothers.pdf).

on the daily show last night, right after a hilarious pillorying of obama supporters "polishing the turd" of the most recent employment statistics, (anecdote offered here to try to soften up any possible unfounded right-wing distrust of mr. stewart), jon interviewed norman j. ornstein and thomas e. mann on their latest book, "it's even worse than it looks: how the american constitutional system collided with the new politics of extremism". (extended interview video here: http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-june-4-2012/exclusive---norman-j--ornstein---thomas-e--mann-extended-interview-pt--1).

ornstein and mann are affiliated respectively with the american enterprise institute and the brookings institute, (the "hatfields and mccoys of political think tankery, as stewart puts it), in case that gives some perspective on the bipartisanship of their writing. they specifically decry the party perversity that would prioritize the political destruction of the opposition above any possibility of solving any actual problems. in light of the study at the top here, it all makes a certain amount of sense, though the greater truth is that our major political parties ARE the problem right now most desperately in need of solving.

cliff krieger, in his recent blog post, referred to instapundit's (cliff's favorite blogger) "preference cascade" that can take place when those out of power begin to realize they are actually in the majority. of course, being a republican, cliff mistakenly projects his bias into electoral hopes for mittington romney the 3rd. quite seriously, cliff, and everyone else reading here, it's painfully obvious that any "preference cascade" can only happen OUTSIDE our major political party system, because it is quite clearly BOTH parties who are standing to oppose the best interest of this country, in deference to their pathological and sociopathic opposition to each other.

are you yet unenrolled? sapere aude. unenroll. be part of the solution.

shine on *** moon

leon redbone was a bit uneven this past saturday night, but hearing a roomful of something-somethings singing along all together to exhort the moon to shine on up in the sky never gets old. tonight, in downtown lowell, it's the strawberry (not harvest) moon's turn, and though i don't know any songs specifically about it, i'm pretty excited about it for several reasons.

first of all and foremost, native strawberries here in new england are arguably (i'll argue about it anytime and anywhere anyway) the best in the world. nowhere else i have ever been have they been as compact, sweet and bursting with juice and flavor as they are right here (not at all like the styrofoam alternatives you get in the supermarkets) and right now--so good they named a full moon after them, and worth all the hype and more. (get yours!)

secondarily, but also directly related to the first and foremost point, the spring blossom honey is in at carlisle honey, and the contributions from the strawberry blossoms over the past weeks are not possible to underestimate. some day they'll figure a way to work up some purely-strawberry spring blossom honey, and it'll be time for the rapture, though until then, what's coming is, as they say, all that heaven now allows.

thirdly, and perhaps most temporally relevant today observing that the strawberries are still in the process of coming in, is that howl in lowell is having yet another of their "full moon" observances, once again at fuse bistro. other than a prime opportunity to meet and greet with the movers and shakers of the downtown and elsewhere in the city, this is most notable because larry tremblay and carl johnson are joining forces and PA equipment to open up an opportunity for the city's musicians to, as howl likes to put it in their marketing verbiage, "come out and play".

where else are you going to get an opportunity like this on a gray and rainy monday night?

c'mon, you know you wanna...

"when i was your age..."

it's raining and today's "recreational" soccer has been cancelled for kids in lowell.

"when i was your age..."

bob bigelow wrote a great book entitled "just let the kids play" in which he excoriates our present culture's obsessive excesses related to youth sports. a first-round NBA draft pick, he knows a little bit about high athletic achievement, and how it is actually and non-intuitively poorly-served by the mistakes we're making with our kids.

i think of bob's book whenever circumstance related to childrens' play is "officially" decided by any "league" or collection of adults.

"when i was your age..."

when i was young, yeah, we had little league, and, yeah, "tryouts" and "cuts" and all that nonsense were equally ridiculous as they are today, but we really didn't have organized "recreational" sports for kids as a rule--we had a million back doors and a million mothers telling us all to "go outside and play". sometimes we played something resembling a sport, (our wiffleball and street hockey marathons were epic), but mostly we just organized any sort of activity, chose sides, and PLAYED.

think about it--when you're a kid, and when the score starts to get lopsided, what do you do? do you trash talk the other team and run up the score? no! you take the best kid from the side with the upper hand, and you trade him for the worst kid on the side taking the beating, and you make things as even as you can so that the game is more fun and then you start again at zero so it can be a contest.

think about it. the first and only thing most adults try to do when organizing kids sports is try to load their team so their kids can win. but the last thing on the mind of a natural kid is rigging the game beforehand--they just want to have fun. so you have the two best kids pick alternately to make things as even as possible. (yeah, somebody gets picked last--it's the way fair works). it's a GAME, fer crissakes. and if it's raining? if you do go inside, it's to go into the basement with the street hockey sticks and put a few dents in mom's washing machine. but mostly you just get wet.

no lines.

no refs.

no leagues determining when you will or won't play.

no silly recording of scores of any kind.

"let's play to 10". "ok, but next game i get to pick first". "ok".

if you're supposedly "grown up", but you don't get all this, then, i'm sorry to have to be the one to tell you, but, you're an asshole.

my city was gone

chrissie hynde's nostalgia for what was once south howard, ohio burns as it goes down, and few have expressed their loss so poignantly. as i read howl's scoop on the passing of furey's cafe, (scroll down the word on the street daily feed--things move quickly there) i'm acutely aware that every day lowell has decisions to make about how we remake our city.

on the one side we have the mystery that was and will become the hamilton canal district. you can see the rebirth of gas lighting. you can see the regrowth of pedestrian walkways and the new/old bones of what may and will hopefully become our very own renewed light rail public transit system. (you did all know the almost the entire eastern part of this great state of massachusetts was connected by streetcars back in its heyday, that you could ride one to the other from east to west and north to south, didn't you?) on the other, in the always somewhat dark but now far darker darkness of furey's cafe, the future isn't quite so clear.

in one sense it's all everything old being new again. i spent last night inside fuse bistro on the corner of middle and palmer listening to larry tremblay (and his many special musical guests that included michael skinner, arte kenyon and carl johnson) and marveling that no matter how many times, as chrissie would put it, our city has been pulled down, it's never yet been reduced to parking spaces, and muzak most definitely does NOT fill our air.

furey's was a special place to have a beer and listen to some music. no, not special in that you would feel comfortable taking your mother there, or showing it to your out of town friends like it wasn't every bit the dirty dive it always seems to have been, but special in that only people from here knew it was there. i was having one of those remarkable conversations one sometimes has across the generations with a friend and his father some weeks ago, and i can't say exactly how or why the conversation had turned temporarily to the subject of furey's, but i can say that it was the highlight of the evening to see father and son share the exact same memory, 30 years apart, for a place that had always been exactly what it was. and that, without doubt, is in its own way beautiful.

the quest for the grail (aka the "ember glo" grill that made those amazing burgers) will likely occupy our imaginations for the next weeks and months, and we can only have faith that it will find itself back in business inside its next incarnation. the musicians will find their places to play as they are always compelled, and we will find our places to see them play as we are also. life must and does always go on.

but, today, another small part of my city is gone, and i have to have faith we will know how to rebuild it. we always seem to have.

some day, like the day when my life-long-lowellian friend got to remind some upstart that it didn't always used to be the courtyard, i'll remind someone newer that, yeah, there was once a place called furey's RIGHT THERE.

gone, baby, gone.