choosing a soundtrack

just a quick pic

2012-02-01T17:44:00.003-05:00

took this photo walking back from lunch today. i'm not sure how long it's been there. it's the remains of a schooner glass that's most likely from one of the bars near or on palmer street. (the doorway pictured is the side door to fortunato's, and i'm guessing fortunato's or village smokehouse was the source because the other bar closest to that spot usually serves in plastic cups and fuze folks are pretty sedate, but who knows).

this sort of thing is not an uncommon sight around this area of downtown, but i've only started to use the camera on my phone so i'll just keep putting things out here so people can see what the aftermath of "downtown disorder" tends to look like. (i'm sorry you missed all the puke from the other weekend, but i'll get you next time). this is the sort of thing business owners downtown have to deal with as a result of lax enforcement of liquor rules. of course, some businesses don't bother to clean up their doorways, so we get to enjoy the scenery for prolonged periods of time...

broons

2012-01-31T21:46:00.002-05:00

it's been too long--i have been crawling out of my skin over this recent allstar break, and it was great tonight watching the bruins take the ice again for the second half. the gamewinner was a 100 foot slapper from center ice by dennis seidenberg (they all count!) but the goal of the night for me was brad marchand wrestling and twisting his way among three defenders to get his stick not once but twice on a rebound at the side of the crease to tie things at the start of the third, with an effort reminiscent of the team's cup run last spring. ok, watching adam mcquaid take care of zenon konopka right after shawn thornton dispatched chris neil was pretty sweet, too. (zenon doesn't just lead the league in fights--he's the real deal, and adam taking him on was downright huge).

i love hockey.

"how will we know, dad?"

2012-01-31T20:30:00.002-05:00

i mentioned my kids' obligation to take the keys and perhaps the keyboard when it's time, and their interest to know how to tell when it's time. well, reading the comments on the surveillance camera post on the dick howe site, i'm reminded by tom's contribution that sitting in ones living room listening to the police scanner is something a lot of people (me included) attribute to the elders of the community. (though my college classmate living in vermont has his on all day long--yeah, i guess we're old, too...)

anyway, having been taken to task by the anonymous detractor insisting that the bar i love to hate (his implication, not mine--i would so dearly love to love it for all its potential there on the corner of market and palmer, and part of the reason for the complaints is wishing sincerely there wouldn't need to be any) shouldn't be trashed out loud owing to their being so many more worthwhile targets, i'll take the liberty of clipping and pasting tom's comment and leaving it here for people to consider:

"last saturday night for example, there were no fewer than 10 fights between 12-2am, as witnessed on my police scanner. detail officers in the bars calling for backup at hookslides, garcia brogans, the brewery and brians"

ok, is anyone else yet appalled?

this is exactly the stuff that the license commission ignores when the superintendent brings it to their attention asking for fair and active enforcement of liquor rules. 10 fights? you can't tell me there isn't some degree of overserving going on their somewhere. well, you can, but i won't believe you. nope, not one (apparently) from the anonymous detractor's favorite bar. good on them. (well, good on them i think--as i've told you, the policy there as observed first-hand while in the bar is not to call the cops when there are fights, and that's not my idea of right).

anyway anyway, so here's my take: i LIKE the fact that these places hire details on weekends. i LIKE the fact that the fights are reported, and, unlike tom implies, i'm not necessarily missing the fact that arrests are not necessarily forthcoming in all cases. (though out of 10, you'd think there'd be at least a couple, so i'm with tom as far as that goes). i LIKE the fact that it's now all out in the open so we all (including the license commissioners) can know what's going on. BUT i DO NOT like that there are fights in all these bars, and so many of them. there's no place for it. maybe it's because i'm old, but i just don't see a place for it.

i really can't comment on the brewery. i've only been there twice in five years, despite being in the beer works more often than i can count before and after baseball games and etc. but i can comment on garcia brogans: i've heard second hand by relatives that off duty cops have been assaulted there, (maybe they didn't tell the superintendent they were there so the superintendent didn't know not to suggest garcia brogan's was one of the "better" bars), and in addition to attending music performances and open mics there on numerous occasions, and watching the occasional ball game there, i spend a lot of time at a friend's apartment across the street (not as much time as that friend thinks i should, but, hey, it's all the way on the other side of the canal!!! and the games would be because she doesn't have a tv) and have seen a reasonable amount of crap there for sure. she's had to step over drunks in her doorway, and, when asking the bouncers at GB's for a hand with them, been denied any assistance, which i didn't think was cool even if the drunk wasn't one of theirs--it's right across from their entrance for crissakes. but not as bad as hookslides and brian's ivy hall in terms of numbers. which brings me to the big two downtown, who attract alone likely as many patrons as all the other places downtown put together when they are rolling. brian's brags on their facebook page of having 700 and 800 people in there, even though their room is rated for fewer than 500. we can hope they mean cumulative and they turn the room over twice in a night, but perhaps the fire marshalls would know better. when i'm there it tends not to be on the big dj nights, and it's never over capacity, and i've not been witness to anything deserving of appearing on a police scanner. i've found kevin and the other owners there to be responsive when i've had concerns. (i talked to them at length about noise complaints from other members of the downtown neighborhood association, for one example). they've attended most of the downtown meetings, and by hiring details are in continuing cooperation with the department, even if they aren't held up as the shining example as is hookslide kelly's. hookslides main differentiation is that they bar entry after 1am to anyone new coming to the bar. they've recommended that other owners downtown do the same, and i agree that would be a useful deterrent to the destination drunks who turn up late and wind up doing wrong. doesn't fix the session drunks who get their early and tank up over the course of the evening, but if i am to believe the liquor enforcement forays taken by the department, neither brian's nor hookslides has been cited for overserving, and that's encouraging.

which takes us back to the smokehouse. not one of tom's scanner calls, but it's the wild card in the mix that causes a lot of the frustration. they're the ones caught repeatedly with underage kids in their bar, and the ones not taken to task for it by the liquor commissioners. back when i used to hang out watching the live music at fortunato's back when they had live music at fortunato's, i'd entertain myself during breaks watching the prosti-tots (i can't take credit for that one--that's my friend from across from garcia brogan's) teeter across the cobblestones of the palmer and middle street intersection on their way there. it used to be more fun before they put in the flat poured concrete crosswalks, but there's still a fair number of spills that are not completely explainable by just the height of their heels. but there they go, and there they get served. i've seen more than a few shows there, and didn't have any trouble, but i'm not thinking there never is. (when they had the hip hop shows in there on thursdays it got pretty hairy, and i know enough of the performers to have heard more than a few stories).

so, in summary, 10 fights????

10 fights???

when is someone going to put a little attention on enforcing the rules whenever broken or bent, so that the bars don't cater to the folks who puke and piss and vandalize and fight?

it's something in dire need of happening.

and we thought fed-ex was bad...

2012-01-31T15:29:00.004-05:00

we've read all the stories about how the us postal service (now there's an oxymoron) is running at a deficit so extensive that we're going to have to receive even less service than ever before and pay far more for the privilege in order to save them from utter ruin. we've thought to ourselves, "gee, it's hard to figure out how someone with a monopoly on first class mail could screw that up, but what the hey". and we've tried to feel sympathetic even so, it being, after all, our national mail.

the cost of a first class letter being a bargain, i'll say up front i support higher stamp prices. but whatever the cost of that first class letter, once they accept it and they assume responsibility for completing their appointed rounds, it's frustrating when they fuck that up. (15 year old daughter rule). by coincidence, i happen to have been party to such a fuck-up recently, pursuant to tossing a first class envelope into the slot at the main lowell post office on father morisette boulevard on january 9th, and trusting to their couriers and the hopeful swift completion of their appointed rounds. (haha, joke on me).

it being an envelope (a safety envelope--i take my precautions as should everybody) containing a check of some considerable amount, the loss was not of insignificant inconvenience. it cost me $25 to stop payment, among many other mundane things, and the second time i attempted the feat (for such is proving to be a feat) i was smart enough, or dumb enough, we don't know which, to give them an extra $5 and change for a priority mail mailer and delivery confirmation service the second time i put second check into second envelope. so far so not so good.

so it's wednesday, january 25th, and i'm told to expect delivery by friday, january 27th, but in any case by the third day, which would have been saturday, january 28th. me, being experienced in these matters, i didn't bother checking for confirmation until monday, january 30th, and what would you know but the package hadn't been seen nor heard of since the wee hours of thursday morning, january 26th, when it was received at the mail facility in nashua, nh. i think to myself, ok, one more day, but given there's no progress whatsoever, i call the usps phone number anyway, wait through the extended delay due to significant call volume (what a surprise) and begin recounting all these details and more for the lady on the other end of the line, who assures me it's being forwarded to the appropriate place for research, and i should be getting a call within 24-48 hours.

so do you know where from which this call might originate? care to guess? nebraska or some other such central mail investigation service location? bangalore, or some other low-cost phone support hub? north carolina, where the letter is supposed to be delivered? nashua, nh, where the macguffin was last spotted? nope, the brain trust at the usps has determined that when they lose a package anywhere anytime at any point along the route, the person who becomes responsible to find it is the desk clerk at the post office where it originated. (as the reverend jj likes to sing, "welcome to the city of lowell").

gee, that's helpful. so helpful, in fact, that they don't even give said desk clerk the case # with all the info in it, so i have to repeat everything once again, and then become informed that, "gee, since it arrived in nashua, there's not much we can do for you here". ya think?

but rather than give me to someone in nashua, they will continue to give me to the desk guy here in lowell for further updates. want to know what i'm guessing? our lowell guy will call nashua who will not know where it is either, and then they'll all scratch their heads or some other less presentable body part and wonder where they're going to call next.

in the meantime, i'm out six bucks to the usps, $25 to my bank for the stop payment, and sitting on the hook for another $25 to my bank and whatever it is that ups is going to charge me to take the next envelope, because i'll be damed if i ever give another nickel to these usps people if this is all they've got. so far i've counted the 800 number and the two people i've spoken with there as completely worthless, not to mention whatever wasted time is being forced on the lowell desk folks and everyone they're going to call in nashua, too.

nope, no way to run a postal service. and no wonder they're broke and going broker.

"stop me before it gets that far"

2012-01-31T10:36:00.005-05:00

i have a deal with my kids. they are entrusted to know when to take away my car keys, and encouraged in advance to act when they know it's time. ("how will we know, dad?" "take a look at your grandfather--you'll know"). anyway, i'm figuring i'll need to have another talk with them about my computer. (this is a lay-up for the detractor, so free shot).

in today's sun there's an editorial contributed by a retired sun editorialist. (bob read, age 89, now of west newbury). i generally laugh out loud when i read the sun editorials, so i'm pleased to say the streak continues. this one is hysterical.

apparently, bob is not amused by the current slate of late night talk show host slash comedians. only he is adamant we not call them comedians, because he doesn't find them at all funny. (fair enough as far as that goes--i've long since stopped laughing at leno, and i never cared much for conan). so who does bob find funny, you ask? why, he'll tell you: abbott and costello, the marx brothers and victor borge for starters, and laurel and hardy for his big payoff.

yawn.

don't get me wrong--i've got abbott and costello's "who's on first" bit on my ipod and i listen to it more frequently than even i expected when i downloaded it. it's one of the most classic and funniest bits in the history of the comedy of this country, and it's still funny today. well, funny enough... my kids have heard it, and they know what it is, but i'll tell you that they don't have it on their ipods, nor laugh all that hard (bob describes his reaction to it as "sit through that without busting into raucous laughter and you need help"). so, bob, do my kids need help?

my kids think steven wright is funny, and always watch the tivo'd versions of the late late show with craig ferguson whenever steve's on, which is quite often. they can recite for you a good 15 minutes worth of his deadpan stuff ("i bought some used paint in the shape of a house", and, "i took a walk around my building the other day on the ledge--some people are afraid of heights, i'm afraid of widths", etc.) and never fail to crack each other up doing it. (my favorite is steven's response to the woman who told him she was a nymphomaniac though only turned on by jewish cowboys: "hi, i'm bucky goldstein"). i don't expect other people find it as funny, as steven is absolutely an acquired taste for many, but they laugh harder at that stuff than they do at abbott and costello every day of the week. but the guy they really laugh at is craig ferguson, which i suppose would be much to bob's confusion, observing as we can that craig ferguson is one of those current late night hosts that bob swears isn't as funny as victor borge.

want to know who is as funny as victor borge? weird al yankovic is as funny as victor borge. (weird al is coming to the lowell memorial auditorium this spring, so you can see for yourself). they're both musical comedic entertainers. victor, for kids or other readers not familiar with his schtick, is pretty funny. he was one of the more famous entertainers of his day. but it's not like he's irreplaceable, or even all that accessible now that the music he parodies fall further and further from public familiarity. but, bob, see, my kids do not have any deficiency in their sense of humor--they just have a different context than you.

and i'll have to presume there's some context missing, because the marx brothers are nigh on insufferable through long stretches of their movies, even while they are as funny as it gets in their moments, and laurel and hardy are just plain not funny at all if you ask me. a lot of abbott and costello's bits are pretty lame, too.

want to know what two generations (well, three if you count theirs) of comedy has been distilled down to in my household? they've got all their grandfather's stuff (bob's stuff) and they've got all of my stuff, and they've got all of their stuff too. abbott and costello they like well enough, though not enough to put it on repeat play for hours on end. monty python they find hysterical. steven wright, too. and more than anyone else, george carlin. they LOVE george carlin. which is a beautiful thing, because i love george carlin, too.

and among late night hosts, they've seen carson and love him, too. (carnac baby). they've seen leno, and yawn, just like bob and me. but, see, they're addicted to craig ferguson. ADDICTED. they watch him on tivo more that i watch him on tivo. (and i watch him a lot). they get conan, so there's that, but i swear i still don't. (though triumph the insult comic dog has to be one of the funniest things ever in the history of television, and coco gets big props for that with me). and if they were ever forced to sit through a laurel and hardy farce, they would be on bob with baseball bats to take away his car keys for even suggesting it.

see, laurel and hardy aren't funny. maybe to bob they are, but bob's era gave us talk show hosts like dinah shore and dick cavett, and there's very little funny about either of them. (ok, maybe dinah, a little). so why the hate on leno and letterman?

i know why, and it's got a lot to do with the fact that bob is 89. times change. car keys come, and car keys go.

time for bob to give up his typewriter.

and time for the sun to stop publishing their newspaper for a demographic that, if it isn't already dead, is soon to become so. it's no wonder to me whenever i read nonsense like this why readership and ad revenue continues to go down. it's funny like it's funny reading the loco-emotive writing about keven hagan white as if he has any basis whatsoever to write about him beyond the hysterically funny fact that kevin once and for all proved back, way back in 1983, just how enormous a horse's ass that the loco-emotive was and remains. (google "white will run" and "peter lucas" together to get a quick recap of one of the most famous boston newspaper headlines in history).

i guess we can sum this all up by observing that campy is all about campy.

hello world

2012-01-31T09:57:00.003-05:00

lowell's own and favorite embedded (though is it really "embedded" when you ARE the army?) blogger is on his way back, just in time, apparently, to show those jersey clowns what a real football fan looks like while they're all learning what a real football team looks like next sunday.

can't wait to give him a hug hello when he finally gets back to shangri-lowell!

presumption and predictive sample sizes

2012-01-31T00:10:00.005-05:00

a lot of folks like to blame downtown disorder on this being (i'm gonna quote my anonymous detractor here) "a college town and an urban center containing homeless shelters and a sizable, poor minority population", implying, if i read the code correctly, that downtown violence is presumed to be committed by college kids, homeless drug addicts and local gang bangers, and completely beyond the ken of people who haven't lived their whole lives here. (forgive me if i presume too much, but i hear this from so many people it gets tired very, very quickly). except i might offer into evidence rob mills' nice little piece on his blog tonight identifying the five disorderly guys urinating on everything from the middle of the street to church doors this past weekend as a small albeit fairly relevant sample size for making some observations. (yeah, the right there on the door to the st joseph the worker shrine).

see, the identities of the urinators don't match up with any of those demographics presumed by the folks who aren't down here at all, or the excuses mouthed by the license commission. (what do you know, or, maybe, don't know, but can't give credit to those of us who are actually out at these bars meeting the miscreants in person so as to know a bit about their backgrounds). in fact, they correspond perfectly with the characterizations offered by the superintendent of police at every downtown neighborhood, city council and license commission meeting i've attended. and they match exactly what i see myself when i'm out and about. we don't have a problem with college kids downtown. we do have a problem with homeless drug addicts committing petty crime and thefts and worse, but not particularly during the bar hours, but, rather, other times during the day. and the gang stuff, bad as it is, is happening out in the other neighborhoods, and generally not downtown where all the police are on weekends these days. but you don't have to take my word for it, you can start reading the police blotter, or getting out yourself.

anyway, the five cited are 33 and 34 year old residents of the upper and upper upper highlands, a 20 year old rochester new hampshire townie, a 24 year old littleton, ma townie, and a 26 year old dracut townie. i guess it's possible the 20 year old rochester boy matriculated somewhere nearby, but i'm gonna bet you he didn't. i wouldn't guess any of them are drug addicted, homeless, or members of a gang, either. nope, i'd predict for you that the five are, as most of the folks doing wrong downtown here, drunks from anywhere but here getting overserved at either hookslide kelly's, brian's ivy hall, the village smokehouse, or the bar that shall not be named lest i be accused of bias. in fact, i'll even retract that last bit completely, and exonerate our favorite downtown bar, and suggest that the locations of the five exposed penises and four urine streams would mostly likely indict four counts between hookslides and brians, and one for the smokehouse. (though i will observe for you the urine stains on the walkways aside of the leo roy garage and suggest that not everyone relieving themselves in public over the weekend was caught by the police, nor from just those three bars mentioned above).

good news, i guess, is that i didn't see any puke on the sidewalk this weekend. there were no broken windows or broken flower pots (that i know of) and the fetish kids were their own completely benign selves as they always are at the 'rock. melvern taylor and his fabulous meltones were fabulous, as they always are, over at the back page, which was standing room only on saturday night (and i'm glad to report in apparent full compliance with all fire codes given the quick and professional arrival and departure of three impeccably uniformed members of the department with their clipboard on one of their routine unannounced checks) and doing its usual land-office and downtown-detractor-denying business. (why is it so hard for some people to accept the fact that some folks actually like a decent place to see music downtown, in addition to all the rest of the choices on a saturday night, or any night for that matter?)

the superintendent of police and his captains and their men and women on the street with them have the stats from their arrests and their own two eyes each to tell the license commission and the city council where the problems are, who the problems are, and when the problems are. the downtown residents who are out on the street and in the bars see it too. now we just need the license commission to understand that nobody wants to put the bars out of business--just put the rules back into force, and make this the kind of place that *more* people want to patronize rather than less. it's good for the bar owners! it's good for the neighborhood! it's good for the city! and the residents here don't mind at all if they do.

it's the puke and the piss and the vandalism and the violence that have to go, and the bar practices that lead to it all via lax alcohol management and general irresponsibility. when there's something worth doing downtown, people like me and even people not like me are catching a few beers in the afternoon, (guinness upstairs at the old court at the book event), eating dinner at a downtown restaurant, (viet-thai rocks, though others i know went for the chili at the brush art gallery soiree), and then heading out for an evening on the town. i dropped my usual pile of payday cash happily on the counter at all of these places, getting value for my money and treated well in a safe and respectful environment. the whole thing cost me a fraction of what i'd have to pay for any one of the three alone in other nearby cities, and that's a wonderful thing. i don't want that to change.

it's just a bit less of the puke and the piss and the vandalism and the violence from overserved drunks with which we could do. it's not asking alot.

and another thing

2012-01-30T10:06:00.003-05:00

i found a bit from lynne at left in lowell about various topics that are often discussed here, (self-serving comment alert--it's got links to here and i commented there as well), and was struck by one of the comments she made about the price of real estate here, and the general tone that we have a problem because of depressed values. it's not unlike many of the sentiments expressed by dick howe over at his lowelldeeds blog, (a highly recommended read), where his recounting of the registration statistics if often accompanied by editorializing about the strength and or weakness of our housing market and implying that higher prices are the best thing for all.

huh?

i don't know about you, but between alimony and the general cost of everything from gas to milk, (but don't get me wrong, i'm eager to pay my $1.55 for each quart of shaw farm goodness), i honestly couldn't afford much of anything in any other market here in eastern masschusetts, and i will tell you right now i'd rather consider staying at the bus station than moving out of the area, so we can quit that talk right here and right now. i happen to enjoy a GREAT standard of living here compared to almost anywhere else i could stand to be, and the reason is exactly that the real estate prices are exactly as lynne and dick would complain that they are. if i'm short and can only afford $2 for a beer as walter bayliss thinks is the price everywhere, i can amble on over to furey's and have one, and still enjoy some free live music while i'm doing it. what could possibly be wrong with that?

so who should i be rooting for? me? and all the other people like me? or someone or someones else with a fatter wallet?

"depressed" property values are a relative thing, and they are only relative to people who want to flip their real estate and sell out. me? i don't. i like it here. in fact, i LOVE it here, and i am not going to move. if my condo becomes near-to-worthless, it's all the same to me as if it becomes worth a kings-or-queen's ransom. (some folks think cheap real estate means lower taxes, but they're wrong, and i am not confused that our tax rates vs our tax bills are just funny math that always leaves us holding the same sized bag to pay for our police and fire protection and what have you regardless of how the total was derived). in fact, i'm actually rooting for the values to stay low, so i won't have to deal with people who might be inclined to complain about the kind of joints i like to frequent in my neighborhood. (ain't no worthen house in the town where i grew up, and that's a fact). my skin crawls when i'm in cambridge. it's an empty, self-aggrandizing place with far less worthwhile culture than they enjoy to give themselves credit. (though if you want to spend $15 for a martini, they can write you a list as long as your arm of places to get one). here in lowell, if you want one of those, i can tell you to skip over to the blue taleh, and everyone is happy.

or almost. some people prefer backed up toilets and fistfights on the stairs to clean and safe, even if still divey, establishments, and some other people feel that things can only be better once other people can't afford to live here. in my opinion, both are wrong.

furey's on saturday night. c'mon down. or up as the case may be.

sauces for goose and gander

2012-01-30T08:56:00.004-05:00

lawlessness is a fascinating condition. right here in lowell we have a lively debate about ours, and from oakland and from china today we have curiously related stories, one in which "our" police are finding it necessary to arrest 400 people for protesting too much, and the other in which "theirs" are expressing feelings that the press is being unfair to their own efforts to keep the masses in line.

here in this country, of course, we're a bit conflicted whenever protests are made, since we like to celebrate our ability to make them, yet we also like to point out when those protests are ill-behaved and against our particular politics. (lots of folks hating on the "occupy" folks, yup). in oakland, apparently, they've felt their particular band of rowdies has taken things too far, and found it necessary to put 400 of them in the hoosegow. fair enough. quite a few americans today are saying "it's about time", of course, and quite a few others are outraged. it's how we roll. yet, it's a fair bet if 400 tibetans had been arrested yesterday as well, there'd be a much more consistent reaction, and more than a fair bit of editorializing about the chinese government's repressive and heavy-handed tactics against legitimate dissent, and the "occupy the occupiers" folks would find themselves instantly and vehemently opposed to the chinese, even while feeling the opposite about the east bay constabulary.

i don't worry so much about the contradiction. here in lowell we have people throwing rocks through business windows, and it's pretty clear everyone who is reasonable agrees that there is no place for it. (ok, not a protest rock, but i hope you follow the point). the police continue to be near-universally respected (basically by all but the lawless) and if they arrest someone, chances are good that everyone reading about it in the paper the next day is going to nod their head that a right thing was done. even the single continuing story of civil disagreement (regarding vesna nuon) has produced respectful dialogue, even if not complete accord. (i'm with the cops on this one--there are proper moments to take them to task for their behavior, and while drunk and during the incident is not one of them, though i also might not disagree with the point attempted to be made, though i can't say about this one either way because i wasn't there and i don't know the particulars well enough to have an opinion, other than we have a great department, and every reason to have faith in their continuous improvement). and i'm glad mr. nuon has been able to make his point, too, and don't begrudge him his seat on the city council, even while i regret that it's taking $50,000 out of the public purse to settle this.

so how do we judge "right"? we clearly need police to keep our peace, as clearly does oakland. but we also feel that, in the case of tibet, the chinese have taken things a bit too far. so how do we ensure the line is drawn correctly?

i would suggest we do it via rigorous defense of our constitutional protections. (yeah, it's about that). patriot act? nope, gotta go. not because we don't have need to police our citizenry, but because we need to police our citizenry the right way. franklin's admonishment that those trading liberty for security deserve neither and lose both is not just some empty platitude. living memory can recount near-countless episodes of governmental malfeasance of the most horrible kind, and mr. nuon being cambodian recalls one particularly heinous example. we need to remember that while we are attempting to "protect" our nation, that we are not destroying it in the process. i like to feel that the oakland protesters are going to get a fair day in court. i like how our ideals would have us do it.

how about you?

ignorant is as ignorant does

2012-01-29T23:59:00.004-05:00

i've been called out in a comment to a recent post, suggesting john and lee streets to be the exclusive nexus of downtown bar-related violence, and bragging on the supposedly stabbing and brawl-free blue shamrock, and suggesting i'm being biased and unfair in my comments about that particular bar to the exclusion of others. (i think he or she used the colorful term "hard on" in their critique). their words:

"I will tell you what we can't find at the Shamrock. Stabbings and brawls. Lately, those take place closer to John and Lee streets, indicating to the untrained eye that the problems are arising at other establishments."

for starters, i will recall my last attendance to a music show upstairs at the blue shamrock (gemstones) last summer in which a patron received a broken nose in a brawl, and suggest that just because the ownership declines to call the police when such happens (as far as i know, save at the hospital, there is no record of the incident beyond the memories of those of us who were there to see it) does not make such a place a better-run joint than those who actively cooperate and coordinate with the police, as does, say, hookslide kelly's over there towards john and lee, which is fully to their credit, despite their proximity to the center of unlighted free parking in the downtown, and the people who park there. (i'd include paige on that list of streets, too, but who's counting). the fact that i actually spend time in the blue shamrock to be able to write about it is no shame to me, nor any surprise to those who know me. the fact that the commenter has not read enough of my stuff to recognize how frequently i go in there is i guess just an oversight. (i did a search on "shamrock" in my postings, and came up with 23 references to trips there. furey's got 22. the worthen is i think the winner with 45. hynes tavern got 10. voices rock club got 30. we could go on, but i'm sure you're bored already, too).

i happen to have to walk past the blue shamrock a lot, because i live across the street from it. maybe someone who lives across the street from some other joints can comment about those. but, from my first-hand experience, there are issues there, and i'm not repeating rumors and hearsay i've been told to explain why the trouble there never seems to make either the papers nor the license commission hearings. (ask some people sometime--you'll hear what i hear). i'm just telling you what i see with my own eyes.

i don't happen to ascribe to the "other people do it so it must be ok" school of thought. if beer pong tourneys are offered in other bars elsewhere in the city, i'm all for people in those neighborhoods speaking up about it, too. they're all violations of the liquor licenses held by those establishments, and they should all be taken to task. but i do mind that people would accuse me of wanting to turn downtown lowell into some sort of martini mart, because i don't, and i happen to think caffe paradiso was an overpriced clip joint, and, i think if you'll do a search on fuze in this blog, you'll see i have more or less the same opinion of its replacement. i don't go to the blue taleh. (i went once, that was enough). i don't go to centro. (same). i don't drink anything other than beer, and i prefer it out of a tap if at all possible because it's cheaper and better-tasting that way. i happen to like the back page a lot because they have music and harpoon ipa on draft. i guess that's hard on some people. i do just fine on the pbr's out of the tap at furey's, too, though if it's between that and harpoon in a bottle, like at the worthen, i'll take the bottle and not worry about it. i don't do light beer, and i don't do bud if i can help it. (tastes like crap--what can i say). i'm known to have a corona or two if all else fails. i am who i am and i go where i go and i write about it here so it's no secret. i guess i'm sorry that offends someone who neither lives here nor gets it, but ignorant is as ignorant does.

offer still stands--furey's next saturday. i'll be waiting for you (all) there. first pitcher of pbr is on me.

edited to add a mention of the "adult entertainment" restriction currently being proposed by the city manager and covered in today's paper. i've felt no reason to complain about gemstones' fetish nights, nor the savanna palace "exotica fridays", nor the under impact's various promotions back in their day, precisely because i have no problem with the premise of a business pursuing legitimate business. (which is to say, following rules for the dispensation of alcohol and providing for patron and public safety). in fact, i rather like the variety of things here downtown, because it keeps the martini bars at bay, which is a point, apparently, i have in common with my detractor. of course, i don't know how the anonymous complainer would feel about cross-dressing bumpers and grinders, but i expect from his or her comments to me about martinis that he or she would expect i'd be shocked and appalled, which i'm not, and against that flavor of nightlife, which i'm also not. i've been to drag shows at the 119 gallery and various other places in and outside this city, (that i'm guessing mr or ms anonymous has not), and i considered myself thoroughly entertained. (i especially liked the 119's version, because the rest rooms were clean). i've enjoyed punk shows and hip hop shows and all sorts of things i want to see more of here. i just feel it's too bad that some people's idea of "nightlife" is a filthy bar with no beer that can't seem to follow the same rules as we are asking of everyone else.

a little quiz for our license commissioners

2012-01-28T16:55:00.006-05:00

ok mssrs bayliss, weicker and akashian, this little quiz is for you:

is it legal or illegal in the commonwealth of massachusetts to encourage any organized game which promotes excessive drinking?

do you or do you not consider beer pong an organized game which promotes excessive drinking?

are you planning to or not planning to take any action on the signage at the blue shamrock advertising tuesday and wednesday night beer pong tournaments?

here's the cut-and-paste from the massachusetts tips (training and intervention procedures for servers of alcohol) online training guide:

Happy Hour Laws - Licensees may not: offer single-priced, unlimited service drink specials; give free drinks to patrons; encourage any organized game which awards alcohol as a prize or promotes excessive drinking; or serve more than two drinks to a patron at one time.

in my repeated experience walking past and drinking in the bar i have first-hand observed the dispensation of free drinks to patrons, the serving of more than two drinks to a patron at one time, and, now, this.

three strikes? apparently not in lowell...

would the license commission like to respond? (i'm not holding my breath)
edited to add "drinking in" for those reading-comprehension-challenged readers (or reader?) who missed the previous references to drinking in the blue shamrock in previous posts, and wanted to imply that all i do is walk past the place.

to the moon, alice

2012-01-26T17:44:00.004-05:00

i'm still not convinced this isn't a joke, but newt just promised voters in florida that, if elected, he's going to put the US on the moon again in sufficient numbers by 2020 to establish our 51st state.

"yeah, we're wasting too much money in the federal government and we have to throw the present bums out of office, but when I'M elected king, i mean president, we're going to put 13,000 people on the moon".

LOLOLOLOL

i promise, lord, if he's nominated, i will be the most ardent and indefatigable obama supporter you have ever seen. door to door if i have to. for months if i have to. whatever it takes. just please please please please PuH-LEEEEEEEEZE don't have this much of a sense of humor. i don't think the world can take it.

i'm convinced this guy is batshit crazy, and more dangerous than anyone since cheney.

favorites

2012-01-26T10:42:00.003-05:00

been thinkin...

favorite red sox of all time: tim wakefield. no one else even comes close.

favorite patriot of all time: stanley morgan. this one isn't close, either, but adam vinatieri rates a mention, as does stephen neal, whose jersey i now prefer to wear on big game days. (see you a week from sunday).

favorite celtic of all time: it's a tossup between jo jo white and the chief, and i'm leaning chief.

favorite bruin of all time: do you have to ask?

ironic that orr's is the only case where my favorite player seems to come up on anyone else's radar for such. (he's the greatest of all time, and you can tell 'em from me that gretzky sucks by comparison). i'd remind you that stanley morgan has the highest per-catch average of any receiver who's ever played the game long enough and well enough to accumulate 10,000 receiving yards or 500 receptions, (lance alworth only wishes he had morgan's numbers), but you'd tell me "jerry rice" or some such nonsense (among receivers) or tom brady blah blah blah (among patriots) and we'd just have to agree to disagree. and chief? dominant enough to have played in more games than any other player in history, (jabbar can suck it), and universally recognized as the best-shooting big man ever, (jabbar can suck it again), that's all. but all that is neither here nor there.

wake i love best because his records are of the grittiest and hardest-working kind, and, truth be told, it can never really ever be about records where he's concerned. he'll just take the ball anywhere, anytime and for however long you need him to. no more and no less. he'll throw his arm off for you without regard for the futility of his chances, (as he did in the third game of that historic 2004 ALCS), and he'll come back a few hours later and give you the most heroic and scintillating extra-inning relief performance in the history of the game to say thank you for the opportunity. (three innings pitched including three pass balls in one of those innings, and yet no, count them, NO runs enabling papi to bloop in the game-winner that sent the game's most historic playoff team back to ny and immortality). he's every man who has ever shown up to work every day of his life despite inevitable short recognition and insufficient reward. he's the role model that got me through a divorce just one day at a time.

wake da man.

everything not said

2012-01-26T10:24:00.003-05:00

"hot stove" discussions about the not-yet-born 2012 red sox are bordering on the ridiculous this year, and, upon reflection, i think we can forget "bordering"--they're straight up ridiculous. crawford's had surgery, but he's still showing on a lot of hallucinogenic lineup cards in the deuce spot, somewhere he wasn't even qualified to dream about last year when he was healthy. worse than that, i've even seen projections showing youk as far back as sixth, which is stunningly ignorant of perhaps the best right-handed moneyballer in the league. but all that is digression for the main point:

nobody, and i mean NOBODY has wake anywhere in any discussion whatsoever, other than to perhaps jawbone about whether or not he being cut (a foregone conclusion) requires him to retire so as not to show up next year in someone else's uniform. (as if we own him and his career now, and he has to run all potential choices by us before choosing).

i cannot even begin to express my disillusionment at the prospect of not seeing tim in the dugout every day, and on the mound every fifth.

that a steroid-infused low-life might have sullied cy young's team win benchmark was bad enough. that smarter-than-thou head cases jiggering a lineup all too full of all too second-rate ballplayers (ross? punto???) might feel themselves qualified to ignore one of the most loyal and productive arms in franchise history is beyond the pale.

i'm figuring it's potentially time to be taking a relative year off to reload the enthusiasm for something fast losing all need about which to be enthusiastic.

wake da man.

i'm finally today where all my friends were in '67 about yaz. he's bigger than the franchise to me. oh, i've loved tek and papi and a lot of the other dirt dogs in their day, and others in other sports (adam v we will always love you) too, but i've never identified with a professional athlete this way since orr. i never cared that orr's knees were shot and that he put on a blackhawks uniform for one last time around the rink. SI might call it the "wrong uniform", but all i ever see in pictures like this one are bobby. you can put wake back into his original pirates black and gold, or even, and i love him this much, into yankee pinstripes, and it will still be the same. it'll be like bourque in his avalanche sweater hoisting the cup--a keepsake image of a peerless athlete about whom everything will always be ok. dis obama? won't matter.

wake da man.

you are what you do with time on your hands

2012-01-26T08:29:00.004-05:00

my grandfather once asked me for advice on how to set up diversions for teenage boys in town who were otherwise inclined to smoke cigarettes and hang out in front of convenience stores all day. not being a smoker, nor a hanger-outer, i wasn't quite sure i was qualified to offer suggestions, but i did my best. the bottom line is, smoking hanging out is as smoking hanging out does, and unless and until you change a person's ambitions, it's hard to change their behavior.

so it is that i'm contemplating mittbucks dot com this morning. see, not all teenagers prefer to smoke and hang out. i'm learning a great little song by jonathan coulton called "code monkey" that somewhat perfectly describes the evolution of a different kind of teenage problem child, and i'm abso-loooooooot-ly sure someone on that branch of the species family tree is behind the genius. time on your hands and access to a computer? why, mittbucks.com of course! (a site so nice he linked it twice!)

i know there's a third race of the species (likely more than three, but we'll start here) who prefers to dabble around the internet rather than buckle down and crank out that powerpoint he's been procrastinating, and he (or she!) is powerless not to enjoy playing around with the mittbuck calculator.

try it! it's fun.

(and, no, no political editorial polemicism to be inferred--the kennedy's were rich, as were a lot of our presidents both good and bad, and money is hardly an indicator for much of anything beyond the quality of ones haircut, but lets all agree that the truly rich are not like you or me).

MUSIC!!!

2012-01-25T10:02:00.002-05:00

altogether all too serious for all too long around here...

so here's the deal: arte k headlines the tap room show at the bull run tonight starting at 7pm. tyngsboro carl johnson on guitar. steve "angel from montgomery" esposito on the keyboard. justin "is the kitchen still open?" beaulieu on drums. (carpool leaves around 6:30pm). it's the best of lowell playing the best of shirley and early enough that you can still be home by 10 to catch the in-honor-of-carter-clements open mic at the back page, hosted this week by matty siopes while father stephe hangs out in worcester with the star, or get to bed early for your nightly 8 hours. your call.

but, either way, it's all great music, it's all FREE!!!, and it's all right here for you to enjoy.

get out. live a little. enjoy!

learning something

2012-01-24T13:16:00.005-05:00

there are a lot of things we feel we know, but i'm so often reminded that feeling we know something, and having really learned it to really *know* it are two completely different things. (how often have you done something you know you knew better than to?) and this is a long one, so feel free to skip it if you are short on time...

anyway...

my father used to insist that i didn't know the meaning of a word unless i could recite a succinct (and correct) definition of it. (and "like, you know.." couldn't be any part of such). i knew i had learned something when we finally met in a showdown world championship game of dictionary among the family, and i for the first time got the better of him.

have you ever played? players take turns looking up any word they please out of the dictionary, and then reading it to the rest of the players who write down their best guess (or knowledge) of the definition on slips of paper, which are then passed to the dictionary holder to read to the group along with one holding the actual definition. you got a point for being right about which was the right one, of course, but, more importantly, you got also got points for every other player who voted for your guess as the real definition instead as well. my father was a tough opponent. i know of few people with a larger vocabulary, or better knowledge of the dictionary than he. but we were neck and neck down to the final round, and the outcome hung on the answer to one of the most inscrutable and impossible-to-know words my sister had ever dug out of the funk and wagnalls. we were, as my sister was good enough to plan, both wrong with our guesses. but in my pseudo-definition, i chose to mimic funk (or would it be wagnalls) by declaring the word as indicative of a species of mammal indigenous to the australian continent. (the key word being "indigenous" as i shall next tell you).

i wasn't all that old at the time, maybe eleven or twelve, and to give at least some credit to my father, it was not necessary that a boy of my limited age and schooling would be or could be throwing a word like "indigenous" around in its proper meaning and context. so he voted for my scam definition, and so also i won the game, despite his initial incredulity that it had to be the right definition, containing as it did the word "indigenous", or his secondary incredulity about my having written the pseudo-definition, containing as it did the word "indigenous". so in response to my self-satisfactorial triumph, he sent one of his signature balloon-moment-popping conversational darts as he so often did, having learned the technique so well from his mother, and her from her forebears before her, challenging me to define "indigenous" to prove something. (what, i have no idea...)

anyway, i didn't hesitate:

indigenous. adjective. "native to a particular region or country".

boo-yah.

i had, in fact, while developing my strategy to use the word in my guess in order to win, already known that i would be tested to define it. so i practiced. "native to a particular region or country". over and over again in my mind, so i could recite it at its appropriate time without failure or hesitation.

boo-yah.

of course, rote memory can also be used to offset and thus mask a profound absence of knowing something, as i employed once in the early days of relational databases when i was conscripted to serve in a high-visibility, high-risk, high-likelihood-of-failure consulting engagement, because all of the extremely-few actually-knowledgeable people in the company were unavailable and thus unable to be thrown into the breach. i had ten minutes with one of the smartest men i've ever known to glean whatever could be gleaned before riding into the proverbial valley. (tennyson rocks). i was a finance guy. i had very little database knowledge or training. i was out of my depth. or not. gene gave me the magic words, and (i'm sure there was a german somewhere in his background) he waited patiently until i had them right and rote. "i have specific knowledge of the size, type, composition and frequency of the data, and how they are used". (you knew i was going to love it upon immediate recognition of the use of correct syntax related to the latin plural "data", which is to say, data indeed ARE used, not is--that would be datum--and don't let anybody tell you differently). which is to say, "no, i don't know crap about the relational database itself, or how it works, mr database administrator, but you don't know crap about what's in it, and that's why you need me". yup. (and, to my credit, nobody indeed knew more about what what in it than i, which quickly endeared me to my hirers and forgave everything i never knew about normalization, indexing, and the inefficiency of a full table scan, but when you know the structure of the output, in this case the accounting audit report, you do indeed know the reason why the otherwise inexplicable compromise might be advised, and then, as now, and as always, the government bureaucracy gets fed before everyone else so that's the name of that tune).

which brings us, of course, back to what i'm often on about, music, though not to the end of all this, not yet.

so i'm learning to play a song this week that i would have told you for sure i knew before i started to play it. but--and here's the joyful part--i didn't. not really. oh, i thought i knew, just like someone might think they know the meaning of some ten dollar word like "indigenous" without being fully prepared to recite its succinct definition upon request. but i didn't really know.

and so, by virtue of pounding out each chord, change and fill, i discover as i imagine do all engaged musicians when they become intimately familiar with a piece, a subtlety i never quite noticed before. a chord played perfectly straight by the guitar, harmonized just as perfectly with the vocal progression, yet accompanied by a bass note step that halves the gap and thus defies the formed basis of the melody and harmony, and perfectly dislocates its balance, and provides not, i'm sure, coincidentally, the pure essence of its most powerful emotion. i had always wondered why that moment had always drawn me so... and so this week i have discovered a little bit more of the magic.

which, full circle, brings me to an electronic discussion that began my day about the necessary credit given to science for restoring eyesight via stem cells, vs blind faith in "miracles" hokum preferred by the less scientifically inclined, to which i couldn't help but observe that it is nevertheless still possible, nee *necessary*, to see the miracle in it even so. (and why god-squadders are just as blind to this i cannot for the life of me say). it's miraculous we have "learned" to restore eyesight in this way, but i still see the rote nature of what we can find to do relative to the full beauty and inscrutability of the cosmos.

brian may, once guitar player for the rock and roll band, queen, now astrophysicist, (no joke--he's got the phd and all the papers, not to mention the full-time job), was once asked the "god" question by an interviewer, and he replied by observing that an insect's perspective on a piece of paper it might be crossing is as aware of the rest of our world as we must be about our universe, and that it's quite silly to imagine we really know anything final or even substantive about it at all. i like that answer.

and, as arthur c. clarke once said, "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic".

so, when we get there to learn the next thing that we will undoubtedly eventually learn, and we see the next thing we will be able to see, i sincerely hope we don't continue to make the ultimate human mistake which is to repeatedly conclude that THIS TIME we have finally thus and for all reached the end of the age of our faith, and our music, and our magic.

there will be many who recognize the impressive medical accomplishment necessary to be involved to heal carter, and at least as many if not more who will still know the miracle of faith that accompanies it. anyone who thinks they "know" which is which and which is "real" simply can't, though for sure anyone who thinks they "know" it exclusively had to be one or the other has got to be, for my money, more wrong than either could possibly be.

that much i know.

economy vs not

2012-01-24T10:51:00.004-05:00

my parents were both raised during the great depression, and my father especially still has what amounts to a giant case of post traumatic stress disorder from the experience. for example, despite--trust me--greater means than he would ever be able to spend over the course of the rest of his lifetime, and until infirmity finally broke him of the practice, he would beg rides to the acton commuter rail (his closest station) so he could take a train to north station, a green line trolley to government center, a blue line train to airport station, and a masssport bus to his terminal, all while schlepping his entire collection of vacation luggage, rather than spring for a hired car to begin and end his trip. (don't bother to suggest bumming rides to and from the airport from family or friends instead--if you think any one of my relatives could ever bring themselves to be such a burden on anyone you haven't been reading the stories). anyway, this is the man who once bought me a vinyl baseball glove (they're cheaper!) with which to play little league baseball, and, no, i never did dare to show up for tryouts that year, to which we can credit my life of playing soccer as much as anything else, and you know the very first thing i bought for myself with the very first cash from my very first job shoveling driveways was a brand new rawlings real-leather outfielders mitt.

but this, of course, isn't about that. well, maybe a little. see, the one thing my father's miserliness taught me extremely early on is that there's a vast difference between the cheapest option and the most economical. the first step in any value-related decision is therefore best to be an assessment of what you're really hoping to achieve, and judging the success of your economy on the quality its achievement. in the case of vacation airport transportation, one might keep in mind the objective of a vacation, which is to relax. nothing relaxing about the mbta. and in the case of young child peer group activities, one might suggest anything other than a vinyl baseball glove for what i should hope would be obvious reasons, but lets not digress.

so it is that i'm put in mind of all such while opening my morning refrigerator and taking a long, sweet, cold swig of shaw farms all natural organic whole milk from its classic class quart bottle and feeling the sublime grace of providence for the privilege. (yes, i live alone--tell your mother to relax, and that it's my personal bottle, so i drink from it as i please). see, the bottle is now approaching a week old, and quite a bit toward empty, and it still tastes as fresh as you dream your morning taste of milk could be, and that's a beautiful thing. i've many times been given the sour grapes lament over the cost of each bottle ($1.55) from people not clued into the true economy of that number, but nowhere in their sigh of regret is ever mentioned the number of times such a sad-sack might have caught that slight whiff of "not quite" when pouring from their hoods' or market basket's or whoever have you's plastic jug.

i buy milk to be healthy and delicious, not growth-hormone laced and not. that $1.55 is much more of a bargain than my father or anyone on his side of the family can quite comprehend. (the other side, though no less old yankee skinflint than their in-laws, is comprised of a sufficient number of dairy farmers who would never make mistake over the essence of a good glass of milk, so i guess it's left to you whether or not i've triumphed over my formative environment, or whether it's just the triumph of one half of my genetics over the other).

next time your over-shipped, mass-processed jug turns on you, consider that the shelf life of a properly refrigerated quart of fresh all natural and organic milk just hours from the cow is many more times what you've been habituated to endure from your "less expensive" alternatives. and that saves money.

mmmmmmm

as if we needed more reasons to be annoyed by paul rudd

2012-01-24T09:06:00.008-05:00

jason reitman for some inexplicable reason has found himself compelled to direct a remake of 1987's the princess bride. for those living under a rock for these past almost 25 years, the little gem of an original film takes the fantasy adventure genre and spins it so irreverently and silly-ly as to make something much better to be left inimitable, despite what reitman might be deluded to try to tell you. ("hello. my name is inigo montoya. you killed my father. prepare to die". "STOP SAYING THAT!")

the list of comedic characters in the original includes the like of christopher guest, billy crystal, peter cook, and carol kane, but they're all so completely outdone by andre the giant and wallace shawn that you simply can't help but enjoy every ridiculous moment of it. so how are patton oswalt and nick kroll (whose "creative" resume is topped by playing a spin-off of a geico commercial character of all things), going to in any way live up to any of it?

paul rudd is perhaps the worst of all of it to me, playing as he will, if the BS PR is to be believed, a character originally imbued with unwavering straight-up guileless sweetness (absolutely required by the silliness of the plot) by 25 year old cary elwes. reitman is, of course, completely lost of his mind to try to plug rudd's 42-year old whiney loser persona into one of the world's signature comic straight-man characters, but, who knows, maybe he can be better recast as the 12 year old kid who listens to the story while read to him in bed before the cameras start rolling, which would be far closer to his range and keep him further from despoiling the good parts as he so inevitably will.

seriously--if they're casting rudd as westley, they might as well let robin wright just reprise her original role as the princess--she's closer to rudd's age than he is to his own character's. and a better actress. and, if you think robin wright is a mediocre actress with limited range, then, i can just say EXACTLY!!!

or, as wallace shawn puts it so well so many times in the original: "it's INCONCEIVABLE!" ("i do not think it means what you think it means").

sadly, it doesn't...

edited to add a wink to the uncredited mark knopfler cameo in the original--who are they going to get to play that part, john mayer? (i know what you're about to say, so let me just repeat, EXACTLY!)

music is life

2012-01-23T17:24:00.004-05:00

this one has so many loose ends, i have no idea how to tie them all together...

safe from a lifetime of possible regret, i will always know my divorce was the right thing to do because of the memory of all the times she told me to stop annoying her with the sounds of my playing. she wasn't wrong about the quality of it, but it wasn't right for her to say it that way, either. (as dave champagne sings, "that's not love"). until you give that part of you its freedom, it's hard to articulate how emotional playing your own music really is. nor is it possible to express the depth and strength of the bond formed between people who open themselves up to each others' music. (my past few torn-up days are for a million likely-obvious emotional reasons, but none more than the grace of knowing a beautiful human being as he plays and sings).

music is life.

on saturday, i had the supreme honor and pleasure of sharing my daughter's flute recital, including a spirited and supremely entertaining duet on a scott joplin piece with a friend, but crowned by the artist's declared-imperfect rendition of bach's sarabande and bourree anglais. (would have been easier to look it up had the "teacher" been able to spell it properly on the program ;-). i'm listening to my iphone's immortal recording of it again now, and i'm floored by the tone and the emotion of her playing--it's remarkable. and you are free to attribute the superlative to my emotional bond with my daughter, but that's exactly my point. in these years, she's grown from childish fumbling at notes to being able to express that beautiful portion of her soul when she cares to when she plays, and i'm able to hear it, clear as a bell. herself being yet another in this long line of oneself-can-never-be-good-enough-for-oneself germans, membership among which i am largely genetically and environmentally responsible, she heard everything she is resolved to do better, yet i love her and heard only her soul, and only wish for her to hear it, too.

such puts another tear in my eye for carter's recovery, of course, but so much also the memory of ed lyons, who greeted my same expressions of self-criticism with a scoff and the kindest of flatteries back when he was breathing life into downtown lowell, and into so many others' lives. and i don't remember a thing about what he said about my playing--it was his love for my love of it that he made sure i understood. our music can never be about good or not good, despite what the loveless among us might have us believe. it can only be about the fact that it is just that, and no less and no more--our music.

music is life.

i'll pause to let you in on the best part, too, if you have patience for just that little bit more. the dropped notes on the toughest passage? besides being virtually unnoticeable, they stand testament to something of which i'm nearly as proud--her steadfast courage and fortitude to carry the piece despite knowing of the gap in its rendition. i've watched people fumble and dissemble over far less, and you can picture rick perry's ''oops" to illustrate how most otherwise "important" and supposedly-accomplished so-called professional people fail to meet the challenge. to be in possession of yourself in such moments is, in a way, even more brilliant than being flawless.

music is life.

so she is disappointed she did not improve her "personal best" at her track meet on saturday morning, nor attain the heights of her fullest expectations for her musical self in the afternoon, but she is all the more beautiful to me for having run the race, and delivered the bach so brilliantly as she so assuredly did. i'm having a bear of a time getting two songs wrestled into even just a barely-embarrassing state (as opposed to a fully-embarrassing state) to honor her, carter, ed, etta james, and everyone else whose music has so enriched my life, and i have nothing but awe and gratitude that so many so much better than me make the effort. some people who love me will likely say some very complimentary things about my standing to perform them if it comes to that, and i'll do my level best to hear their love, and not my own self-criticism, but it's always touch-and-go. maybe it's because i know i'm still just a beginner, and i know that my soul really isn't coming through yet, but my enjoyment to just be able to play is enough for me until it can. and, even if it never does quite, i know that my daughter, and carter, and ed, and etta, and all those kind and dear friends who sit to listen would still be ok with me for it.

music is life.

(and so is everything else that is an expression of what and who we really are--it's really about art, and the entire human condition, really, and not just the music... though, for me, yeah, it's music first last and always...)

what is your life?

metaphysical tugs of war

2012-01-23T15:29:00.005-05:00

the first news in several days has offered glimmers of joyful hope, and i'm suddenly aware of how little else i can manage to think of these days. it's hard to manage with the so little there is to hold onto, but encouraging signs give away glimpses of this great metaphysical tug of war, stalemated for so long, but finally and suddenly revealed to be in ever-so-slightest motion.

the rope is pulling our way--there's a moment of joy, but also immediate realization that now is the time everyone needs to pull ever the harder, because everything hangs in the balance, and on such an incredibly difficult and stubborn line.

go, carter, go

life is never fair...

2012-01-22T09:58:00.008-05:00

the soundtrack to my childhood was punctuated by sibling exclamations ("it's not fair") and parental and grandparental responses ("it's not supposed to be fair") that have over time become a mantra for me. i don't know how people who perceive "intent" behind the cosmos can even bear to live in this world--it's so often so brutally unfair as to put any faithful person to the point of utter despair. today is again one of those days.

i learned last night that a story of tragedy i'm sure we all read with due yet momentary sympathy from the newspaper the day before is something much more real to a family i care very much about. it's profoundly unfair. it tears at my heart that there isn't anything more that i can do or imagine to be done--it's still too early to know anything more than just "wait and see". and so we wait, and so we shall see.

every day stories like this are in the paper, and every day families are tested for their resiliency and their mettle. a fabric of friends is sometimes all there is upon which to rely in this unfair world, to go with whatever faith can muster from beyond it. i happen to believe in the power of positive thinking. call that faith, call it whatever makes you most comfortable. but it's sometimes all that can be done while one is waiting and seeing through all the doing of everything that can be earthly done.

there is indeed more than can be met with our eyes...

all good thoughts

the yin and yang of politics

2012-01-21T15:58:00.002-05:00

i'd link the ted talk directly, but cliff over at right side of lowell deserves more credit for finding it. his comments aren't nearly as glowing as i'd have written them. take the link. take the quiz. find out about the five channels of our moral behavior, and why neither liberals nor conservatives are posited to be able to succeed without the other side working with/against them. it's an 18 minutes well worth investing, especially if you have strong feelings about your politics.

http://right-side-of-lowell.blogspot.com/2012/01/left-and-right.html

fair use

2012-01-20T10:58:00.002-05:00

while we're still SOPA-free, i'll shamelessly crib and copy a good one i caught today:

"cain, perry, bachman all claimed god told them to run for president, and all three are out of the race. god is hilarious".

props to self-avowed "people's atheist" dusty smith for the quote, though i hardly think one has to be an atheist to see the hilarity of it all.

i like my supreme deity to have a sense of humor, too.

vada a bordo, cazzo!

2012-01-19T15:29:00.003-05:00

yes, it's profane, (15 year old daughter rule--happy birthday!), but it summarizes in a nutshell the worst and the best of human nature and behavior. on the one hand you have captain (using the term advisedly) francesco schettino, who ran his giant cruise ship aground with thousands upon thousands of passengers aboard, lied about the difficulty to both passengers and potential rescuers, (even as long as 30 minutes after a 160-foot gaping hole had been gashed in the side of his boat, he was on the radio to officials on shore insisting it was just a temporary blackout, even over port officials' giving him the hint that they had already taken first-person accounts of the collision, knew better, and were giving him every opportunity to amend his purely and obviously cock-and-bull story to admit to what was really happening), and then took a space in one of the life boats fortunate enough to have been made to work before the boat capsized, and then further lied as to how he came to be there. (first claiming he had been hurled into the sea via the capsizing, then caught in that lie, claiming rather that he had tripped and fallen into the boat). cazzo is being polite--people were dead, and people were dying.

on the other hand you have a forty-something balding career sailor, gregorio de falco, doing what the rest of us only hope we would have the presence of mind and courage to do--call a coward and coward, and exhort him (or her as any case may be) to take responsibility for themselves and for others, and simply do their job. "vada a bordo, cazzo!" "get back on board", *expletive not possible to be directly translated, but suggested to mean anything from "dammit" to "you limp piece of specifically male anatomy"*.

vada a bordo.

we should all bear such in mind whenever difficulty challenges us to do the right thing. de falco has it right. vada a bordo.

paula deen

2012-01-18T08:37:00.002-05:00

you've perhaps heard by now that the most cloying lard junkie on television, paula deen, has been living with type 2 diabetes for years while she's been shoveling her pedestrian "i think it needs more butter and more sugar" cuisine on our television-besotted masses. anthony bourdain (ever since i saw him with a tribe of aboriginals eating wild pig anus on his tv show i've known he's the baddest ass tv chef out there) months ago called her "the most dangerous person in america", and now it's been revealed she's a paid shill for a diabetes drug company, he's added he's "thinking of getting into the leg-breaking business, so I can profitably sell crutches later". anthony isn't wrong, and he of all people is capable of recognizing a pig's anus when he sees one.

i fear lost among all this, however, is the other half of why paula deen is such a heaping pile of pig parts. human bodies are not the solitary product of what's put into them. they are just as much the product of what we make out of them. which is to say, if all you do is totter between your living room sofa and your kitchen for another batch of hopeful diabetes, the cause of your diabetes is as much the tottering (as opposed to, say, getting out and taking a longer walk) as the teetering over your dietary precipice.

our bodies are not incapable of processing a certain amount of animal fat. in fact, it's my opinion that our bodies prefer to be processing a certain amount of animal fat. (at the risk of saying too much, my almost completely fat-free ex-wife has no better cholesterol ratings than i do to go with her chronic dry skin problems and persistent bowel difficulties and, yes, i do see both the irony and the coincidence). i'm quite sure it's the evolutionary reason we've come to enjoy the taste of it so much. same goes for sodium.

so why can't we see that the problem is not what but how much, for both our diet and our exercise? my 99 year old grandfathers ate what they preferred, and much of it included full-fat animal products from whole milk to every kind of sausage you can imagine. (i don't come by my taste for saumagen to go with my schweinshaxe by genetic accident). one used to put so much salt on his food that he had his own shaker at the table because his wife, my grandmother, grew tired of refilling the communal one. but both of my grandfathers were active to the point of what most people actually considered excess, which, to me, was merely to the point of whatever to which they were able and inclined. (the one retired when he was 85, and i'm still convinced he'd have lived to 110 if he had only worked until he was 95, something of which he appeared well capable). i learned by first-hand observation that they ate only and exactly as their bodies told them to eat, and no less just as surely as no more. when you're up at 4am to go to work, nobody is going to tell you at 7am when you stop back home for breakfast that you can't crush down twice as many cereal flakes into your bowl so as to be able to hold twice as much honey before you pour the cream you like over the top of them.

which reminds me... i'm out of shaw farm totally organic low-heat pasteurized whole milk in the quart glass bottles, and i need to head to dracut later to bag me several replacements. nope, i wasn't up at 4am, but i was out til midnight the other night playing flag football, and i used up what i had over my cheerios the next morning.

dick howe nails it

2012-01-18T08:21:00.002-05:00

here's a gold nugget from dick howe. it's my expectation that anyone reading the local paper of record (we miss you, mr mill city boys) with any sort of an open eye will quickly grow to recognize the vague odor of editorial malfeasance. this post nails the essence of much of it.

thanks, dick!

its starting early this year

2012-01-17T18:45:00.003-05:00

tuukka (2 u's 2 k's 2 points) has long been one of my favorites, and it was a ball to watch him take two points out of florida last night. of course, i was also wearing my tim tank thomas t shirt while i was watching, and i'm eager to see the man himself, the most dominant goaltender of this, his continuing era, take it to tampa bay tonight. (no one who knows me knows me long before having to hear about the night i first saw timmy play at the garden for a woeful team that hardly deserved him, nor knew exactly what it had after retrieving him from finland where he had been, among many other notable things, single season shutout record holder--15 in one single 55 game season--and league champion--he stood on his head and stole that game, as he's earned so many since). but it's not just because they have the best goaltending in the league. the bruins have the best four-line attack in the NHL bar none, from the top of the lineup to the bottom. they roll deeper and tougher and more talented than anyone else in the league, and it's really beginning to show in the standings.

and it's january. it's only mid-way through the season, but i'm already counting minutes before the next puck drop like its playoff time. don't get me wrong, i'm a fan every week of every season, but there's another level that takes over inside me when the team is this good, and, well, this team is this good. better than last year's stanley cup champion. better than every other team in the league for sure. and it's a ball to watch them figure out just how good they really can be. and it's only going to get better.

go broons!

it's never over til it's over

2012-01-17T12:32:00.002-05:00

bill gates thought he had trounced steve jobs once and for good back when his windows piece of crap operating system caught on with enough cheap hardware producers that his operating system (and thus as well his applications) "won" the platform war. (bill g even fended off netscape and left us with the pile of stinking garbage that is "internet explorer" to threaten to spoil the entire internet for good measure). NOBODY was going to stake any claim to any turf that was anywhere near the microsquish monopoly on the PC, and all we witless consumers had the endless technical future to pay for it.

fast forward a few years to steve jobs' brilliant riposte which was neither a macbook or an imac or anything else remotely resembling the hulking pile of crap which continued to be the windows dinosaur, but, rather, an innocuous looking single-purpose convenience called an ipod, which morphed into the multi-purpose and way cool iphone, which has once again transformed itself into the brawny ipad from which all things PC now gain their final obsolescence.

it's my children's privilege (and cross to bear in a different sense) to possess parents of sufficient affluence that they should have been given their own state-of-the-art homework machines upon entry to high school. the first two, poor saps, arrived while laptops were the standard, so got more windows BS and an endless stream of service trips and blue-screen-of-death headaches. but the third one--the golden child--had presence of mind to be born into the age of the ipad, and it's her joy to be given an entirely new world into which to come of age. "ms word" for the laptops? hundreds of wasted dollars and many more wasted hours than that trying to wrestle it to produce what they preferred. "pages" for the ipad? 9.99 and it kicks that other software's ass so soundly as to put even a jaded old cuss like me into instant awe. (oh, and it reads and produces ms word format files if you really want to keep one foot in the stone age).

gates and company never got it, just the same way they never really got what a stinking, steaming pile of ultimate horseshit their PC's were and continue to be. oh, yeah, they pocketed some major bucks from the stock market during the glory years, but find me someone who still actually runs a zune, and i'll show you someone even more witless than the company which duped them to buy it. that ipad of my daughters is an amazing thing, and for $600 running circles around anything and everything windows has to offer, from cheap knock-offs to top-dollar "gaming" systems. the competition isn't even close. word processing? just toss in an easy 10 bucks. (have you priced word for a pc lately? frightening...) apps for drawing and recording music and creating anything her imagination prefers are equally cheap when they aren't next to free.

it's a whole new world out there, and it's never over til it's over. bill gates, like tim tebow, can suck it.

federal distress

2012-01-16T20:16:00.006-05:00

fedex sucks.

i can't say it any more descriptively than that--fedex sucks.

i used to wonder that the usps might be the least capable outfit in the get-it-from-here-to-there game, but it's not really even close.

fedex sucks.

for whatever reason that might be better known to apple, they chose to ship the two items i bought for my daughter's birthday via two different shippers. one got here. (the one shipped via ups--an organization i love for their professional efficiency whenever and wherever packages sent to me are concerned). the other did not.

can you guess who handled that one? (tell 'em raymond--"fedex sucks").

not only did it not get here, but this relatively expensive high tech "signature required" item was actually delivered to and signed for by someone else who is not me and who is not anywhere near anything resembling my address. (who sucks? fedex sucks).

so starting friday night, and every day since, i have used the tracking information supplied to me by apple and called fedex about their having essentially stolen my goods, and i have repeatedly supplied them with my tracking number and my case number and the first names of each successive fedex stooge i mean employee with whom i've spoken about it previously and my full name and my full address and my home phone number and my cell phone number. yes, i have dutifully called each and every day and with declining degrees of civility and as politely as i can manage and asked them to call me back with information about my package. days missing? 4. days i called fedex about it? 4. return calls or any further information from fedex other than that the name shown on the online delivery confirmation screen is not me? zero.

fedex sucks.

i'm really powerless in this situation to do much beyond call every successive day until something can be resolved. for now apple insists that nothing can be done because fedex hasn't confirmed to them that the package is lost. for that much i will say that apple also sucks, in that they took money from me and then took additional money from me to give the macguffin to fedex, and that does indeed qualify as sucks in any book.

if you order stuff online, always insist it goes ups. or don't say i didn't warn you.

a walking tour of downtown shangri-lowell

2012-01-15T17:27:00.002-05:00

i took a (bit chilly) walk around downtown shangri-lowell this afternoon, and gave up counting the piles of frozen vomit (i stopped at 3) broken bottles (i stopped at 7) and loose trash blowing around (i stopped without being able to count) in the aftermath of yet another saturday night. yeah, the patriots were playing, but, see, that just means that the majority of knuckleheads were at house parties not bars, and it should have been less vomit and vandalism, not more.

if you happen to live or happen to run a non-alcohol business in downtown lowell, your monday morning (or your patrons' monday morning) is going to be spent stepping all over all of this.

if you happen to run a rules-bending-if-not-breaking alcohol business in downtown lowell, congratulations, because you've gotten away with yet another saturday night of overserving and overstuffing your tills courtesy of the city of lowell licensing commission who continues to have your back as well as absolutely no interest in respecting the interests of the aforementioned residents or businesses. 3pm it continues to be, and yet another week of no establishment's license privileges being in any way limited by their refusing to respect the rules.

you're welcome.

rob, when you're right, you're right

2012-01-15T09:19:00.002-05:00

rob mills, the sun's police and crime beat reporter, has an exceptionally good blog which is consistently one of the best reads in the city, even if not the most encouraging one as its not today. last night, it would seem, violence from one or more of the bars downtown resulted in a man needing to be med-flighted to boston to save his life, and nobody from the license commission commenting on whether they feel their oversight of the establishments serving liquor downtown is anything less than perfect.

rob's frustration spills over (no one save the police officers he covers sees more of this than he does) into an incredibly reserved editorial comment regarding the arguments the license commission is raising about whether their holding their meetings AS DOES NO OTHER COMMITTEE IN THE CITY at 3:00 in the afternoon while nearly everyone at mortal risk of being stabbed in the evening is at work, save the bar owners who pocket all the profits from our misery, and who, at least in the person of nick petrakos of the blue shamrock, suggest that "to take us out of our establishments exacerbates the problems".

you know what, nick? i've been in your establishment many times. i've never once seen you in it. i know you likely stop in from time to time, but please save the rhetorical BS thats about nothing else besides your wishing to keep all this violence and mayhem swept under the rug, and your tills filling while people wind up in the hospital and worse. (no murders at sub shops after 2am in the past few months, but you know the next one is coming).

the part that pisses me off the most, is the combination of commission chair walter bayliss continually ranting that the violence must not matter because so few people (in his opinion) make it out at 3pm to raise the issue, and "lowell attorney george eliades" pointing out that the 3pm meeting time must not need to be changed because "a lot...have managed to make it here for this meeting this afternoon".

is anybody listening? lax oversight of liquor laws and regulations are causing serious injury, serious property damage, and serious overtime police pay expense to the city. nobody on the license commission seems to think any of it matters beyond their convenience to meet at 3pm and decide to do absolutely nothing about it.

the commission has to go. any one of the three can stand up and give us a reason to feel they don't need to go at any time by making an effort to stem the bloody violence and nauseating vandalism. but not one of the three appears to have the courage or inclination to do so. in the pockets of bar owners, or afraid of their own shadows, i don't know the explanation.

but it's far past time when something has to change.

tebaloney

2012-01-14T17:26:00.003-05:00

SNL got it closest to my sentiment, when it lampooned the ridiculousness of petitioning a deity over a football game. (jason sudeikis' characterization of j.c. himself was a classic, especially the penultimate line suggesting timmy t will be on his own vs the pats and tom brady, since, "have you been watching this guy? i may be the son of god, but i'm pretty sure he's his cousin or something").

a lot of my friends will be chiming in with a chorus of "tebow can suck it" whenever something won't go his way later this evening, and though i'm rather thinking tim is a sincere and honorable young man to be respected for his faith, and that it's more the networks fault for panning over to him every time he does his little genuflections, it'll still be fun to be part of the poking of fun at the nonsense of it all. (bill cosby did a great routine back in the day back when he was playing vegas, about what it must sound like to god anywhere in the vicinity of a casino, with prayers for every number in creation all arriving at the same time).

props to whoever is behind the facebook incarnation of the athenian corner for the wit of a prediction of a 31-6 pats jumbling of john's usual football stadium crowd verse.

go pats! go cousin tommy!

the rest of the shoes

2012-01-14T08:33:00.002-05:00

here are the rest of the dropped shoes. france and austria got kicked from the triple-a club, italy now shares its rating with kazakhstan, and portugal belatedly gets what everybody knows what was inevitable, which would be "junk" status. 14 of the eurozone countries continue to carry a "negative outlook", which is s&p's way of pre-announcing the next round of ratings drops.

this isn't just a beauty contest. these ratings materially impact the interest rates these goverments are forced to pay on the debts they incur via their deficit spending, and further compromise their ability to remain solvent. as rancid sings it, "hey, ho, let the bombs blow--let the dominoes fall i ain't got control".

no we ain't got it either.

chickens and their roosts

2012-01-13T18:07:00.004-05:00

these are never the stories that are "trending now", but they are the ones that mean the most that describe the fits and starts of the slow and inexorable implosion of global sovereign finances. the us lost S&P's AAA rating last summer, and now the european dominoes are starting to fall and follow. france got their news today. when interest rates rise, debts balloon in consequence. we are questionable to be able to pay everything off at the ridiculously low sovereign interest rates we and other "big" countries are receiving today. raise the rates, and it's only a matter of time until more and larger countries are forced to default. when that happens, their creditors often and inevitably fail (financial institutions, at their best, are capitalized at about 10% of assets, and many are only a fraction of that, meaning that a 10% loss completely wipes out their position) and the buck stops, or should i say disappears, at your and my doorstep. well, actually, if it only disappeared that would be one thing, but what appears in its place is a tax burden that will bankrupt not only ourselves, but our children and their children after them.

bush put us on this death spiral. obama not only failed to slow our to-the-bottom-of-the-toilet descent, he felt compelled to accelerate the course. we're either going all-in, or we're going to have to do something different about it than spend, spend, spend.

consolidating a few federal agencies isn't going to do it. abolishing the fed is a good first step and start, and ron paul is the sole candidate for president who seems to get it.

do you?

some journalists are just plain good journalists

2012-01-12T17:05:00.003-05:00

here in this country, especially of late, rightie and leftie prejudices extend for us all the way to the journalists we prefer to deliver our news, and it polarizes and divides the nation when we most desperately need to come closer together to work as one on the solutions to our pressing problems. fox is full of righties. msnbc is full of lefties. i don't know many people who watch both, though i know more than a few people, like me, who watch neither, which is encouraging, but if we could all put down our ideological cudgels for just a moment, i found something i think is worth watching.

it came to me today via one of the subjects of this piece, and it's a little something done by rachel maddow (one of those horrible lefties at msnbc) that so well and clearly captures what's happening here in lowell that i cannot resist passing it along. it's remarkable to me because obviously msnbc has no local bureau here in shangri-lowell, and they (rachel) have had to put this piece together from multiple sources with no first-hand presence to sort out the fact from the hyperbole. yet, here it is.

i've rarely been so close to a piece of news and seen it done so clearly, fairly, balanced and straightforward. rob mills of our lowell sun can do it. few others i've known can.

have a watch. it's a remarkable piece.

throw away right and left--let's choose reason for a change

2012-01-11T09:53:00.004-05:00

fox news analyst (and avowed rightie) judge andrew napolitano was a guest last night on the daily show with (avowed leftie) jon stewart. in the course of the discussion, judge napolitano had this supremely important observation to make and say:

"i don't believe there are two parties in this country... we have one big government party. it has a democratic wing that likes war and taxes and individual welfare, and a republican wing that likes war and deficits and corporate welfare"

FINALLY someone getting it right. well, two someones. here's the next line:

"only somebody like ron paul believes that the government should leave you alone, tax you minimally, and that government is best that governs least".

absolutely.

so why are we, the electorate, apparently insisting on candidates who are hell bent on pursuing war, taxes, deficits and welfare???

seriously. all the republican primary candidates (with the exception of ron paul) are clamoring to out-rant each other in pursuit of further curtailing individual liberties and our bill of rights, while bankrupting us further in pursuit of foreign entanglements that have bled us dry and left us continued to be vulnerable to lunatic regimes bent on our destruction. they are doing this clamoring in an attempt to compete with a sitting president who has made a presidential career of curtailing our individual liberties and bill of rights while bankrupting us further in pursuit of foreign entanglements that have bled us dry and left us continued to be vulnerable to lunatic regimes bent on our destruction.

are we crazy?

sure seems it.

sapere aude. choose to fight for our rights. choose to reduce the bloat and oppression heaped on us by our own federal boondoggle/government. choose to maintain US (our!) power by not bankrupting the base from which it springs tilting at somebody else's windmills. (seriously--if we want to be powerful, we need to keep from squandering it so there's less left when we need it, and if you aren't listening to iran and north korea, you aren't listening).

people have got to realize andrew napolitano is right. reflexively voting for a D or an R is reflexively voting for the same thing.

choose differently. choose better.

shark jumping and the big corporate cringe

2012-01-10T11:27:00.003-05:00

i toil in the belly of an extremely large beast. (more than 20 billion in revenue, and 50,000 employees). it's a good gig, and one that both rewards personally as well as financially, and it's the extremely obvious reason why my apartment is festooned with so many dilbert cartoons--and all those not because they're funny, but because they are all too true.

well, today i experienced a conference call that i doubt even scott adams would believe.

it began comically enough with an extremely senior executive admonishing all us worker bees to reject characterizations of companies in our day-to-day work, and to instead and always refer to the individuals involved. (e.g. not "when i talked to colgate-palmolive", but, rather, "when i talked to so-and-so at colgate palmolive"). and i am not kidding about the near-instantaneous timing of this, but, seriously, within TEN SECONDS of that statement, he was on to telling us all about our goals for the coming year by saying "we are being asked by the company to..."

ok, maybe not so funny to those of you who don't put up with this BS on a day-to-day basis, but it's laugh-out-loud funny to many of us who do. (at least when we're on conference calls from home during which no one can see or hear us guffawing). these jack-offs seriously don't pay the least bit attention to the things that they say, nor worry about the irony of their asking us to hang on every word. putzes.

but the ultimate cringe came a few minutes later when this same personification of a pile of stinking, steaming BS exhorted us all to "unleash your inner dragons", and join him in a group roar. no, i am not making this up. on a professional business call, on which are participating close to a thousand people whose salaries for this 90 minute complete waste of time i estimate to have represented for my company in excess of one hundred thousand payroll dollars, this complete horses ass thought it necessary to engage all these otherwise professionals in a display of childishness most other sensible people would feel best belonged in a kindergarten.

yes i'm appalled. embarrassed. ashamed.

yet, still expected to do each and every single thing that this personification of a pile of stinking, steaming BS arbitrarily at whim thinks that we should do.

PHB (pointy-haired boss) to dilbert in dilbert's cubicle: "someone sent me another anonymous email with a link to an article about the world's worst bosses". PHB continuing to dilbert in dilbert's cubicle: "i get one of these emails every time i leave your cubicle. did you think i wouldn't notice the correlation?" wally, from the other side of the wall of dilbert's cubicle, and pushing the "send" button on his smartphone upon the exit of said PHB: "correlation does not imply causation".

sometimes working from home isn't as much fun as working from the office.

just sayin'

all you need to know about lowell

2012-01-10T10:27:00.005-05:00

one: at 3am last wednesday night, a man was witnessed getting out of a vehicle (with new hampshire plates) and tossing a large building stone through the window of a downtown restaurant (owned and run by iraqis).

two: less than one week later lowell veterans will be filling every chair in the restaurant in solidarity with the owners, saying "there is no place in america for this..."

one-and-two-A: the lowell police have the license number and an ongoing investigation, and experience tells us this will conclude shortly with all those responsible brought into the dock.

my home town all-too-often suffers from a surfeit of out-of-town drunks (in my opinion invited and enabled by lax license enforcement of liquor laws and regulations by the city license commission but lets not digress) and other pinheads who all-to-often exhibit some of the worst in human behavior. but it also exhibits the sort of practical compassion for all which encourages and inspires. and amongst it all one of the most professional and effective police forces in the country continues to impress. (did you read about the 75 pound pot and firearms within 1000 feet of a school bust today?)

i was disheartened last thursday morning, but ever hopeful. in this town, as hard as life is for so many, hope can be found in all sorts of places, and, on these occasions, it's a pleasure to be able to celebrate it.

thanks, rita savard, for getting the story so that it could be put top and center in this morning's sun. (sometimes even the editors get that part of it right). and thanks, lowell, for showing your better colors yet again.

i love this town.

stop and don't shop

2012-01-09T13:42:00.004-05:00

i was erranding today (out of tropicana pure premium "some pulp" orange juice!) and had additional reason to be traversing the 495/rte 3 nexus which includes conveniently the shopping anarchy that is now composed between the polar opposites of the older market basket and the newer stop and shop down there in chelmsford near the lowell line, and being inclined to give every new idea at least a passing chance, i stopped in at the new stop and shop for a change and became instantly and thoroughly disenchanted, nonplussed, and confounded that such a waste of commercial space has found its way into our retail universe.

the ideas involved are intriguing. they've embedded a bank, a cafe, a nutritionist, and all sorts of other innovations to accompany the reason we'd ever consider going there, which are the groceries, but, alas, they've so totally missed the point on the groceries that i, for one, am never going to be going back. (lest i be raped once again at the cash register and loaded with items that are not really or exactly what i wanted when i went there). from the number of empty spaces in their parking lot while the market basket lot across the way was overflowing at the same time, i expect i am nowhere near alone on this one.

don't get me wrong, it all *looks* good from first glance. but then you realize that the smallest reasonably priced blueberry container (the "organic" half pints being $5) is a full pint and way more than a single or even couple would need or be able to use until the little berries go past and down the garbage disposal or into the compost, whichever you have and use. (and you HAVE to have blueberries on your cheerios with shaw farm whole milk in the glass quart bottles). and the mushrooms are almost as much for 8 oz as you get everywhere else for 12. and the deli meat selection is practically double in price that you're used to paying. and the tropicana for which the whole enterprise was undertaken is significantly more expensive too. (i stopped shopping at that point because it was all getting too depressing).

wtf?

hannafords does everything and prices everything far better if you're inclined to travel past the far more geographically convenient broadway street market basket location and go for the "modern" grocery store look, and either will bag you your collection of groceries for a fraction of what you'll lose making the mistake of trying out the stop--this is a holdup--and shop. a fraction.

i estimate for the $40 bag i took out of stop-the-madness and shop would have cost me about $25 at market basket. no lie. (i'm compulsive about this sort of thing, and i keep track). muenster cheese that's $5/lb at market basket is $10/lb at that stop and shop. (mb will be getting my business later). $2.79 s&s eggs are $1.99 at mb. i stopped looking at the butcher selection at my first $4.99/lb sausage package ($3.79 or less at mb) and figured i'd better get out of there while i still had wednesday night beer money for the back page. (you're going, right?)

i have no idea who these s&s people think they are, but they aren't going to be getting any more of my business for the foreseeable future. (no winning lottery tickets yet). and you can make fun of 'em all you want, but the ghetto basket people are awesome when it comes to good groceries cheap, and they are all eclipsed completely by the joy and wonder that is the battambang. (which is only lacking in american staples like tropicana pure premium some pulp orange juice to be just that short of perfect, and costs the same fraction of mb that mb costs as a fraction of s&s, which is to say, item for item, you could eat from battambang for a month on the same budget that s&s would barely get you through a week).

do yourself a favor. skip the slop and shop if you haven't already figured it out. tell 'em raymond: "stop and shop sucks". yes, indeed it does.

saving heritage and building for the future

2012-01-09T11:42:00.003-05:00

the powwow oak people have a noble mission, and that's great as far as it goes, and i'm for it, but such differs from the textile memorial bridge in a critically and strategically important way--the bridge has an actual value and purpose that its absence would leave unfulfilled and us all the poorer for such. we need to save this bridge!!!

anyone who has traversed the mighty merrimack over the various 7 bridges this fair city has to offer has easily and quickly concluded that the view from that one particular span is superior to all the rest, or else they are just not paying attention. (when the windbreaks are down on the bridge street bridge the view of the mile of mills is worth noting, but there's nothing like the dramatic view of the rocks and highlands of the bend in the mighty river that you get from the textile memorial bridge, period). the bridge itself from the travel way is an unsightly amalgam of utility pipes and rusty metal, but even so it's the most vibrant of all the spans with its never-ceasing parade of college students and north-to-south-to-north foot travelers. (if you ask me for the prettiest *bridge*, it's aiken street nearby, but there's more to a bridge than just its own self).

so we are at a crossroads where we can either save this bridge or lose it, and i for one think that we would be short-sighted fools and heartless not to save it. for one thing, it memorializes those youths attending the college who lost their lives in the great war, giving up their education and their life's promise that we should all live better and safer for their sacrifice. for another thing, it connects the college's north and south halves in a way that no other bridge can match. (it angles toward the campus center on the south bank and cuts of what will be the better part of half a mile or more of walking travel from the replacement span). for yet another thing, having been in great world college cities from america to europe and beyond, and from the weeks bridge at harvard to the old bridge at heidelberg there is nothing clearer than that a dedicated pedestrian way brought to life by youth and promise becomes something much more to its city than just a convenience to its travelers and a quaint photograph. artists will paint and sell works nearby. vendors will spring up to sell refreshments. an entire economy will be created and all bolstered by it's simple presence. it's contiguous proximity to the river walk extending to and from downtown would make it the logical continuation of many walking tours, and make the college itself all the more a part of the fabric of the city.

and so we are talking two very important and very distinct things here, and let's not lose the second for concentrating too much on the first. we have an opportunity to build something in addition to preserve something. let's do it.

the next generation

2012-01-08T11:51:00.002-05:00

i had one of the best weekends ever with my almost-15-year-old daughter beginning friday night when we started off with a pile of burger king double cheeseburgers and went straight on through to saturday night while square-eyeing our way through the second of the matrix trilogy (not as good as the first--she gets it) friday night's new episode of supernatural (bobby's out there--he hasn't crossed over--and i think cas will be back by season's end to bring him back to the world of the living, just sayin') some jon stewart, long talks about george carlin routines (she did a research biography project on him, complete with all the adult issues of drugs and etc. and i couldn't be more proud of her perspectives on it all, and even her flawless command of the seven words you can never say on television) and, of course, piece de resistance, a legend of zelda skyward sword marathon session in which we, in one 24 hour period, kicked the collective asses of all her school friends who play the game all week long, and entered the next round of uncharted territory. (and i'm amused to say, for all her prowess and experience, i still had to be the one to dispatch the three-headed chimera boss--"who's your daddy?").

but all this isn't about all that...

catching up on my week's lowell sun reading, i was both frustrated and encouraged that the next round of reporters are out there to follow in the revered footsteps of lisa redmond et al. frustrated, that one of these little cubs, covering a story about a garage fire in which several older automobiles were destroyed, never once in all those column inches managed to tell those of us who don't care one whit about garages and houses compared to our obsession with older automobiles. WHAT KINDS OF CARS??????? (lisa would have told us). but then, encouraged when reading a column by sarah favot recounting the escapades of one intrepid lowellian who, despite a restraining order and an obvious lack of imagination, broke into and then camped out in his ex-girlfriend's closet so he could spring out with a butcher knife while she and her new boyfriend sat on the couch watching tv. no, you simply cannot make this stuff up. sarah apparently has observed and learned from lisa's always letter-perfect example, and given us all the salacious and entertaining details: the list of charges, (assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, attempted murder by strangulation, threatening with bodily harm, armed burglary with assault on occupant, and, of course, violation of a restraining order), the ages and relationships between all the participants, and all the necessary details so we have a complete picture of the luckily-not-tragic farce. jumping out of a closet wielding a butcher knife... classic!!!

"they were allegedly in a prior relationship, the police said".

sarah, you go girl!

a moment for politics

2012-01-06T14:49:00.008-05:00

i'm amazed rick santorum is so clueless as to not see the inevitability of youthful, eductated minds booing his choice to broach a discussion, and then immediately run from the stage upon realizing he cannot have his way with them vis a vis his own personal belief system--one he is campaigning to impose over them without their consent. what did he really think would happen?

the real pearl in the silk purse he's trying to make out of his ideological sow's ear, is the interviews he's previously given regarding the circumstances of the sad death of one of his children, and the resulting current outrage from knee-jerk righties that media pundits would have jumped all over the hypocrisy of it all. and let's call this spade a spade: having chosen to apply an abortifactant (pitocin) in the later stage pregnancy of his wife in order to spare her likely death from a uterine infection while prematurely birthing a baby known to have life-challenging health conditions already is to have chosen a later-term abortion despite all his religious-based ranting that such choices should be considered murder and prosecuted by the government, and is so highly hypocritical that it reeks to high heaven, if rick will pardon the expression.

no, it's not our business to know the details behind the fact that rick's family has gone through such a tragedy, making choices they felt were right for them. and, further in support of at least this small point of the rightie complaints, it's not our business either to know what rick's family chose to do to respect the death of a loved one or to pry into his privacy to make sport of such if he did not wish to share the details with us. but, see, here's where my head explodes: rick went on tv to tell us all about this!!! he voluntarily shared with all of us that he and his wife aborted a baby, and then took its dead corpse home to sleep with, after showing it to all their children of course, which is so creepy i'm not sure i can even get my head completely around it, and all of this retold to us in pursuit of his own private and personal political gain. the whole thing is batshit crazy in my book, every last bit of it, from the abortion hypocrisy to the macabre dead baby to not understanding how bizarre the rest of us feel that all is. and it's even more batshit crazy that rick would go on tv to talk all about it and not like it when we share our opinions in return. (a lot like running from the stage when the college kids refused to appreciate his bs with them, either). fair game, rick. fair game.

which is, in the end, all serving to obscure the fork in the road where rick and i truly diverge: i believe it's rick's right to do all these things in private or in public without fear of reprisal from the law. rick believes it's not my right to do all these things in private or in public without fear of reprisal from the law. and that's batshit crazy bullshit of the most dangerous kind.

the review

2012-01-05T11:00:00.003-05:00

kaitlin dibble and her delusions of grandeur are HOT. first of all, as is most obvious when you see them, kaitlin is hot--sizzling hot--with a smoky sensuality that drips from if not literally pours from her as she sings. and as you are melted to butter by it all, you know that her backing trio are spark, oxygen and fuel to her fire. arte k, carl johnson and stephe clements put down back beats and grooves onto which framework kaitlin hung all of her dusky emotional and personal lingerie like the back yards of so many tenement rows full of stories and characters you only imagine are possible until you meet them in person. the room was alternately enraptured silent, and pulled inexorably into a swaying murmuring "amen" to all of her lines. we simply had never heard it put quite like that before, and we liked it. we LOVED it. don't miss saturday at 7:30 down at toad in cambridge if you are anywhere in the area. this is a SHOW!

which is not to diminish what followed at the back page open mic. carter clements? KILLED it. larry tremblay, who will be hosting next week's jam? tore it up. ken budka and his dad? smoked the joint. it was all so very, very good.

best of all were the crowd. so many faces both new and known, all in love with the evening and being able to be together to share it. (joeg? nowhere in sight. why is that?) those who know me know that i am not a hugger (german lutheran--it's how we don't roll) but i found myself unable to help myself so many times last night. it was the first night out of the new year for so many of us, and to see old and new friends makes warm feelings a contagion among all. downtown lowell is alive. it rocks.

come see for yourself!

so campy

2012-01-03T11:39:00.003-05:00

was perusing facebook a moment ago, and noticed a "good luck" message penned by the sun's editor and addressed to the city council. "good luck to the new lowell city council. top issues in 2012: rising taxes, rising water/sewer rates, more expensive public services, less funding for schools, mediocre business climate, subpar housing market, declining home values, fewer jobs. but we are going 'green'".

what a tool.

as one bright-eyed reader responded: "such a worthless and cynical commentary. lowell's tax rate remains one of the lowest in the area. lowell's schools top all the urban systems in the state. declining home values mean that lowell's up-and-coming can once again afford to get in the game. and sustainable infrastructure promotes lower taxes, higher resources to fund schools, and drives the new creative economy. it's time we focused on better local editorialists so that a better and more objective perspective can be contributed to the discussion".

the swipe at initiatives to make government more efficient, more sustainable, and more positive for the community in which we all live and often work is completely uncalled for. we have a new city council, headed by a new mayor. the goal is to work together to make things better. but here's the bloviating blow-hard of the block letters digging up political controversy in order to attack professional city management.

yep, a tool.

at some point the owners of this paper are going to wake up and it will either be belly-up, or edited by a better class of journalist. one or the other.

bringing in the new year right

2012-01-03T11:08:00.003-05:00

no, i wasn't out with the amateurs on NYE. (hot day at the zoo? good for what they are, but a big cover and wall-to-wall drunks interspersed with meth-head mania? no thank you). it's the REAL music nights i look forward to this new year, and tomorrow night is the first of a boat-load. open mic. back page. stephe and carter clements. (carter being fresh from his collaboration with charlie farren and ready to kill it, as usual, as i'm sure, and if you haven't seen him play, you haven't seen the next big lowell thing). the featured opening set will be by arlington's own kaitlin dibble, backed by one of the absolute very best backing trios in the merrimack valley, carl johnson, arte kenyon and stephe clements. (must see, and must see early, because the music starts at 9!). this is the warm-up show to kaitlin's toad set on saturday night, which, if you see it and like tomorrow night's, you can absolutely carpool along with me to see on saturday, too. awesomeness.

thursday melvern's early spot at toad is being ably filled by jenny riddle and her homegrown gentlemen. (ed newton on guitar---mmmmmmmm). the jam at the back page, new for the new year, is hosted by michael payette, and is to be a soul session, which takes that tired old blues motif and blows it right in your ear. gotta see. then friday it's the early acoustic set at life alive featuring carl johnson, followed by everything this great music city has to offer, including the wcap live broadcast of the featured entertainment at the back page, this week being michael payette and friends, which is yet another awesome night of local musical entertainment.

saturday night, as i mentioned, you can ride in to cambridge early, and then ride back in plenty of time to catch drivin' blind at the back page, or anything else your little musical heart desires.

a great week of local music. a great new year to get out and live a little.

do it!

audio lost

2012-01-02T18:46:00.003-05:00

unlike wcap, everybody does not get the sun--and it's mostly because it's so often beyond getting.

the sun, for example, sponsors a bunch of blogs, (a creditable intention, as far as that goes), but those blogs are inaccessible via web reader software using RSS (unless you go to an entirely different URL that's directly linked nowhere from said blogs) and, in the case of one of them, anyway, a bit even more lost than that.

i'll first put out a very loud disclaimer that this rant does NOT include the police line blog, which is, in my humble opinion, one of the very best hyper-local websites on this entire planet. (rob mills is as well one of the best local journalists on this entire planet, right up there in the pantheon with lisa redmond, but please don't let me digress).

but this rant defintely does include the "audio floss" column for its most recent offering, entitled "if you build it... they will (not) come". in this particular piece of misbegotten misguidance, the author purports to damn with faint praise the music establishments in downtown lowell, implying that even the best among them is conducting its business on borrowed time.

hogwash.

the piece cites the musical failures of several particular establishments, including ole, gemstones, fortunato's and others, and attempts to conclude from this that music in lowell isn't a viable enterprise.

hogwash.

ole? anyone who has been in this restaurant craning their necks to see musicians that simply cannot be seen behind the various posts and other bric a brac, and straining to hear the music through the positively mediocre PA equipment and lousy acoustics, and waiting to be served refreshments that never come from a wait staff that seems bent on ignoring patrons instead of serving them, will not be confused as to why this particular music series failed. the venue was terrible for music. just terrible. the artists? they were first-rate, (thank you, andy kaknes, for booking each and every wonderful one of them), from peter lavender and his limbo souls to jenny riddle and her homegrown gentlemen to arte kenyon and all his friends to carl johnson and his trio to jen kearney and her lost onion to gumbo diablo and the list goes on and on. but the room was about as welcoming as a dentist's waiting room. so how does audio lost possibly come to the conclusions that it was the fault of the musicians or the crowd??? i have no idea.

take fortunato's for another one of audio lost's examples. if you can believe it even to be possible, fortunato's was even a worse music room than ole. it's wait staff (once paul t and his company were dismissed, ostensibly, i think, because they cared) was worse than ole's. it's layout, acoustics and seating were worse than ole's. it's PA was so bad, to be a joke. (most musicians lugged their own amplification). so how does audio lost possibly come to the conclusion that it was the fault of the musicians (most all of whom have stories of being stiffed at the end of the night via excuses of penury despite all the cash obvious in the till) or the crowd??? i have no idea.

the blog even plumbs the depths of the way-back machine to mention mickey's, a venue so disrespectful to both patrons and musicians that the ownership refused to stop the projection tv and it's 10-foot screen right next to the stage during performances. GOOD RIDDANCE!!!

and, last but not least, take gemstones... this here is the worst venue in any city i have ever been in. the toilets at the BEGINNING of the night are backed up, overflowing and (redundant i know) filthy. the bar at the BEGINNING of the night is out of beer. the wait staff are so incompetent that (no word of a lie) one was sent to the bar with an order of a "cc and water", came back confused and so was told that "cc" stands for "canadian club", and finally came back over 45 minutes later to say that the bartender did not know how to make it. atrocious. and audio lost deigns to blame musicians and their audiences for all of this???????

venues that do a good job are thriving in lowell. just ask the folks at hookslide kelly's. just stop by the back page on any given night. just try to get into the worthen on a saturday night for texmas eve, or any other night that they have one of johnny mo's productions in there. the audience? it's already here.

but you have to know that the lowell audience knows it's music, and knows an establishment that treats them fairly and with respect, as opposed to all the examples listed in the blog entry who abuse their patrons and their performers past the point of possibility.

of course they failed. they were terrible.

ever been down to life alive early on a friday evening? they have live music in there, and a packed house. (recent performers included the dave norton trio... peter lavender... carl johnson... the list is right there on the board in their restaurant) even non-venues like mr. jalapeno are standing room only when big trouble plays in their space every few months or so. (and their margaritas and authentic mexican are awesome, PLUS the wait staff actually wants to you be served promptly and courteously). my last trip upstairs at the old court was a night to remember, amidst a packed house and enjoying the real guinness draughts from their tap, sold out and rocking. i can't even think to list them all through the red i'm seeing right now.

audio lost? you bet.

downtown lowell?

find it.

because lowell rocks.

so you say i never give you enough notice...

2011-12-26T23:32:00.002-05:00

this one isn't tonight, or tomorrow night, or even this week. but this one is big:

melvern taylor and his fabulous meltones, fresh off their barn-burning wall-to-wall-packed gig at furey's a couple weekends ago, and itching to throw down in their home town again as they always are, have booked the stage (or the stage has booked them as they case may be) at the back page on saturday, january 28th, at 9pm. this is huge.

if you haven't been to the back page, consider this as your prime opportunity to try out the room. courtney behind the bar is one of the best in lowell. the room is comfortable, the sight lines are terrific and the sound is even better. it's spacious, well-appointed, and always graced with a remarkably diverse and music-respectful clientele. and you won't hear a better night of music anywhere.

see you there!

two more days til texmas eve

2011-12-21T16:12:00.001-05:00

just sayin'

furey's rocks

2011-12-19T11:06:00.002-05:00

saturday night i was forced by the season's overscheduling to oscillate between a good friend's house party and arte k with his bandmates carl johnson, steve esposito and stephe clements at furey's. the party was wonderful, (even ran into a soccer buddy i haven't played with in over five years who turns out is married to someone related to someone i know very well--small world), and the music up at furey's was wonderful squared. now, as you may have read previously (or subsequently if you're getting to this in blog order) furey's is not for the squeamish, but if you invest yourself in the trip and you get to see music like arte and his friends shared with the world like they did this past saturday night, then you are indeed coming out way ahead in the bargain. they were ON as they so frequently are, and they sounded GREAT in the space.

it's not a big space, but the band gets to set up in the corner where the PA and the instrument amps really resonate well into the room. i have a hard time articulating the differences, but let me gush on a little bit about stephe clements and what he brings to things with that trio of others. there's something about arte's music that swings and syncopates just that little (or a lot) tasty bit, and maybe it's also because his shoulder just keeps getting better and he can lean into his bass just that little bit more these days. but combine that with the decades of playing along by steve e and carl j, and you have something that catches you and swings you and takes you all the way around the room in back as you listen.

if you ever get the chance, do not hesitate to hear these players. you'll hear what i mean!

the other side of midnight

2011-12-16T09:25:00.002-05:00

nope, not about susan sarandon's altogether, (though do not hesitate to catch the title film in case that sort of thing appeals), but a few thoughts about the privilege we all enjoy to be out and about downtown in the beautiful city of lowell at all hours of the evening. you've seen previously in this blog i hesitate not even a nanosecond to be right in the midst of it, and quite more than a little enjoy it, and it is from that vantage point that several additional points become abundantly clear.

for the latest on the yeoman's work to keep our city safe, prosperous and well-represented, from the downtown neighborhood association's blog, you can start by getting some useful background here, but the nutshell is that the city licensing commission is rapidly becoming the center of both the problem and the roadblock to its resolution. (good news being it can also become the agency of our salvation, should it choose to act--we can only hope...)

but to summarize from when i first came upon the situation, when i first moved here more than four years ago, i was appalled to see the open and arrogant flaunting of rules and laws related to the dispensing of alcohol, both retail and over-the-bar. stories in the paper were just the tip of the iceberg. regular stings catching liquor stores serving to minors. bars serving to minors. overserved patrons fighting in the bars, around the bars and all over the streets and back alleys. and most visible of all, trash, broken bottles, vandalized public and private property, vomit and urine strewed and spewed about the streets every morning. to the everlasting credit to the superintendent of police and his able and creditworthy force, none of it was ever tolerated, and all of it was assiduously pursued and policed. liquor stores and bars were brought before the license commission on violations. violent (criminal) elements were brought before the courts for their crimes. everything was agreed to need to be improved.

so what has happened in the past four years?

the license commission has almost always, and i mean almost ALWAYS sided with the liquor stores and bars, and when they did choose to act, only handed out token and wholly ineffective "sanctions" which hardly ever caused these businesses to pause in their profligacy. the old incarnation of the dubliner and the long-gone under impact are the only two establishments i can recall ever receiving more than a wrist-slap from that hardly-august body. i'm sure there have been more, and i'd welcome someone who might know to contribute a comment to update this small list. but i'll tell you right now the list of places NOT receiving any meaningful consequence for their illegal operations is far longer. the exception today that proves this rule is the souper bowl, whose patrons have taken to firing guns off in the parking lot to celebrate the lawlessness of the place, serving beyond hours and to underage and/or intoxicated patrons. only upon this repeated and atrocious series of extremely danger to the public, has the license commission voted not to renew (that's right, not to renew--no interruption of the granted license was ever made) their certificate for, as much if not more than all the rest, for submitting the paperwork late. it's an embarrassment to the city, but the long list of other establishments provided by the police, complete with chapter and verse on all the laws and regulations broken, has come to nothing else. the smokehouse is still feeding drinks to underage girls. fights are still breaking out on the street (follow the LDNA link for a video of one) among the overserved patrons at the blue shamrock, fueled by free booze poured from bottles directly into the mouths of patrons by near-naked barmaids dancing on the bar, (yup, picture the wild west without only the west), and cops are still being spat upon, pelted by lit cigarettes, and pepper sprayed by literal rioters in the streets outside brian's ivy hall.

so lets separate hype from hyperbole. you know i still go out every night of the week, to everywhere from one side of downtown (the back page) to the other (furey's) and almost everywhere in between. my favorite spots are the back page, (best entertainment), the old court, (best irish pub), cobblestones, (best burgers and other food), and the worthen, (best classic old lowell bar), but i'll also say that the dubliner's renovations and beer selection are pretty good, furey's divey-ness is unmatched, the smokehouse, despite its sometimes clientele, gets credit for both its tv screens as well as its tap beer selection, and i'm known to turn up at ole and majors and fuse and fortunato's and many others as the music or other considerations lead me. so i'm not deterred by the incidents to feel unsafe, though i would not, not EVER, allow my kids to be out on the downtown streets at night, and i worry about my less street-savvy female friends, and even the savvy ones depending on the hour and the location. no, this is not an unqualified endorsement, nor do i think it is a recipe for downtown revitalization and economic viability as it stands. things need to be improved, or they will slide back into anarchy.

so where is the license commission on all of this? they are trash talking downtown residents for being complainers without the commitment to show up at their 3:30pm afternoon meetings, and then foot-dragging to the point of obfuscational jawboning about possible legal action to stop their meeting times being directed by the city council to the evenings. (none of which is possible because they have no leg to stand on to resist, so meeting times will indeed be changed). commission chair walter bayliss has tried to blow smokescreens about costs, (the police overtime argument being the funniest--the cops who need to testify are on nights, and actually it potentially costs MORE to send them to afternoon meetings than evening ones, but lets not digress), and gotten on his soapbox to bloviate an incredible quantity of nonsense without substance or point whatsoever. he's been cornered, FINALLY, to follow open meeting law requirements to post agendas 48 hours in advance as had never been previously done, and he's finally being shown to be the out-of-touch anachronism and impediment to progress that he so surely is. (the other commission members are better, but not as yet taking action to use their majority to do more right things).

so here's the litmus test. will violators be sanctioned? beyond just the souper bowl? will commissioners respond to police reports and not bar owners excuses? will grievances by downtown non-liquor business owners who are having their patrons having to step over the vomit and urine on their vandalized doorsteps count as much as those whining excuses by the bar owners pocketing their profits while they proverbially piss on their neighbors? will violence and vandalism decrease, along with the costs to the city to pay extra police presence to try to keep up with its increase? or will the license commission continue to rubber stamp and run interference for the bar owners who break the law?

i, for one, hope the commission begins to get that the downtown neighborhood association, downtown both liquor-and-non-liquor businesses, the police, the residents and the visitors to our should-be-fair city all agree that something needs to improve, and that their refusal to sanction violators is the linchpin in the strategy to make positive change. the police are arresting people and citing violations. the neighborhood is reporting everything they see. now lets give the violating bar owners the notice that their privilege to continue violating both rules and laws related to their sale of alcohol will be curtailed and necessarily revoked if they do not get on board.

it's pretty straightforward and simple. you don't have to overserve to make a living downtown. lots of places are doing it. so don't do it. and stop making downtown lowell a destination for underage and violent patrons. we don't need 'em.

there's music and otherwise to be enjoying otherwise.

live from lowell, it's saturday night!

2011-12-15T09:24:00.002-05:00

furey's was the place to be last saturday night with melvern and bob absolutely filling the place for hours of some of the best lowell music around. for installment #2 in the continuing collection of some of the other best of lowell music around, plan to head back there this saturday night for arte k with his partners in musical crime (a crime they are so good) carl johnson, steve esposito and instead of justin beaulieu on drums the masterful stephe clements.

speaking of the masterful stephe clements, did you get the word on his open mic at the back page every wednesday? this past wednesday night, which would be last night for those keeping score, stephe got the heart-of-lowell lee sullivan to do the first set, which was followed by a roof-raising set by stephe's son, carter, who blew the room away with covers of 60's and even 50's gems (deep cuts from the who, some white rabbit from the airplane, beatles, buddy holly, the whole nine yards, plus the white stripes and a great original tune you have to hear to believe he's got so many years in front of him and not behind--the ghost of a one dollar bill) and had the entire room singing along and dancing. stephe rocked some joe jackson, elvis costello and other lyric-writing-writers' classics (it's fascinating to see how musicians prefer certain musicians for their covers) amidst 80's rocking oh-my-god-he's-playing-it!!! songs like golden earring's radar love. some love from donny mchale, a keyboard player whose name i know that won't get right (tanya? sasha? something russian or eastern european i think) a killer tom waits cover and other growling classics via bob williams, some as-usual amazing leonard cohen, johnny cash and anyone else who sings down there like that gold from larry tremblay, and the list goes on. even evan goodrow himself not being able to wait until his thursday night back page jam pulling some bluesy standards for the room to enjoy early. if you're not getting down there, you're not getting it. this is happening.

and, back to the original point, if you've seen arte and gang you know, but either way if you haven't seen them in the quintessentially divey furey's you know you don't yet have the full experience. buck fifty a PBR draft. how can you beat that?

see you saturday!

december 7th

2011-12-07T13:47:00.003-05:00

"infamy" and the solemn importance of pearl harbor have defined this day for most americans, but to me it will always be first and foremost my maternal grandfather's birthday. having so many veterans among the previous generations of my family as i came of age in the 60's, my grandfather always stood out to me for his absence of an heirloom uniform and armed service association. when asked of the times he was no less economical of expression as were all the rest of the men with whom he shared familial bonds--it was a time rarely talked about for any reason, let alone self-explanation. some served, some did not. few found any of it easy to speak of.

the story of each male relative's life through the thirties and forties and fifties had to be teased out over decades of idle conversational fragments. not once did battlefield details ever cross lips, though much could be inferred from edge-of-tears silences over the mention of an observed calendar date, or a passed friend or loved one. we children were taken to gettysburgh and arlington and indiantown gap alike, and no differentiation was allowed between the service of any and all who were called. if none of the stories of their individual service were to be entrusted to us, at the very least the grave importance of the collective service was burned into our growing consciousness. and i include thirties in this, because each of these men was formed in the crucible of national poverty, and defined by the sacrifices required of everyone by the times, and it became to my perception the metaphorical wellspring for all that came after. to this day, my father has a record of every penny he has ever spent, written dutifully down in a series of small notebooks.

as for the thirties, it was upon them that the most subtle of my impressions became formed, of the solitary milk man laboring over his truck into the wee hours of the morning so that it could be driven on its rounds the next. there was nothing to be perceived heroic about this--in the thirties it was done as would be anything to feed ones family, though in the forties it was forced to evolve into the equivalent of a patriotic koan, though few would ever become truly aware of what was required. where once the trucks begged service for a shortage of parts born of penury, they now begged service for a shortage of parts born of the necessities of war. yet it is my understanding that not one day passed without the appointed rounds being made, despite whatever toil and sweat and late night oil it might have taken to get the job done. four am was the hour to awaken, even if three am was the hour to have been spent completing the preparations to make the day's work possible. it was part of the job--it was part of the duty. when i was honored to be the one to clean out the shop upon my grandfather's passing, i longed to be able to save each and every tool in homage to what they had wrought.

my older brothers were able to ride those trucks for summer jobs before the distribution business closed in the early seventies, made obsolete by plastic-jugged gallons at the supermarket for cheap. they told no happy stories of 4am, nor complained when they had to look for something else, but i have always felt as if i missed something that would have been important, being too young to have had my chance. my grandfather himself, when pressed to describe his first opportunity in forty years to "sleep in" until the sun rose, would only say that the business had been very good to him and his family, and that he regretted none of it. and there wasn't one among the others who had served in uniform who would allow the slightest of aspersions to be cast that there were some who held other jobs which were no less crucial and no less important to the work they had been called to do.

many times when i reach for a glass bottle from the refrigerator i think of december 7th, and this december 7th i think of how many people have reached for their glass bottles in their days, and always found them there, fresh and waiting. he'd be appalled that i should make even a mention of it, let alone all this fuss. it was just his business. but i miss him, and this day just makes it all the harder.

everything old is older every day

2011-12-06T13:19:00.004-05:00

i find the second half of my first century to be a fascinating time. i'm youthful by certain standards, (one EMT wheeling off a broken-ankled player from my game a couple sundays ago suggested men past 50 shouldn't be playing soccer, but despite possibly 20 years to his advantage, he didn't look like he could have kept up with many of even the least fit among us, and i'm not sure that's coincidence), though inarguably failing in many important ways. most obvious to me are that my eyesight has markedly deteriorated and my body's overall flexibility and resilience is waning, not to mention my ongoing issues with my surgically-repaired yet not nearly good-as-new knees, but i am quite sure to my children and many others close to me there are myriad other glaring signs of advancing senescence.

what's fascinating to me is how odd my happy embrace of life as it presents itself seems to be. i'll tell you right now that there are many quite a bit younger than myself according to the calendar who are nevertheless decades older by most any other measurement, and you can't help but take all their various comb-overs and spanx-enhanced wardrobe strategies as little more than ironic self-parody. bobby valentine? you mean bobby botox? (it's says something to me that the fealty we collectively swear to our red sox has prevented more of us from calling that one as we so obviously all see it). and, ladies, i've said it before, but it bears mentioning again that your tonsorial vanity and relative lack of height does little more than to combine with the relative difficulty to see ones self from above to festoon the world with far more gray roots than you may realize. what is it that you all think you're trying to hide??? (and nothing approaches the laugh-out-loud comedy of a bad toupe, does it).

perhaps it's simply sad commentary on america's collective obsession with appearance, but it matters far more to me that i remain capable to climb the 11 flights of stairs to my apartment than it does how i might appear doing it. i can't tell you how many well-meaning but clueless-about-me people have suggested to me that shaving off my gray beard would make me appear so much younger. trust me, i know. but, also trust me, i really do not give a crap, damn or fuck about it. (14 year old daughter rule). yes, professionally speaking, i'm practical enough to shave it off when it suits the occasion and my preference to remain working in a profession overrun by far younger people, but even then not always, possibly because it's just a few seldom times a year and it's as much a lark as a contrivance, but who knows. want to tease me about the reading glasses constantly hung from the collar of my t-shirt? go ahead, but you ought to know in advance that i sincerely don't care a whit about how it appears for me to be able to read menus when i prefer. i'm old--i need glasses. why should i want people to think otherwise about who and what i am, than exactly who and what i am???

i like people who embrace their true selves, from their greatest assets and accomplishments to their greatest flaws and failures. i like to think that, as i age, and even as i remain to be in defiance of that age, i remain as aware as i can be about my best and worst and just plain as-i-am parts. on the soccer field, it doesn't matter how good you used to be, or how good you might still look--you either can, or you can't, and it's all right there on display for everyone else to see. players full of their own inflated perception of selves annoy and attract comeuppance, and are no fun to play with for it, except against so as to enjoy beating them. and if you've ever gone out to enjoy any sufficient quantity of live music, you know there are musicians who suffer from all that and perhaps more, since, ironically, we as a species seem to have a problem perceiving music without letting appearance color our judgments. it's a problem we all seem to have.

i'm hoping to be the oldster who embraces every age. the 50's are pretty damn good if you ask me. i expect the 60's can be even better. it's sad that it's not the same for everybody...

better things

2011-12-05T15:56:00.003-05:00

it's always important to have an antidote to life's various poisons, and mine is musical. this friday night at 31 main street in ayer, arte k, steve e, carl j and justin b will be serving it up fresh and tasty. rumor has it arte, fresh from reconstructive shoulder surgery, will be slinging it via a kala u-bass that looks remarkably like mine. i can tell you first-hand, that, in arte's hands, this instrument sounds incredible and incredibly good. (in mine it's still a trial, but i'm learning!) it's tone resembles nothing so much as an upright double bass, despite its counter-intuitive diminutiveness. you'll be amazed. mix it with carl's deft guitarwork, steve's sublime keys, and justin's always right backbeats, and you have the recipe for the most delicious friday night out you can have. AND, they serve cupcakes to top off a delicious menu of great food and fresh beer. only 30 minutes from lowell, and so well worth the trip.

mad men

2011-12-05T11:12:00.003-05:00

this one i'm gonna regret, but it remains related to several things eating at me from the inside which appear compelled to come out, so here you have it. apologies for any of you who might have been traveling out and about with me this weekend, because you've already heard much of it, but it's all of a piece, and i'm going to try to knit the loose ends all together once and for all, and if i am still talking about it at holiday parties throughout the rest of the season, well, it's the baggage that comes from the traveling whereby i've traveled, and it's best i don't try to deny or hide any of it. which is to say, for all the women who might have been or who may be now or some time ever in the future be tempted to look upon me as suitable for a relationship, i'm not and i can prove it:

we can start by observing my pathological and bitter hatred for the character of betty draper in the amc television series mad men. i was tempted to write "unfounded", but, see, i can't ever see it that way, and that's all part of the pathology. for those not familiar, betty draper, played to a T by actress january jones, is a profoundly self-centered mosaic of all that is reprehensible about post-war housewifery. (this is in no way to be construed to be an excuse for any and all that is reprehensible about post-war husbandry, so please indulge me at least a little). in one of the very first episodes, if not the first episode of the series, betty's young daughter runs into the kitchen with a dry cleaning bag over her head, the plastic of which is sucked tight against her mouth thus cutting off all air and oxygen to her young brain, and betty barely looks up from her cigarette to tell her to go run and play with that somewhere else. it's one of the most brilliant moments of television ever, and something that any child of the 60's will recoil from in both memory and horror. (yes, betty draper is that bad).

actually, betty draper is, in my eyes, far worse than that, but that feeling has everything to do with my being guilty as her husband don in so many, many ways, (let's just say he's not been faithful as i had not been for starters), yet like any viewer of the series will undoubtedly turn out to be, still sympathetic to him for how the ice princess/queen betty wields her life's interpersonal poison with malice and virtual glee. i can't describe it fully--it's visceral--but believe you me i cannot see her on the screen without feeling my back up and every fiber of my being on guard to resist the sourge. watch it and tell me i'm wrong...

and so it is that we fast forward to a certain past-weekend social occasion, part of which i had honor to be, and one particular conversation i had which put this entire past week into stark relief.

first of all, to put the social occasion in context, it was so good, and so beautiful, and so heart-warming to be blessed to attend, words cannot do justice. i had front row seats to gary hoey's show at the auditorium on saturday night, and i could not have cared less. we're talking gary hoey, lita ford, jon butcher and charlier farren, and i could not have cared less. google lita ford and get yourself some idea of the talent, hotness and history here. LITA FORD. and my love for all things butcher is time-tested and true. but i tossed the tickets to the floor and never felt for even a fraction of an instant i was missing anything in my life. saturday night's festivities were that good and so much more. words cannot do justice. i was where i was meant to be, with all of whom i am meant to be, and i am continuing to be the luckiest man in the world for it all.

so there i was, with loved ones and friends, the joy and honor to be with words cannot describe, and then the moment occurred.

for background, it ought to be mentioned that i've had a very trying week, both at work and at home. trying not in a bad way as far as work is concerned, but in that very busy, hectic and pressure-filled way that takes a lot out of a person even while it's invigorating and rewarding. but also trying in that trying way that only divorce can offer a person in a personal way, and i've rarely been as blind-sided or feeling attacked as i was this week, and for very little in a practical way, but all that much more so for it.

in a moment i was with both my daughter and my (ex) wife, feeling both joy and love--yes, both joy and love for my (ex) wife as well--i made the mistake to share something personal of myself where it could be used as a cudgel, and my own personal betty draper, love of my once-life, did not hesitate to use it. i am always vulnerable in those moments--i love my children dearly, and cannot treat them with guile even when it leaves me vulnerable to such--and the strike was straight to the very core of me.

on a more philosophical note, i can say that such moments remind me clearly why i am, and therefore so my children as witnesses to it, better off divorced. the venom hurled so quietly and coldly at me was of a moment in time, as if preserved forever in amber like a prehistoric insect, as if not a moment of time has transpired since i left my house and my home all those years ago. i cannot say, these words attesting to that fact so eloquently, i am beyond it, either. but to have it be so--as if there is no and never any hope of moving past such past things--is to remind myself that staying would have been of no possible hope as well. (i do so regret it all).

but on a very practical note, the bitterness with which epithets were hurled, and defensiveness with which they were received, was and is profound in it's simplicity. and in that moment, it cannot be helped that i'm don to her betty. and on edge for and about everything that will take place in temporal proximity. to wit, fast-forward to saturday night.

i was in felicitous company with half a dozen others when approached by a woman who is married to someone known to us all. many aspects of her personal circumstances are also known to us all, for both better and for worse, and it was in awareness of these that the conversation began. for my part, and in my most earnest efforts to always embrace others with respect and care, as much in defiance of the circumstances of my divorce as to always try to be earl's better person, i inquired about living circumstances which were known to be in flux. (it can be added for poetry that this woman's appearance was and is as beautiful as life can approximate television, and betty draper would not have felt mis-presented). as she took the opportunity to share all she was compelled to share related to my conversational questions, i became acutely aware that six had reduced to five and then three and then two and then one, (rats fleeing the sinking conversational ship?), and it was quickly down to just me and the to-become reminder of the oddly frequent universality of the human condition.

the key element of the key phrase, "i let him", was the detonator to my impossibly short fuse, and my first inclination was to want to punch this lovely woman in her face for myself and for all the others i knew first-hand had been hurt through no direct fault of anything other than her being her own self. (no, i would not and did not, but the inclination was and remains very real nonetheless). you might wonder why "i let him" should rankle so, and i'm not sure i can completely explain it, but believe-you-me it rankles. i spent two decades with a woman who "let me" do so many things, yet never offered the slightest shred of respect that it should have been my place and my right regardless of her "permission". i left my marital home, the only home i had, with everything of mine and of me, and a bystander could not have detected anything amiss or missing in the house from which i was being cast out. i had been "let" to live there, yet never given a true place in the abode, and here was a woman, a veritable carbon-copy of my ex, telling me the self-same story about a friend about whom i care deeply. he is to be "let" to have some space in her house, the house that for every social convention and all that is right and good in this world, ought to be THEIR house. can you just feel how generous she feels to offer that much? it was written all over her beaming, fist-deserving face...

yes, i'm bitter.

there are some for whom their whole world and their center is themselves. i cannot deny that there have been moments bordering upon decades of my life where i have been guilty, guilty, guilty of same. but in my ever-hopeful-to-be-more-humble incarnation writing to you today, there are moments when i can see it so clearly because it hurts me so deeply that some who deserve none of it are greeted with a lifetime surplus of it by those who might otherwise be rightfully expected to love them and save them from the harm of it.

why are we the way we are?

i can trace the lines from my grandparents through my parents to myself, and i remind those who are flawed by their love for me that i am nothing but the most difficult of emotional islands that might exist in the world. i try always to remind myself of this, and to err unflinchingly on openness and love for my children, and though i know i am always to be caught up short where they are concerned, i cannot help myself even in the face of my greatest and most copious vulnerabilities, which seems always to be of and about my (ex) wife.

but if you have ever been tempted to "let" someone you think you care about do or be something or anything that they otherwise deserve or care to be, please know that my imagination's fist is ever cocked with a picture of your face in the crosshairs. if you love, you must want your love to be everything they deserve and dream to be. there can be no compromise on this.

or else i call you betty.

lisa for the holidays

2011-12-05T10:15:00.004-05:00

folks here likely already know i have a crush on lisa redmond's journalism. it's been pointed out to me that her being married suggests respectful distance should be maintained, a point of view with which i heartily concur, but it's the newsprint effigy of her via which i'm besotted, and i remain hopeful that she and her husband understand that the little clipping collection i keep of her writing at home is a benign and sincere homage to what she brings to my daily paper on so many happy mornings. she's the ace of the lowell sun in my humble opinion, and her way with a story is as sublime as i've ever read.

folks here likely also already know that i'm woefully behind on my newspaper reading. these selections are circa thanksgiving day gems, and i know they are waaaaaay late for repeating, but if you missed them, i know you're going to enjoy them. and, if you read them the first time around and they're not quite new to you today, i'm still confident they're good enough for seconds. enjoy!

first we have "man charged in curtain-rod assault", which recounts the events related to a "frantic early-morning phone call" placed to police at 4:20am on thanksgiving morning. folks here may recall my observations about amateur night, and here we have the results from two who failed to pay heed to the advice. while on the phone, and while police were on their way, the locked-in-bathroom-to-escape-husband's-choking-attempt story escalated to the alleged use of a metal curtain rod to administer a beating, (yes, this is all very violent, tragic and sad, but i cannot help but see the blackest of black humor here, and please humor me for lisa's money paragraphs and big payoff), and please stay also tuned for a subsequent blog post during which i'll recount a small portion of a conversation i had with a wife i might nominate for consideration for such, but that's also mean-spirited and i probably shouldn't...

but you know i can't resist.

anyway, let's let lisa continue: "when police responded to the 4:20am call, the victim ran screaming from the home wearing only a t-shirt and underwear. police could hear items being broken inside the home".

pardon my fanboi enthusiasm, but i feel as if i were there, reading the way lisa puts it so plainly and clearly.

"as officers surrounded the home due to the number of multiple doors to the house, [sic, and it's one of the few sentences of lisa's i would ever dare suggest might be in need of improvement, redundant as "the number of multiple doors" might be], police gained access through an unlocked kitchen door. police say [the man of the house] was sitting on the couch, intoxicated.

of course he was!

so here's where lisa is lisa, and adds everything we could possibly want to know that is knowable about how t-shirt and underwear girl made it into the street while curtain-rod-happy husband sat on his couch waiting for what would be next: "the victim told police that hours earlier, she and [he] had been at a club and both were intoxicated. they came home and went to bed. at some point, [he] got out of bed, urinated in the bedroom, and in an 'unprovoked' attack, began to choke and punch her, police say".

you and i both know she said something. which is not to condone his unreasonable and unpardonable resorting to violence, but i'm just sayin'.

lisa, thank you for everything you do to brighten my newspaper-reading mornings!

second is not quite as good in my humble opinion, but it has its moments. it's a story of a not-ultimately-so-friendly thanksgiving day game of poker, whereby some friends were playing poker and drinking, upon which occasion two of them (and i cannot ever hope to top lisa's prose, so i'll once again give it to you verbatim) "got into a fight over who should put a bottle of whiskey back in the refrigerator. [one of the men] came up behind the victim with a choke hold and repeatedly hit him in the head with a bottle of heineken beer". (and for all youse lowellians familiar with certain particular lowellians' favor for hennessy and heineken, you know oh so much more about the background of the participants from that seemingly extraneous bit of exposition, and don't doubt for a moment that lisa doesn't know you know!)

yes, it's in those details her genius lives. it was a bottle of heineken.

so very thankful, yes i am.

CHUCK!!!

2011-11-29T10:47:00.002-05:00

yeah, it's getting really bad--this one is from last thursday's paper:

the LRTA is now accepting charlie cards on their buses. this is huge for me. i despise to have to carry change around, so parking meters and buses are my #1 and #2 headaches--i often have reason to want to use both, but rarely possess the coinage to do so. well, downtown lowell parking kiosks let you use credit cards to pay, and now the LRTA has taken the leap into the 21st century by outfitting their rides with charlie card readers.

if you don't have a charlie card from the MBTA, get one. you have to sometimes beg wheedle and cajole them out of the pockets of T employees at the major station platforms, but once you have it, you're home free. (well, home for the price of the subway and/or bus ride from wherever you are). you can load it up at your convenience, and ride around on the balance for as long as it will take you. (and even enjoy the per-ride discount you get on the subway when you use it--it's a wonderful thing). i've taken to dropping $20's into the machines for my charge-ups, and i love it. i always have subway fare anywhere in boston, and now i'm going to be able to hop all over greater lowell on the buses with the same convenience and ease.

can't wait to use it!

best place on earth

2011-11-27T13:10:00.002-05:00

even if you can't be out on a friday night, the nightlife of downtown lowell is out for you just the same. here's a snip from wireless mike flynn and jack baldwin's friday night broadcast from the back page featuring frank morey and his band (scott pittman and matt murphy).

do yourself a favor. click the link. sit back. close your eyes. savor. repeat.

best place on earth.

window shopping

2011-11-23T17:43:00.003-05:00

i miss dharma buns, but i was never confused about why they had such a hard time trying to make a go of their business, even from just looking in their windows. the ambiance was anything but warm and welcoming, the prices once you got inside were steep, and the general feeling from the poorly-used space was of something always not quite being right. (oh but those fries and burgers and ESPECIALLY the pastrami sandwiches were heaven).

this is all in extreme contrast to the impression one gets driving or walking by on market street looking in the windows at dharma's ostensible reincarnation, wings over lowell. the space is laid out for maximum comfort and efficiency with (almost always filled) booths along all the walls, and the bright lighting and reasonably-priced menu say "come on in and take care of that hunger--you know you want to". and you know you know exactly how to make a success of any visit to the place--just belly up to the counter, order yourself everything you want and more, and then just sit down to enjoy. (it was never quite clear from the dharma layout exactly what was supposed to happen with all those high-top little round tables and somewhat fancy chairs).

it's great to see a business doing well downtown, especially after such a short time, and especially great because you can SEE the business doing well right there through their windows every time you drive by. (try it!)

i'm no restauranteur, but i gotta figure, if the goal isn't churn 'em through and drive 'em out like the fastest of the fast food joints, then it's important that everything looks and is comfortable because that definitely matters. i know it does to me. mike over at the other end of the strip at king star gets it. (comfy sofas even!) wings over gets it. the back page DEFINITELY gets it. (though they've all but given up on their food).

the science of indoor space is a fascinating one. and it makes a difference.

amateur night

2011-11-23T16:08:00.003-05:00

there are several amateur nights on the annual calendar, new year's eve not alone among them, and halloween is certainly in the running for the title. but the night before thanksgiving is its own special recipe of drunken disaster, and the mix of old friends and new adventures is as volatile as they come. yes, everyone we know is home for, and they're all going to be out with us forgetting how important it is to be responsible when having ones best good time.

puh-leeze take an old instigator's advice and keep that weather eye out for all sorts of trouble tonight.

one of the best reasons for trading up from a country-living house on a lake to a brick mill condo in the heart of shangri-lowell is exactly for these reasons. driving tonight? not me. not only am i taking myself out of the weaving traffic to reduce the odds of complicating someones evening, i am better and furthermore taking myself out of the weaving traffic to reduce the odds of having my evening complicated by someone less well prepared as i. planning on having a few? plan to put your keys in the bowl by the door and head out on foot, and/or entrust yourself to someone who is not planning on having a few, and is rather planning on not having any at all. it's not because you can't arrive home safely either way, but it's because there's no need to take the chance at all--the chance to wind up on the wrong end of a police roadblock for one thing, but more to the point, the chance of initiating tragedy the night before we all will hope to sit down safe and whole with our best family and friends and celebrate our all being together safe and whole. not all but one who figured themselves bigger than the odds.

there has been tragedy in my extended family this year (the nashoba student who died from a skateboarding accident just days before his grief-stricken father drowned in a commercial fishing accident is one of mine, yes) and perhaps in yours too. think about it. we are all very, very lucky to have the people we have in our lives, and to have had the people in our lives who we may remember tomorrow are absent. let's do our part the keep the gathering as large as possible, and as joyful as possible, or at least as joyful as having to spend a day in close quarters with your entire family can be made to be.

and if you are thinking, "gee, wouldn't it be a good idea to get a head start on the festivities with all of my besties tonight", then do as i do, and hoof it down to the back page (instead of drive) where stephe clements is running a special edition of the traditional wednesday open mic, with all the best people, musicians and otherwise, in downtown lowell. except of course for those who are planning to be rocking to reverend jj and the casual sinners at the smokehouse, which, bonus for me, is on the way both to AND from the back page, meaning i'll probably get myself a little merriment in there, too. the cab drivers of lowell have to make a living too, so tip them well for keeping you safe if that's your option. i may just be joyfully inebriated (though never publicly intoxicated!) enough to toss them a tip through the window myself just for being out there for us all. (thanks, guys! you rock!)

happy thanksgiving everyone!

know thyself

2011-11-23T09:20:00.003-05:00

human ego-centrism being what it is, we all seem inclined to think ourselves extremely smart and capable when things are going well for us. for example, i have to laugh every time i hear some stock-picking "expert" bragging on all the money they've made in the various runs-up to the various bubbles bursting (pick whichever bubble you want, we've had many) in attempt to convince me that they are somehow "smart" based on that track record. even a blind squirrel finds a nut every once in awhile, and when you put a blind squirrel directly on top of a pile of them, the odds can't help but improve even further. and if you made money in real estate towards the end of last century, congratulations--you are officially of mediocre savvy, too. EVERYBODY made money on their real estate towards the end of last century. even the idiots. (with whom one should never argue, i know, lest bystanders have trouble telling the difference...) ESPECIALLY the idiots. (who are all now whining about the unfairness of being underwater). anyway...

so it is last night that my aging and decrepit soccer team enjoyed a good result against an even older and more decrepit squad, and the talk around the bar (the greatest thing ever invented--tap beer just steps from a soccer field) was of all our successes passing, shooting and scoring. it recalled to me the week prior, when a younger and decidedly fit side put a beating on us and made all our passes, shots and lack of scoring look positively pitiful. the tempting conclusion (and consensus last night of course) was that we played better this week. the truth is far more likely that we are the same players we've always been, but our circumstances have more to do with our "success" or "failure" than we ever did or do.

so it is that we enter these "tough times" and fall apart in our attempts to "rein in" the deficit. the truth is we've been fools and profligate spendthrifts for decades, and our chickens are only now coming home to roost because we're out of rope with which not to hang ourselves. reaganomics? the absolute worst thing that's ever happened to us--and we're living the proof.

resources in our system do not "trickle down". they concentrate as a matter of capitalist gravity, and are wasted and, if left unchecked by an actual fair playing field, squandered in an embarrassment of riches among the few at the privileged top, and the results for the rest are dire indeed. ironically, resources in our system absolutely do trickle up, however, and opposition by the rich to living wage and basic human services for the majority of the population is the worst sort of self-defeating idiocy our politics have ever invented.

our military-industrial complex is a problem--no fair competition. our current healthcare "system" is a problem--no fair competition. our current educational "system" is a problem--no fair competition. our current banking and financial infrastructure is our largest problem--no fair competition, and all the money to buy the pols to ensure that there will never be.

if the answer isn't at the polls, i don't know where it is. we need to elect people, like elizabeth warren, (and all you conservative knee-jerk anti-democrats need to think about this), who will stand against status quo and insist on fair and enforced regulation that maintains the proper fair playing field and healthy competition. it's not evil to tax--we survive as a nation on the military, social and political benefits of those taxes--and it's not evil to support business either.

the answer is in the middle. if you're not there, you, as tricky dick used to like to say, are part of the problem.

radio silence

2011-11-22T14:10:00.003-05:00

thanks to all who have checked in to wonder (celebrate?) that i haven't been posting much these last few weeks. call it the occupational hazard of having an occupation, but i'm happy to say i'm fine and still enjoying some moderate amount of local day and nightlife even though i'm not enjoying the time to bore you all about it after.

some of my nightlife has been to attend downtown neighborhood association meetings and take in the presentations and discussions about our quality-of-life issues here, most notably related to crime but extending to other important topics like (my favorite) waste disposal and recycling.

most disturbing this week was to learn that disturbances outside of certain downtown establishments, most notably brian's ivy hall, have resulted in police officers being spat upon and doused with pepper spray by drunken and unruly crowd-members while effecting arrests. this is not to say that all such crowd members were over-served in one particular establishment, (though by proximity one could conclude the probability is highest), but the regional news of this past weekend of an attempted assault on civilian and once-celtic rajon rondo inside brian's ivy hall doesn't contradict a conclusion that there are some problems there. i will first pause to say that i very much like the proprietors of BIH, and have been treated always with respect and generosity by them both in their club and at the various downtown neighborhood meetings they have attended. i've also felt inclined to take their side against various ill-prepared complaints by neighbors who failed to use the proper channels to have their concerns about noise addressed. (i'm happy to say once proper channels were utilized, noise was mitigated, and that one aspect of the club's existence is not under contention at this time, at least of which i know). but this past incident, on top of the abuse of police officers, has me feeling less generous of spirit in return.

word is that rajon was an arrogant asshole in the club, and i have no one's word to the contrary. but two things are extremely troubling, and only one is the breach of peace that occurred in the club as a result of that alleged arrogant asshole behavior. the other is the publicity sought by the club to exploit the incident, bragging on how out of control things get there, and how many people are packed in having that (violent) good time. i happen to know the fire capacity of the club is 450, so when i see the owner bragging on having 700 people in the club on the night of the fracas, i'm tempted to wonder if something is not as it should be. even if the owner was exaggerating and no code violations occurred, it's still disappointing that it's chosen to publicize lowell's incivility by such a prominent public advertisement. the lawlessness by which police officers are put into highly volatile and dangerous situations is exacerbated by public perceptions of lawlessness. the club owners should know better. the club owners should behave better. at some point we are at risk of having a tragedy down here, and i, for one, am not interested to be any part of it. unfortunately, the police do not have the discretion to run from such trouble, and we all owe them a huge debt of gratitude that they're willing to risk their lives and limbs in this way. lets all respect that by building the impression that lawlessness will not stand down here, rather than the opposite.

it's important.

which is a convenient segue to one of the presentations last night at the neighborhood meeting talking about the "broken windows" theory of policing, and how to generate a campaign to erect signs and enforce statutes on everything from littering to parking away from the curb or in front of hydrants, handicapped signs and crosswalks, to (this one's gonna hurt me) jaywalking and ABSOLUTELY assaults on police officers. this anarchy cannot be allowed to stand. people are being assaulted, robbed and beaten down here. now it's extending to policemen just trying to keep everything enjoyable for everyone else.

time to stand up and be counted.

the shawsheen redemption

2011-11-12T11:26:00.004-05:00

you know it's been a busy week of work if it's saturday and i'm only now getting through last sunday's paper...

so this past sunday's front page of the paper of record (oh where have you gone, mr mill city boys...) has a recap of the contretemps between the tewksbury public schools and the shawsheen valley technical high school over recruiting practices and "fairness" in competing for student registrations.

this is rich.

years ago, before there were vocational educational institutions, public schools crammed every behavioral and other problem that they had into their "shop" program, and they were only too happy to ship the whole sorry mess down the street when the vokes opened up to take them rather than do what it was that they were intended to do, which would be to educate ALL the kids, not just the ones they like best. my personal experience with this was going on 35 years ago when i was told, when trying to sign up for an auto shop class because i had bought a cheap (i.e. unreliable) car in order to get myself too and from the work i needed to help my family afford groceries as well as myself to afford to go to college, and i thought it might be a good idea to learn how to take care of it as much as possible by myself. oh, silly me. "my" guidance counselor, who was really the school's guidance counselor, was only in the business of keeping the "college preparatory" class (yes, that's a double entendre) separate and apart from the "shop" class so that never the twain should meet, and flat-out told me that those programs were not for me. i know first-hand from those on the other side who yearned to get themselves to college only to be shut behind that iron-working curtain and refused spots in preferred academic classes because they were deemed unfit to be there that i was not the only one screwed in this process.

anyway, the arrogance of the public schools now to complain that the vokes are taking "their" kids is making me see that color of red i remember from all those years ago all over again.

is this about the kids and their education, or isn't it???

if it's about keeping money and bodies in fading public educational institutions then you can count me out. there's a reason these kids want to go to shawsheen, and it's an extremely informed and intelligent one. the shame of restricting others' right to information upon which to make an informed decision is galling. don't like it? create a worthwhile program in your own school, and let the kids know about it so they can choose. but sit down and shut up if you can't, don't and won't.

my middle son matriculated to the nashoba valley technical high school. he was an ill fit to the traditional "liberal arts" education in the first place that would have been offered to him in his home town public high school, but more than that, he had and has an aptitude and an interest in what nashoba has to offer him. his chosen program is "robotics", by which is meant a combination of materials science, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, computer chip design and software engineering. it's an amazing combination to me, and i regret never having had the chance when i was younger to have chosen something like it. i could not be more proud.

my parents? the one employed in the public schools for decades and the other employed at a private university? they were almost speechless when they heard that he had chosen nashoba. you could read it in their faces. frightened that he would "lose out" at a chance to go to a better college. taking a road that was ill-advised. it took me all of a nanosecond to rip them a new one for their arrogance, presumptuousness, and ill-information.

the oldest? the one with the public school sheepskin and the liberal arts program at his chosen institution of higher learning? i lose sleep nights wondering how he's going to find a job. the second one? the one getting exposed to seemingly every hot employment sector that there is, and gaining an education that will qualify him for the top engineering and robotics programs in the country? i'm bursting with both pride and envy and giddy at his wide open horizons.

so, back to the public schools... for practical questions for starters, do they teach kids how to balance checkbooks? understand compound interest and mortgage and other financing? do home, auto and other repair such as those of us living in the real world have to contend each and every day? (i didn't think so). for even more practical questions for follow-up, do they provide kids with access to programs that are in demand by employers? are they aware of the ways the world is changing, and adapting to meet the challenges with their students? do they even have the first clue?

the fallback excuse i always hear is that education is best as a well-rounded pursuit. humanities. arts and letters. mathematics and other liberal arts staples. know what? while my college-bound high school classmates read and did not understand melville, i augmented my education with an "english skills" class that was the one "shop" curriculum item out of which the guidance department could not shut me. i took a typing class that was intended for secretarial types. (the "shop class" women weren't considered suitable for auto repair, so they were shunted into clerical pursuits). i now can spell, write and type on a computer, and hold down a very nice job in the computer industry utilizing engineering and other skills i had to pick up on my own and absolutely not in high school. AND i read melville, as is currently my second son in his academic rotation which he receives every other week, along with the higher math required by his chosen field, at which, quite predictably, he's doing far better now that it's applied than he ever did when it was purely abstract and theoretical.

both tewksbury taxpayers and their student progeny are getting screwed by the public school administration in two ways. first of all, they're not getting the top quality public education they are intending to pay for. second of all, they are at risk to having these same questionably-competent educators create barriers for students that would keep them from the best and most suitable educational options available to them.

grow a clue. build a competitive curriculum. and make it about the KIDS, and their choices, and not your sorry situation of a public school system that has failed to be proactive and give a competitive and useful education that would compel students to want to be there.

double bingo

2011-11-11T23:32:00.003-05:00

had my first sandwich at king star--this is not your ordinary bargain lunch counter. the italian sausages were butcher-made and accompanied by peppers and onions carmelized to sweet perfection, (not some limp steamed motion to be gone through--these garnishes were good like you dream it good), served on a fresh roll (with mustard, cuz that's the way i roll) for six bucks even. the coke was a buck twenty-five.

you can't beat it.

i'm given to understand that the burgers are hand-made fresh every day 8-oz monsters, and i'll give you the review on those next friday when my daughter and i go for the gold. this one's a keeper.

what's in a name

2011-11-10T22:49:00.002-05:00

"armistice day" survives in france and belgium where most of the worst occurred, but since the end of the second big one it's "veterans day" for us and "remembrance" day for our commonwealth brethren in arms. it's a remarkable thing that we live free given the history of the world, and it's to our veterans that we owe the largest portion of the debt.

upon the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, this time in the eleventh year of our century, we can all take the traditional two minutes of silence to think about all we have, and those who risked (and so often lost) all they had to provide it for us.

to you, dad

where its at

2011-11-10T18:40:00.002-05:00

stephe clements does the back page again tonight with evan goodrow and mike payette, and over at ole the goodtime string band has the thursday night stage. it's nice to be able to walk to several great performances all in the same evening. and, of course, consider a bite at king star before heading back home.

bingo

2011-11-10T15:20:00.002-05:00

dharma buns left a void in my local market street dining habits when they closed up their burger shop some while ago, but good fortune smiles on those who are patient, and now, not only do we have the estimable wings over lowell (right there in the old dharma buns space) slinging high-quality wings at reasonable prices, but now we have the new-management king star cafe sandwiched (heheheh) between the athenian corner and the dubliner flipping high-quality burgers at more-than-reasonable prices down at the other end of the boulevard.

but wait! there's more!

new owner mike difonzo is not only opening from 6am to 2pm for breakfast (muffins, bagels, toast, bacon egg and cheese sandwiches, eggs any way you like 'em, pancakes, french toast and build-your-own omelets) and lunch (soup, chowder, chili, salads, sandwiches including the classic BLT, meatball subs, grilled ham and/or cheese, PB&J, pizza by the slice, etc.) but also coming back to the store thursday, friday and saturday nights after 11pm to satisfy the late-night hungries experienced by all the happy downtown lowell music fans who are frequenting all the venues in the area until 2am and beyond with both burgers and breakfast as desired.

bingo!

i'm given to understand that further renovations are pending, but even already mike has the space opened up, bright, clean and comfortable for your dining and lingering pleasure (complete with free wifi) making it not just a good-eats-at-good-prices dining destination, but a perfectly serviceable coffee shop throughout the morning and early afternoon hours for just hanging out and checking your fantasy hockey stats inside and out of the rain. everything to like.

say hi to mike, and stay awhile. i plan to.

people power

2011-11-08T08:12:00.002-05:00

OWS and TP have the headlines, but it's the revolutionaries who quietly exercise their franchise at the voting booth who hold all the ultimate strings to power. yeah, we're as a crowd often unduly influenced by "spin" and other media doctoring, (did the pizza man or didn't he? you know the answers fall along party lines), but if more people take the time to educate themselves and take action based on their conclusions, fewer miscreants will be able to corrupt the process and our nation, and more honest and earnest public servants (as opposed to private-interest-mongers) will find their way into places from which at least some small part of their good can be done.

today i'm standing with the founders and their ideals and filling in the dark circles as best i can. a lot of incumbents won't have my vote. that's just me. if you like the way things are going, it's up to you to get out there and push for it to continue. in the end, it's not what i want, or what you want, but that we both trust that the best decisions are made via the sum total of the wisdom of us all.

and, when it's all over, we really need to pull together to get things moving in a better direction. things aren't so good for a lot of us, and need to be better.

vote!

private power

2011-11-02T12:22:00.003-04:00

also not gaining nearly enough press this week, over and above the selfish and unseemly whining of suburbanites trying to make do without their TV, are the differences between communities having chosen private municipal power companies vs signing on with the big providers. guess what--private municipal power companies invest in maintenance around their power lines (tree trimming, etc.) and have fewer outages than big-company customers. in addition, their crews are faster on the job when outages do occur, and faster in returning power to their customers. oh, and one more thing? their power is CHEAPER.

banks, power companies, government... i can think of a long list of things that are better, faster and cheaper when they're smaller. it's amazing how slow we are as a species to learn.

urban urbanity

2011-11-02T12:09:00.004-04:00

country-dwellers are whining a blue streak this week about their power outages, and we downtown city-dwellers are rarely asked our opinion, or appreciated for what among more than a few of us it is: living in single family homes wastes resources, destroys the environment, and deserves very little sympathy this week. sorry, but it's true.

my home is far more energy-efficient than any single family home could possibly be, surrounded as it is on all sides by other living spaces. on top of that, my home is served by underground utilities which are for less expensive to maintain, and far less prone to outages due to weather or other causes. (yes, my heat and my hot water are both on, tyvm). my home is, despite all this green-ness, not served by city recycling services that my tax dollars subsidize to provide to other residents living in the brown (white) fields locations of town, though that's a rant i've been on many times before and i'm sure you're tired to hear it again.

if you enjoy treelined, usually-powered streets, and curbside recycling and all sorts of other things that my tax and utility bill dollars pay to subsidize for your good fortune, spare me your tales of woe on these occasions where the true cost of all that bears to be paid. you soak the folks in the cities, and then expect us to feel the outrage--and i'm not buying it.

toughen up. when i lived in the "country", i spent the money on a gas generator (placed outside and well-ventilated, tyvm) and didn't complain when life's inconveniences happened. you should stop whining (it's unseemly) and count all the money you've been stealing from the rest of us all during the rest of the year instead. if you don't like it, buy a generator and start paying your own way.

busy weekend

2011-10-31T08:45:00.002-04:00

fridays have become "in" days for me (for all good reasons) punctuated by supernatural on the cw, (it's a 14 year old daughter thing, and if you ask me, i'm saying cas isn't dead, and misha's name on the credits this season just about proves that beyond a reasonable), junk food, (now the habit has become burger king double cheeseburgers, but we're never far from sammy's pies and calzones), and wireless mike flynn live from the back page on the radio. (lois lane and the daily planets this week sounded GREAT!). if you aren't getting yourself to the back page for the live music every friday, not to mention wednesday, thursday and saturday, you owe it to yourself to head on over to wcap for the live broadcast on friday nights--it's worth the listen.

anyway, on saturday it was imagined that a little downtown lowell musical pub-crawling was in order, (what else does a downtownie do during a saturday night nor-easter?), so it was back over to the back page with the thought that if you start on the one side, it's easiest to pick up all the other stops in order on your way to the other. so, yes, it was the worthen for the last call, but along the way we got to see evan goodrow in a hot dog suit, though we didn't get to hear him in the hot dog suit, because just as he was about to strum his first chord the power went out and we were left to enjoy our libations by the glow of our cell phones. (kudos to the bar staff at the back page for keeping things going through the difficulty). from there it was back across downtown, with stops at fuse (no, i did NOT order the "organic baby lettuces") and where have you before winding up in the happy celebratory crowd at the worthen. the lone disappointment was that big trouble's sets at mr. jalapeno had to be cancelled, (well that's two counting the evan goodrow band's power-related outage), but a good time was had by all, so nobody was really left with anything to complain about.

sunday's soccer game had to be cancelled, which is too bad, but the nightcap at toad for dave champagne's new outfit, the sunset engine, and his old one, treat her right, was off the charts. the former is a five-piece with clarinet, fiddle, banjo and tom behind dave and his guitar, with a remarkable sound and cohesion for a debut performance playing new songs everybody is doubtless still learning to find their way around, even while what they're playing is already sophisticated and compelling, if "sophisticated" is a fair word for something "americana-ish" in its roots and its components. it was emotional and subtle at the same time as stirring and rewarding. and what's left to say about treat her right? last night the band was ON in a way that being ON is difficult to adequately describe. dave must have still been on a high from the first set, because he was punctuating his euphoria with vocal screams and wails the nature of which is both HIM and unlike anything i've ever heard from him before. (think "david lee" champagne). and his guitar attack was relentless, including solos from the stage, which is to say from the actual stage and not even on his feet, and some incredibly fun and funny repartee with an audience-member actually named doreen (props to billy beard for that one last night!) all wrapped around and embracing licks and solos and wails from jim fitting that were putting the audience at the back near where i was sitting virtually stunned by their brilliance. through it all steve mayone kept an incredibly laid back and driving "low guitar" line that was so understated and compelling that it produced roll after roll from billy punctuated by flashes of cymbal which grabbed and slew, that the whole place was rolling back and forth in a way that only a small club can. so good. SO good. (the encore chant was "FORTY more songs! FORTY more songs!")

who's luckier than me?

what killed the dinosaurs?

2011-10-26T09:10:00.002-04:00

over at dick howe's lowelldeeds blog, (always a worthwhile read for both the insight on lowell-area property trends, as well as the technologies related to advances in and around the registry of deeds and of interest to the people who work there), there's an interesting review of kodak's new printer business, and how they're trying to rescue their company from the implosion of the film business caused by digital photographic technology.

i may have started it, but in the comments dick quickly draws the obvious parallel to other disrupted businesses, such as newspapers, to which i could not resist to point out that the problem with newspapers is NOT the erosion of their ad revenue, but, rather, their complete cluelessness and inability to deliver the audience from which they could otherwise derive ad revenue. my first example was to revisit my recent observation that the "stepping out" insert in thursday's sun carries almost no useful local event information, as opposed to cometolowell.com's impressive, current and reliable listings, but there is seemingly no end to the easy examples. and, since i've recently been peeved by the sun's move of rob mills' policeline blog to a site without an RSS feed from which it's thus impossible to follow via simple web tools that even my elderly parents use like google reader, i figured it's as good an opportunity as any to gnash my teeth in public.

first of all, if you're a lowellian (or lowellite or loweller, and nods to cliff krieger of rightsideoflowell for sharing with me the word "demonym") you absolutely should avail yourself of the stellar reporting of rob mills and his the policeline blog. just don't try to keep up via google reader or other newsreading RSS-enabled software, because the cabal of digital ignorami at the head of the lowell sun management and editorial staff, who, by the way, are so often glib in their recent discussions to brag on how well their digital business is going to start to do, are so completely on-line clueless that they're trying the "publish" a blog (i.e. gain eyeballs that can be milked for ad revenue) without publishing it at all.

seriously: even my 89 year old father who cannot figure out how to use a cell phone uses RSS. there's no other practical way to be alerted to fresh web content from your preferred sources, and, without it, it's completely useless to try to visit every possible source you might like to see if maybe they've put something else new out there. but, there you have it--the lowell sun can't figure out how to use it.

it'd be funnier if it wasn't so sad...

"story matters here" (not)

2011-10-24T10:36:00.003-04:00

i'm an AMC fan. i was a fan when they began cable-casting classic films all those years ago, and i became even more of a fan when they branched out and took the flyer on the "mad men" series a few years fewer ago, and re-invigorated the serial drama genre and picked up the mantle from HBO's the sopranos. (if you haven't seen "mad men", you absolutely have to find the original episodes and start watching from the beginning--i guarantee you will be impressed and hooked).

anyway, my faith was more than affirmed when AMC introduced their second series, "breaking bad", (the first season of which is terrifically good), though holes in the breaking bad writing started to show in the second season, and got worse in the third, though, to be fair, they were lucky/good enough to do better during the most recent season, so overall it still maintains its positive impression with me, though occasionally ones mind does recall their network slogan/boast and observe, even while it may matter now and again, it's not quite all the story that it could be.

well, i can't speak for sons of anarchy, (praised by many i know and respect, though i've never seen it), because i never got started on the biker soap opera premise, but i can speak about "the walking dead", and, i'm sorry to say, the words will not be so complimentary.

zombies aren't for everyone. i happened to fall (hard) upon george romero's "dawn of the dead" back in the day, (1978--the year after the original star wars), and was instantly hooked on the non sequitur pairing of gore and (black) comedy that becomes possible with the premise. (if you've never seen romero's skewering of consumer culture by having his protagonists pursued by both zombies and bikers through a shopping mall, you've never seen genius). simon pegg's homage, "shawn of the dead", takes things in a classic english direction, (his folks are just trying to get back to the pub instead of the mall, with just as much panache), and bill murray's cameo turn in reese and wernick's "zombieland" aims for and gets us to the theme park, for yet another hit. i'm sure other fans have other movies to nominate, too, though, as with any other genre, there are as many misses as hits, ("army of darkness" is just stupid), and everything is not for everybody.

into one category or the other will ultimately fall "the walking dead", but i'm guessing if they don't take the time to hire some competent writers, it's far more likely to be a miss than a hit. the trouble, of course, is that zombie fans are so loyal and fanatic, that they'll make the numbers which will make it seem like it's a worthwhile series even when it's really not.

my frustration with the show, beyond its eschewing of the greater comedic, and, hence, entertaining, elements, is that it's so lazily constructed that even a zombie could drive a tractor trailer through the plot holes. i really don't want to be spoiling the show for anyone, but i'm guessing those who will like it will have already watched it, and everybody else is going to appreciate being spared the dull inconvenience, so i'll mention a current example from last night's show:

the protagonists are broken down on a clogged up highway, not having seen any normal humans for hundreds of miles, with one of their kids having wandered off after having been chased away by a zombie. in searching the nearby woods for the missing girl at a distance they reached in less than a couple hours' walk along a stream which provides their bearings, the band separates yet again, (this isn't a complaint about character stupidity, but you know it could be--it's a zombie staple ;-), and a small group encounters a deer which doesn't run away, up to which yet another kid walks, only to be shot in the chest by a hunter's bullet, the hunter being from a pleasant little family farm so close by that the kid's father can jog there carrying his boy in his arms after the accident. so we're talking 4 hours walk from the highway, tops, (they can wander out and back from the highway in daylight, so it can't really be further than that), and at 3 mph, just a little over 10 miles. so if the father has to stay with the boy because his blood type matches (convenient that the farm has a guy who can perform surgery) then why doesn't his partner jog the 10 miles back to the boy's mother, tell everyone there's a safe farm nearby, and then have everyone easily walk the 10 miles back to be all safe and sound by nightfall?

lazy writing.

THEN we find out a few minutes later that the farm has gas-powered vehicles (one of which they use to go get surgical supplies A DAY LATER), and horses (one of which they use to go get the boy's mom but nobody else) making all this even more ridiculous. they could zip right out to the highway and pick everyone up within minutes, but NOOOOOO, that would be too sensible.

i do get it. suspension of disbelief is a requirement to begin watching something like this in the first place. but if they're not even going to put in the effort to write it with even a shred of sensibility, why should i bother to put in the effort to watch it?

the answer is, regretfully, that i'm not.

bizarre op-ed

2011-10-22T08:13:00.002-04:00

the sun today carries kendall wallace's essay on the sitting school committee and their labor negotiations, both of which were rocked by a leak last week about those negotiations by one of the committee members to--get this--kendall's own newspaper. without even a word to the agency and consequence of his organization having been the conduit for the leak's destruction, he goes on to ostensibly and best-intendedly correct like a benevolent schoolmaster the behavior of everybody else in the play.

now i'm not questioning the importance of a free fourth estate to good government, good services and good outcomes for all, i'm just saying that a little self-reflection on the role might seem to be important while tossing out recommendations to literally everyone else party to the party. did the paper choose the right way to handle the confidence? did they respect all parties by seeking them out for comment and sharing the information before and as it went public? were they as conscientious and best-intended as they admonish everyone else to be?

i'm not expecting the answers are "no", but i guess i am pointing out the arrogance to not feel required to even offer them as part of the civics lecture. it's too bad, too, because kendall stands quite distinctly apart from and to the better of his editor in chief in terms of thoughtfulness, objectivity and professionalism. but i guess that's the disquiet i feel this morning--if we don't get better behavior at the top, it only just rolls downhill from there...

better late than never

2011-10-20T12:12:00.002-04:00

ok, this one is over a week old, but my excuse is a long difficult dig out from under a week's vacation, and that i'm only just now getting around to reading last monday's paper--and, yes, the crack editorial staff at the lowell sun is at it again, this time right at the top of page 2:

"family wins $20m verdict in poo-slide suit"

too funny.

stepping out

2011-10-20T09:05:00.003-04:00

it's ironic to receive at my door thursday's sun and see within it the weekly "stepping out" section having just been to the back page for one of the best music nights of lowell's year. (yeah, a little hyperbole, but if you weren't there, how can you say?) i used to nurse a related guilty pleasure (the long-since-gone lowellita column) but it's been what seems like forever since i've had much use for that particular feature section, and it's really too bad. i imagine it's extremely difficult for a features editor to choose for coverage among everything there is to do and see downtown and elsewhere, but even a cursory glance at cometolowell.com's events page gives you 10 times the options in an instant's time, and points out that the "local" paper isn't hardly local at all these days, and that's absolutely too bad.

say you want to go dancing tonight? cometolowell.com lists country line dancing lessons at the knickerbocker, and DJ's at four different downtown establishments. (the dubliner, brians ivy hall, garcia brogans and savanna palace). the sun's stepping out section? nothing. in fact, for the entire week, the sun offers two dancing event notices, one at the tewksbury senior center, and the other at the parish center in westford, and that's it. cometolowell.com? too many to count or list here. as for live music, (my particular passion), the sun gets ONE jazz/blues performance for the entire week actually within the city limits, (among five options for the seven days), and cometolowell.com covers half a dozen IN THE CITY on friday night alone. (and that's not counting things like the live band belly dancing at the athenian corner, acoustic night at the worthen, latin music at ole and "monkey knife fight" over at garcia brogans, whatever that is).

i bring this all up because it occurs to me that no only-lowell-sun reader would have realized that arte k and his friends were putting on their CD release show at the back page last night, and that's more the pity. the applause, and you can ask anyone who was there, was exhilarating, sustained and stirringly enthusiastic throughout the show, and all the more so as the encores were begged and rewarded. the music was GREAT. it's from the heart. home-grown and original. the kind and quality of stuff that can take a city from "also" to the center of a musical map. have you heard frank morey lately? the friday night series now simulcast on WCAP from the very same back page room? what we have here is the tip of a musical iceberg just yearning for its audience, and nobody is going to hear about it unless people start spreading the word. i'm sure i don't even get to a tenth of it.

chuck langford is at ole tonight, with local boy andy kaknes on congas. (andy sat in on a number or two with arte last night to give fans a good taste, so they at least know from which i'm talking). there's a poetry slam at brew'd awakenings. there's comedy at voices rock club. it's ladies night at garcia brogans. if your life's not everything you'd want it to be, there are such diversions, or more worldly useful events like the "carbon smarts" congress at umass lowell, or the continuing parker lecture series at the pollard library. (ok, the sun has that one, to their credit).

live a little!

me, i'm heading early into cambridge to hear melvern, matt and dave (sans bob, who rumors have it to be cavorting with blondes in bikinis right now) run through the material from melvern's first two albums, the majority of which you don't hear played live very much these days, and, if you have the discs, you know what a treat that's going to be, at toad in porter square, and then coming straight back to catch the show with chuck langford and andy kaknes at ole to top the whole thing off.

step out!

must-see music this wednesday night!

2011-10-18T15:32:00.003-04:00

arte k's debut recording, be a man, is remarkable stuff. born in and from lowell, arte's growl and what he chooses to say (sing) with it are real as the red brick town in which he was raised. it's something to hear, and something to appreciate. now arte is releasing his second collection of self-written gems, backed by the best of lowell's best, (carl johnson on guitar, steve esposito on keys, justin beaulieu on drums, all of whom will be performing at the CD release tomorrow, as well as on the record sir bob nash of wonka sound behind the board, not to mention guest horn appearances by corey b and other notable cameos, including i'm led to believe lowell's own linda mccluskey on backing vocals), entitled "just a little more bad", and he's performing from that new record right here downtown at the back page beginning at 8:45pm on wednesday night to celebrate the CD release. this is must-see music.

if you have an ear for what's real, and you love everything there is to love about lowell, you owe it to yourself to come on down to the back page on wednesday night and take in the performance, and then stay for the open mic specialties (courtesy of host stephe clements) that'll be on display. arte will, of course, have fresh-pressed wonka sound engineered CD's, (the best in the business, and you can ask anyone), as well as likely some of his debut collection which every lowellian needs to own. and, if you don't believe me, just take a listen over here at reverbnation to both sets of songs, and tell us all what you think.

i can't wait.

hoteliers and their pigeons

2011-10-18T11:45:00.002-04:00

embarking on a journey of any distance, and becoming found without private accommodations on which to otherwise rely, a traveler must brave the wilds of the hospitality jungle, and endeavor to make their best choices between an endless number of variables, from price to accommodations to amenities to service when choosing their hotelier. this crap shoot is most frequently gamed by the big name providers, who lure and entrap their pigeons i mean patrons through everything from familiar booking procedures and loyalty "rewards" programs (which pretend to favor guests while they line the pockets of no one but their sponsors) to kickback and outright bribery arrangements with other travel partners like airlines and car rental agencies. having spent the better part of the last three decades traveling the world for business as well as pleasure, i've grown to consider myself a bit of an enlightened expert when it comes to these games these gamers play, and i'm willing to offer my insight and advice to those who will listen, though i know most of you will never, and that's ok too. (i rather like my favorite places not to be fully booked and thus impossible to enjoy).

the first mistake any rube will make is to equate price with quality, or expect too much when out in the wilds. lets face it--most hoteliers are in the business to charge as much as their traffic will bear while simultaneously filling as many of their rooms as possible, and those favored with better reputation and/or publicity and/or location will often, most of the time, take advantage of that convenience to jack their rates. this will come back in spades with the big name chains i will discuss in a moment, but it also affects the relative quality of any chain brand, or any little joint with the good fortune to be nowhere near any other. (i won't review the north hero house in north hero, vermont, and you can make of that whatever you will). of course, the corollary is that for whatever prevailing rate may seem to be in place in any given area, there will *always* be cheesers at the periphery who will do little to nothing to earn it, instead piggy-backing on the efforts of others to build that rate floor. so, at first glance, you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't go with the ones you know.

however!

there are always in any given market those innkeepers who understand that their business is best built on the gratitude they earn by providing superior accommodations, superior amenities and superior service for a rate which rewards them for their efforts while leaving the traveler with as much as possible still in their pocket. these individual establishments will sometimes appear in chamber-of-commerce-sponsored listings, and possibly at the bottom of the travel website melange of marriott this and best western that, but most frequently in the gushing testimonials of those travelers intrepid enough, and lucky enough, to have found them in the first place. in other words, you have to LOOK for them. but it's fair to say that your search will be richly rewarded if you remember to both avoid the lazy and rapacious monster chains (ESPECIALLY if they're trying to bribe you via their loyalty programs which simply mean to them they no longer have to concern themselves with the quality of their stuff above a very mediocre mean, since you'll stay with them the next time anyway) as well as the lazy freeloaders who offer crap just because they can. to wit i will offer two of the best hotels i've had the pleasure to visit: l'hotel du vieux quebec, and l'auberge les passants du sans soucy. (ok, i'll even toss in a third for free--the halliburton in halifax, though that wasn't on this most recent trip).

l'hotel du vieux quebec appears to be not much more than a nondescript storefront on an unremarkable city streetcorner buried in the middle of old quebec. of course, "unremarkable" in quebec is like saying "wow" in most any other city, so don't misunderstand. no, it's not at the top of the promontory overlooking the st lawrence as does the majestic and commanding chateau frontenac a few steps away, (a fairmont property, and possibly one of the exceptions to the chain hotel rule, but bring your checkbook because its rates are not for the faint of means), but it's among the most charming and attractive buildings and streetcorners to be found anywhere, and mere steps as was mentioned from all the rest. the room was quiet, impeccably furnished, and an oasis complete with jacuzzi tub, glass-walled oversized-head shower, and comfortable everything right down to the quality of the linens on the bed. (real feather pillows!) best of all, the desk staff and other hotel personnel could not have been more friendly, helpful, generous and charming. need directions? a hand with literally anything? recommendations for touring, dinner, sightseeing or anything else? they're there in warm and fluent english as well as endearing and mellifluous french canadian french. ("bon jour!") and each and every morning there is left there at your door a basket of the freshest croissants with fruit, yogurt and juice, for your convenience and pleasure. highly recommended.

in montreal, of course, the field is much bigger, and the streets, for their most part, not nearly so well-appointed. the oldest street in the city, rue st paul, is not nearly the park-quality showplace as is the entire old city of quebec, but what it lacks in sheer beauty it more than makes up in rich character, variety and charm. and along this street can be found l'auberge les passants de sans soucy, one of the most remarkable "bed and breakfast" joints you will ever find. first of all, putting "bed and breakfast" in any description of this top-notch establishment is to give all other places who coincidentally serve breakfast with their beds far more credit than they are otherwise due. converting an 18th century manse with its mortared stone walls and rough hewn beams to a 21st century celebration of authentic 18th century charm is no small feat, and brass beds, lace curtains and well-tended window boxes are just the start. there is, of course, also the breakfast part, which i'm here to say pleases in every single way. (fresh to-order omelettes, with fresh pastries, breads, fruits and juices, or pancakes, or for whatever i'm sure you have the imagination to ask). but the distinguishing feature of any great hotel will always be its service, and here the personal attention offered from the owner and manager right down to the last member of his staff is beyond any standard. you just feel WELCOME. and that's a wonderful thing. (especially in the city of your mortal hockey enemies ;-). combine that with proximity to bocata as reviewed elsewhere here in the blog, and you have yet another clear winner.

do it. throw out your chain loyalty card and ignore the points. that "free" stay you'll get some years from now won't hardly be worth the effort with which you'll need to put up to both earn it, as well as endure it. ENJOY yourself when you travel. feel at home. do better. i do.

les habitants et ville de montreal

2011-10-18T09:14:00.002-04:00

quebec may be "le vieux capital", but there is no question which city leads french canada today. montreal dominates everything that matters, from hockey (though the quebeckers still cherish their nordiques to the point of still trading in the old kit in their souvenir shops) to shipping (the port of montreal is astounding in size and scope) to everything cultural, from performance to fine art to food. walking the breadth of montreal from its old city down by the waterfront to the peak of mount royal, (mont real, yo), you experience everything both beautiful and real about a major modern city with impeccable historical and cultural roots.

happiest for me to discover was the presence in one single sports souvenir shop of not one, not two, but THREE featured bruins t-shirts nestled between two canuck models and above the pair of price and subban shirts beneath, (not another shop carried even a scrap of boston anything), though my favorite motif wasn't even sporting--of a rearing black moose on a simple gold shield above the unmistakable ferrari font spelling out "montreal". (for an honorable mention i'll note the "canadian fast food" shirt, depicting a black outlined sprinting figure ahead of the silhouette of a pursuing bear). it's the low-brow inventiveness that amuses as it attracts which beckons the visitor to move closer and to appreciate everything else around it.

but it's the food that i will always remember best.

thursday evening i asked my innkeeper (jacob, at auberge les passants du sans soucy, which is yet another remarkable story) for a dinner recommendation, and in the inimitable style of a man who knows better he offered a list of places within walking distance which was as long as ones proverbial arm. trusting my sense of ambience as much as my nose, i recalled how often i had noticed bocata on rue de saint paul, and stood outside their open windows with that longing that knows it's going inside. reservations would have perhaps saved the 45 minutes to wait for a table, but every second was worth an hour for what came next. the menu premise is "small plates", but these aren't tapas--they're each mini meals all to themselves. the oysters were from PEI, and complemented by a homemade mignonette with fresh lemon that was an absolute delight. following that, the main choices were for the salmon tartare, (my favorite dish of them all, with cream, cucumbers and dill), a "sea and mountain" combination of lobster tail and ox tail that puts every other "surf and turf" on the planet to absolute shame, and a filet mignon with apple puree which literally melted to the mouth. it was a full meal, complemented by a cosse maisonneuve le combal cahors 2007 that was hands-down the most powerful glass of wine i have ever had in my life. (and you know i know nothing about wine and generally care even less, but with this food that glass of mouth-punching flavor explosion was incredible, and gave even we philistines the understanding of what they mean by "pairing"). and, yet, when the offer of dessert came to the table, it was necessary to demur in favor of the last longing entree from the main menu.

there was a duck entree not there on their online menu that was virtually irresistible. it combined a roasted leg with a single duck egg, poached "sous vide", the story behind which will never do justice to the creamy custard consistency of that incredible richness that was its yolk. it was le piece de resistance, and the crowning glory of a meal that can't rightly be described. the beer and oysters to begin, the wine and glory to continue, and the crescendo to conclude were each part of a symphony of flavor that belied the incredibly warm, comfortable and informal environs in which it was offered. we sat on simple wooden chairs at a worn wooden table in a classic french window by a bookcase of rustic leather-bound books. it was as unpretentious a space as could possibly exist in such a historic place, and if there's nothing else to see or do in montreal, this restaurant alone would make the trip worthwhile. and i was there. mmmmmm...

so how does one conclude such a trip?

why, smoked meat sandwiches at schwartzes, of course.

schwartzes deli is one of the oldest and most renowned restaurants in the city. it's also one of the most crowded and barely-swept pigeon-holes you'll ever dare to enter. it's further the butt of one of my most favorite french canadian jokes, which is the language police requirement that all official schwartzes deli's publicity must be "en francais", requiring them to go by the nom de guerre "chez schwartz". ludicrous. but as ludicrous as such requirement may be, the towering piles of smoked pastrami on their "smoked meat" sandwiches dwarf everything else about the place, both inside and out. (though the addled english tourist asking her companion if the picture of the pile of kosher meat on the window outside by the sidewalk where we all had to wait quite awhile to get in might be "pulled pork" was a nice treat to go with it, even if i had to stifle the laugh so as not to be rude about my sense of humor). ours was delivered with the recommended pairing of the house, (which here carried no vintage other than to say "cotts cerise noir", aka black cherry soda), in the handy-dandy throwback 12 oz can. oh, and we can't forget the homemade schwartzes mustard, and pile of fries and pair of deli pickles, either. which reminds me to recommend that you skip the dill--it's a tired manufactured specimen without color, taste or texture to recommend it--and go straight for the half-sours. i didn't know better, not having been raised in proximity to jewish delis in either brookline or brooklyn, but i'm learned to understand now that the half-sour IS the deli pickle, and these here at schwartzes are DA BOMB.

so there you have it, from bottom to top, and from top to bottom, the city of montreal. AND, les habs lost to calgary on thursday night to put the cherry on the top of the whole thing for a boston visitor with relatives in alberta.

worth the trip!

the showplace city

2011-10-18T07:25:00.003-04:00

washington dc, when it i first beheld, struck me as a giant overflowing theme park. it had the requisite rides of course, (that subway is better than anything at disney), as well as the most astounding attractions a boy could imagine. (dinosaurs and geodes and airplanes and spaceships throughout the many smithsonians, and everything more). it was festooned with flags and fountains and grass-accented walkways, and was inspiration for awe at every turn. the selfsame impression returns to me whenever i visit a properly designed capital city, from brasilia to london to buenos aires to paris to santiago to luxembourg to singapore. tuesday last i found myself in the same moment as i entered the walled city of quebec. oh, surely the approach over the river from saint romuald is impressive, and the ride up le boulevard laurier through saint louis and sillery towards the plains of abraham is as pretty as pretty gets, but it's that moment when you pass under the archway from le grand allee onto rue saint louis, and see the parc de l'esplanade on your left, and the full citadel on your right, that you realize that you're entering that very special kind of place.

the city was founded from humble beginnings in 1608 by samuel de champlain for the purpose of staging fur-trapping expeditions to the interior of europe's newly-discovered colonial playground. its name was taken, as was so much else, from the native population now regarded as "first canadians", even if not yet quite treated that way. it had a slow start, but by the 1630's, a steady stream of french missionary catholics (ursulines and augustines and you-name-the-ines) had prompted the construction of the first cathedral, notre dame de la paix, (the paix of which was to be rare for a couple hundred years, prompting its nominal replacement by notre dame des victoires, since history is never written nor named by or for the losers), and the institution of its first capital designation--le capital de la nouvelle france. even today, it's regarded as le vieux capital by everyone in it.

almost from the very start the sense was of both destiny as well as the need to preserve history. upon a fairly extensive urban fire in 1682, building codes and restrictions were enacted that controlled the character and appearance of the entire city. (all houses were to have walls of limestone or sandstone, be of two stories and semi-detached, with double-sloped roofs of an incline of near to 52 degrees, and placed on a city plan as designated by the intendent). though some 180 buildings were knocked down in the various 1859 bombardments as part of the seven years war (aka french and indian war, aka war for quebec), they were all rebuilt under the direction of the remaining french architects, even while other city matters were under control of the british. (yes, even the limeys could feel the french magic of the place).

today, you can sense all of it, even before you learn the history of any of it. the buildings are beautiful. the streets are beautiful. the landscapes are beautiful. the feeling of care for all of it by the inhabitants is beautiful. the museums and the churches and the government buildings are all pieces on the board, moved into position and staged like the grand mise en scene that they are, and yet the scale is still palpably human--the space is designed and built not only to be beautiful, but to be beautifully inhabited.

stroll down the oldest street in the city, and you will be captured by the sights and scents and sounds of a magical place. the street views of rue de la petit champlain are invisible to google maps, (you can't drive on it and google's street view cameras don't walk), but are indelible the minds eye and accompanying imagination. i engaged touch and taste to complete the sensory memory of the place at le lepin saute, where i dug into the house plate of duck and rabbit and was more than not disappointed. (it was my first experience with french canadian home brewed beer as well, and it opened my taste buds for all that followed for sure). yes, a lot of folks prefer burgers with their beer, but if you are open to the subtleties of that which is off the beaten path, you will learn that there is a whole world out there just waiting to be enjoyed.

worth the trip. absolutely.

best city resident naming convention EVER

2011-10-17T15:08:00.004-04:00

we here often and generally refer to ourselves as "lowellians", and some variation on the anglo "-ians" or "-ites" or "-ers" conventions seem to work for us almost everywhere. for some cities, all three are reasonable if not all used, (we could be "lowellites" or "lowellers" just as easy as "lowellians" while we prefer the latter), though for others one or the other seems to be the requirement as well as the standard. (e.g. "bostonians", "new hampshireites" and "new yorkers"). many other appellations are derived from the various suffices of their mother tongues, and we have "philippinos" and "mexicans" and "brazilians" among the many others possible, even while the natives have their own way of putting it. (mexicanos and brasilieros say hey).

most interesting to me, however, are those who get creative with their prefix, as those in halifax do with "haligonians". here we have names out of the apparent blue which have very little literal basis other than some ancient language and the present insistence of their inhabitants. for this category i would today nominate the hale and hearty residents of the fair city of trois rivieres who enjoy to refer to themselves as "trifluvians" for the title. my daughter the latin whiz (when she's not majoring in profanity) has no trouble recognizing the roots, but its no less entertaining to hear it said. "trifluvians".

we difluvians here from lowell are just a little bit jealous. (concord and merrimack, yo).

we're also, when in trois rivieres, right at home. it's a working city with a hard scrabble downtown intermingled with both history and cultchah, as well as a flourish of hospitality establishments of remarkable quality and variety. i will speak very fondly of the one i chose for lunch on thursday, "le trifle", at 363 rue des forges, if you have a moment to listen. it's the kind of place even lowell would be grateful to have, with a plethora of fresh local beers on draught, in addition to irish favorites like murphy's and the like. it was spotlessly and scrupulously clean, as are many places in canada, with a menu that extended to *moment of reverent genuflection* genuine alsatian fare, from a generous charcuterie plate to an honest to goodness real life in the flesh flammkuchen. (i got the classic d'alsace with just bacon and onions, but they had 'em a good half dozen ways else, too). seriously--bacon and onion and creme fraiche on a stone oven prepared flat crust with a half liter of amazing local IPA--you cannot beat it.

i also got to tour a few of the historical joints, whereby i learned a lot about the procreative habits of the french vs the english, along with a lot of other fascinating historical trivia. (they used to pay their folks to get married young and pop out a lot of little catholic children, yes they did, even while they didn't bother much about schooling 'em afterwards). i'm guessing more than a few of the local girls wound up down here in lowell working the looms here rather than the forges up there, and felt right at home with the common workaday-ness of the place. yeah, quebec and montreal are amazing, but it's places like trois rivieres where the real work often gets done, and it's nice to see it plugging along as do we here along the merrimack without either pretense or over-concern for the appearance. it is as it is, as we are as we are.

i'm glad i made the effort to stop and have my look around. i won't hesitate to go back, even if only for another meal. seriously, mcauslan's st ambroise IPA is the real deal, as are the alsatian specialties of the house at le trifle, the best irish pub i've yet found north of the st lawrence.

those french--they have a different word for everything

2011-10-17T14:18:00.003-04:00

as steve martin first observed, those french do indeed have a different word for everything, yes, but possibly not in french canada for "irony".

in canada, governmental bilingual signage requirements admonish all english-speaking provinces (which would be all of them, save quebec) to print everything, and i mean EVERYTHING, in both english and french. this is, ostensibly, to make the french canadians feel welcome and equal in their own country, and this is, practically, extremely thorough to the point of farce. a red octagonal sign at an intersection is universally recognizable as a stop sign, whether its festooned with "stop" as it is in the united states, "arret" as it is in quebec, or "stop arret" as it is in the rest of canada. but as surely as american language bigots and their french visitors get by on simply "stop", the french language bigots and their english visitors happily get by on simply "arret", and nobody is confused about the difference, unless it would be the hapless english canadians with both their french and english visitors who are spending all their money on silly "stop arret" signs that nobody actually needs.

well, i don't want to put too fine a point on that "actually needs" part, since, in practice, there are plenty of signs for which having ones native language helps tremendously in their understanding. but this is my point--in french canada, english visitors, whether they be american or canadian, do not always or even often get the information they need from the local signage, and still we are neither insulted nor unable to get by. however, for whatever reason, french canadian visitors to english provinces are deemed via government fiat to be unable to do the same. and that's ironic.

one of the most visible differences between french and english canada is the dearth of canadian flags in the one, and the plethora present among the other. english canadians are just as downright proud of their nation and its flag than any american you will ever meet, and you don't have to be in english canada more than a moment to notice that you are surrounded by a sea of red and white maple leaf banners. so it takes a mile or two into french canada for you to notice, but notice it you will--the flags, if there are any, are all provincial fleur de lis, and they're blue and white. oh, sure, on the odd national government building you'll see a maple leaf, but the effect is just to put the complete absence of such flags elsewhere into stark relief.

maurice duplessis, responsible for "le grand noirceur", ("the great darkness", which is a fascinating period in french canadian history), said "cooperation always, assimilation never", and it's written there right on his statue in trois rivieres, as well as, apparently, across the hearts of the entire province of quebec. a warmer, friendlier welcome you'll never receive as a visitor from out of town, but keep your hometown flags and your hometown hockey logos to yourself. quebec is a french province, and french right to the very last street sign. and they don't mean to let you forget it.

"we're 10 and 1"

2011-10-17T09:07:00.003-04:00

its hard to choose the best among the dialogue with which bill murray got to chew the scenery in stripes, but today the choice is "but we're american soldiers--we've been kicking ass for 200 years! we're 10 and 1!". len blum, dan goldberg and harold ramis were, of course, poking and picking the national vietnam scab at the same time as our eternal "exceptionalism", but it's worth mentioning that you don't even have to count to the successful conclusion of our revolution to have reached our first and best kept secret loss--our ridiculous and funny-if-it-weren't-so-tragic invasion of canada.

the english and french, of course, had been fighting over north america for a full century, and most recently in the extended contretemps that began as the "french and indian war" here south of the border, when not-yet-then-general-but-rather-lieutenant-colonel george washington attacked and bayonetted 31 sleeping frenchmen at what would come to be known as jumonville glen, in what would eventually become president's george's great state of ohio. among the unfortunately surprised-and-thus-bayonetted frenchmen was their unfortunate commander, second ensign joseph coulon de villiers sieur de jumonville, who, unlike his french canadien descendants, was to have spoken so little english as to be almost completely unintelligible to the belligerent english commander. either that or he was having his fun, but we will, of course, never really know the truth. some say he was brought, wounded, to colonel washington for interrogation with full military honor and respect befitting his rank, and was then brutally tomahawked by the indian "half king", tanacharison, for slights real or imagined. (tanacharison claimed to have observed his father boiled alive and eaten by frenchmen among his many colorful stories of himself). of course, washington's account portrayed this fanciful version as "without any foundation in fact", lending creedence to other accounts which would have jumonville slain by a musket ball upon the initial volley. however, the truth never really mattering in matters of international belligerence, ("weapons of mass destruction" anyone?), the slain jumonville's half brother, louis coulon de villiers sieur de jumonville, pursued colonel george like a dog through the ohio woods to one of the worst-chosen and constructed fortifications in the history of modern warfare, fort necessity, and exacted both george's surrender, as well as his signature on a document attesting to louis' half-brother's death as an "assassination". and so became the better part of a decade of bloodshed between the english and the french over what british statesman horace walpole would describe as "a volley fired by a young virginian in the backwoods of american that set the world on fire". (not as poetic as longfellow's "shot heard round the world", but of a piece, certainly).

by 1775, the english and french had somewhat buried the sharper end of their hatchet, (pun intended), but enterprising soon-to-be and supremely ambitious americans like benedict arnold had the notion that french canadian farmers, having the bitter taste of the short end of the seven years war stick, would eagerly greet invading american soldiers as liberators (where have i heard that notion before?) and even more eagerly take up arms against the british and join the revolutionary cause, making it that much more compelling for the french to rejoin their barely settled fray with the english on our behalf as well. (oh, how geopolitics makes for the strangest of both real and imaginary bedfellows). or at least that was the rationale...

as we all (hopefully) already know, the continental army was formed upon the success of the massachusetts militia's stunning military defeat of the british army at concord on the 19th of april, for the express purpose of forming a new north american nation free of european meddling and control. however, its impotence being proved by its inability to dislodge the british from their bastion in boston despite a full and protracted summer siege, the continental army, and it's commander-in-chief, george washington, was in dire need of options and traction against the greatest standing army and sailing navy in the world. (it being only a matter of time before king george got around to sending a few frigates loaded with grenadiers to smash up all the colonial toys before they had been properly played with). so enter benedict arnold and major general philip schuyler, with what has to be one of the least-well-thought-out plans for a military campaign ever concocted, that, even so, came within a hairs' breadth of success to none of their credit. first of all, phil schuyler was too frail to even make the complete journey, let alone lead any potential fight, so brigadier general richard montgomery was put in his place to lead the first prong of the attack, up the hudson from ticonderoga, to take the forts at st johns and montreal on his way to quebec. (city, not province--this was all still "new france"). arnold was added as insurance at the head of a second expedition, this time so daft as to start its wandering through the wilds of maine in late october and early november in leaky boats and summer footwear.

montgomery, to his lasting credit, managed his expedition well. he floated up river from ticonderoga in late august, and after several embarrassing keystone kops forays towards the fortifications at st johns under the direction of schuyler, he instead relied upon the suggestion of one of his in-laws to start sharpening his sword on the lightly-defended fort chambly down the river apiece. with a couple cannon he knocked holes in the walls and down the chimney of the main building there, so the british commander was forced to promptly surrender his 83 men and 6 tons of gunpowder. guy carleton, who we shall be hearing from a bit later, tried to reenforce st johns with a canadian foray down from montreal, but was turned back at the st lawrence, and his message of hope to the british garrison intercepted. without hope of relief, and beset by a superior american siege force, st johns was surrendered with full military honors on november 3rd. (pay attention to the dates, because the calendar turns cold up north).

yep, it was snowing in earnest now, and the otherwise short trip up to montreal was hindered by some not inconsiderable weather, though not so much that the surrender of the city couldn't be negotiated and concluded without a shot by november 13th. guy carleton and the defenders of what would become canada got away by ship up towards quebec, but on the 19th, to montgomery's last military credit, the flotilla was intercepted, though carleton was intrepid enough as to escape on foot, and given the time to beat it post haste up to the walled city to the north. the continentals were only so happy to have the free ride (via the captured ships) up the river, but, as was apparently their nature, only so motivated to do so after a couple weeks of sitting around talking about it. about 18 miles from quebec, at pointe aux trembles, on november 28th, montgomery met up with arnold, and all the players were finally upon the stage.

arnold, dilettante that he was, had mistaken the challenge of navigating an expeditionary force up through the wilds of maine to the most extreme degrees possible, including erring on the estimated distance (he though it was less than 200 miles, though it was really more than 400) and bringing all the wrong sorts of (leaky) boats which were incapable of successfully navigating the challenging waters of the kennebec and chaudiere rivers. his authorized force of 1100, including daniel morgan and his virginia riflemen, through both death and desertion, was down to 600 starving wretches by the time it arrived upon the plains of abraham before the gates of quebec on november 14th. yes, november 14th, a full two weeks before meeting up with montgomery 18 miles south--arnold sent one of his guys under a white flag to demand (i said DEMAND) the surrender of the city, an effort which was, i'm sure, laughed at quite thoroughly from behind the walls. without cannon, and barely being able to maneuver in the snow, arnold panicked upon word of a planned canadian sortie from behind the cozy warm and well-fed walls, and retreated back down the river to wait to meet up with montgomery and his boats at pointe aux trembles.

montgomery, to his credit, though he had taken his sweet time doing it, had the foresight to bring along captured british winter clothing, which had been something arnold, in all his late october haste, had neglected to plan to bring with him. so in early december, the two commanders put their heads together, and tried to figure out how to get barely over 1000 combined troops over some very well-constructed and defended city walls to accomplish their goal. the first step seemed perfectly logical--to move the boys back down the river and up toward the city gates and take siege positions on the plains of abraham.

"the plains of abraham" is perhaps one of the most poetic battlefield names to be found anywhere in the world, and their sight is no less stirring. risen from the mile-wide st lawrence river adjacent to the walled city on the promontory, they're at the peak of a remarkable miles-long cliff face, and flat leading up to the city gates in a way to make any advance both obvious and mortally beautiful. the americans had enlisted the aid of a sympathetic frenchman near trois rivieres, cristophe pelissier, who coincidentally owned an iron works at which munitions could be fabricated for the siege. (he, unfortunately for himself, chose to back the wrong pair of horse asses, so had to flee canada upon the failure of the expedition). well armed and full of themselves, arnold and montgomery planned their next move. they were admonished by pelissier not to expect help from the locals without first sacking the provincial capital, (the french bureaucrats, let alone the english military administrators, had a well-proven habit of misusing the french canadians that suggested severe punishment for speaking or acting out of turn, so le quebecois were never ones to be of such ill-judgment to risk their necks on a couple of american political speculators, which should have been such american political speculators' next clue, but, well, they were exceptional americans weren't they, and bent on success, so there you have that much), so they ordered up a siege engineer and got to "work".

"work" in this case consisted of a couple of decidedly unfit-for-the-task mortars, and a shelling of the city that commenced on december 9th. these mortars hardly defaced the walls, let alone damaged them, and by all accounts the locals snug inside were hardly bothered by even the noise. (and again, i'm sure, they all had a good laugh). on the 15th, the brain trust figured they should roll a couple cannons a bit closer to the walls for a more proper bombardment to make the next "demand" for surrender a bit more toothsome, but a couple english batteries on the ramparts chased the american guns within minutes, and i'm sure there was even more laughing to be had at the quebec pubs that night. how anyone without siege guns expected to defeat a walled city in 1775 i have no idea, but montgomery and arnold were not discouraged, and they hatched their final and fateful plan for a frontal assault.

like wade boggs belief that he could will himself to be invisible, montgomery and arnold's master plan was based on their presumption of invisibility to the city defenders if they were to attack at night. of course, in order to be able to coordinate a two-pronged assault in the dark, the masterminds further determined that they should communicate with each other via rocket flares. yep, no joke. the surprise attack was to be coordinated via the firing of rockets. the weather not being bad enough for their satisfaction on the 27th of december, they waited for a better snowstorm, which they finally got on new year's eve, december 31st, 1775.

the original plan for arnold to attack the bastion at the top of the city was scrapped because a deserter was assumed to have spilled the beans, so the new and improved plan was for arnold to run his men completely around the walls on the north, to meet montgomery who was to run his men completely around the walls to the south, and for them all to meet at the lower city gates on the far eastern side to force their way in from the bottom. (running at the walls at the top was obvious suicide, even to them). having now been there myself to see the amount of space between the walls atop the promontory and the narrow strip of ground that runs around three sides of the city, which is to say, hardly 50 yards of width, and so much like the layout at thermopylae as to give anyone with even the slightest exposure to military history hives, i cannot even imagine how arrogant these commanders must have been. but so the assault was ordered, and so history has been written.

arnold had the furthest distance to travel, so his was the side to send the flares when he came into place, the firing of which awoke guy carleton and gave him time to rouse 49 other locals to run down to the barricades at the lowest gate to the city to see what might be up. to guy's amazement, what was up was montgomery's force of 500 having sawed through the first two of three sets of obstacles on the lowest street (still the oldest in the city, and i'll tell you about the restaurants there in another post, because they're amazing) and approaching the third, defended by only 15 men, to see what might be done about it. without waiting to find out, guy ordered the grapeshot loaded, and he stood incredulous, to see the american general and his captains (including john macpherson and jacob cheesman, who both bought it with their commanding officer, as well as the one and only aaron burr himself who didn't) marching straight up to his fortifications to check them out. when they were about 50 yards out, carleton ordered the cannons fired along with a musket volley for good measure, and he killed the three aforementioned of them on the spot, and sent the others running. and he couldn't have missed--we're talking a straight shot down a straight street walled by masonry on both sides so that anything stray would be deflected back down the middle anyway. like ducks in a gallery, or fish in a barrel.

colonel donald campbell, now senior in command of that contingent of continentals, like aaron burr and the other captains hightailing it down the street, immediately turned the tail of the entire force and ran, though still outnumbering the defenders a good 30 to 1, and being within mere yards of everything they had treked hundreds of miles and spent hundreds of lives to win. (he even left montgomery's body behind in the street where it had fallen, to be later buried by the british). the markers where guy carleton and his 50 men organized the defense of all of canada against overwhelming odds stand now on the very spot, though you have to really work to find them, existing as they do on a narrow strip of land now occupied by a four-lane thoroughfare. (i'll talk more about the difficulty of canadian vs the ease of american historical commemoration in another post, but it's a stark contrast for sure). but lets get back to benedict arnold and the other half of the assault, shall we?

after having fired his flares, it still took some time for benny to pick his way around the swampy land to the northerly gate across from which montgomery's force had been turned away at the southerly one just moments before. being no fools, the 50 canadians assembled in the lower town had figured this group of 500 americans wouldn't be so both stupid and cowardly as the first, so they dispersed back up the cobble-streeted hill to take defensive positions in the stone and fortified houses above, where they could better defend themselves in a guerrilla style street battle. arnold took the virtually un-returnable fire from the canadian positions above to indicate he should press on his attack rather than retreat, so he and the americans began an improbable advance up through the city streets, from block to block, and house to house, towards their goal of occupying the main offices of the government and thereby "conquering" canada. unfortunately for arnold, or fortunately if you regard the ultimate defeat, he was hit in the ankle at the first blockhouse and found it impossible to proceed with his men any further, and withdrew, as could be calculated from future stories of his "generalship", from the field.

so now we come to daniel morgan, who, aside from guy carleton who gets huge props for turning aside an assault of 1000 men with merely 50, is my personal hero of the piece.

daniel morgan was dispatched by washington along with arnold up through the wilds of maine, and he and his group of virginia riflemen remained steadfast in their soldiering at every step along the way. equipped with rifles vastly superior to the usual colonial muskets, they were a formidable force in the open country, but proved themselves to be some of the bravest and most capable even in the close engagements of a house-to-house city battle. without arnold, and without the other half of the force calculated necessary to take the city, morgan led the remaining handful of americans forward to accomplish the mission despite every odds. he took the blockhouse from which arnold had received his wound, and more up the hill toward the upper city. he forced the local defenders back at every turn, but was eventually stopped by the two most important features of the overnight battle--the absence of the idiot who had ordered it, and the snow in which he had done so. morgan's knowledge of the battle plan was to meet montgomery before proceeding up the hill to sack the governmental offices, and he was now stuck between that rock, and the hard place of having no more dry powder with which for his men to fire their weapons. all he could figure was to stand in dry corners and wait, both for his compatriots, as well as the drying of his powder. alone with a company of his men, he was mere blocks from the top of the hill, and everything the expedition had set out to accomplish.

guy carleton had stood with 50 canadians to kill or wound all the american generals, turn aside half of the assaulting force, and slow morgan down on his climb up through the city streets. it was heroism rarely seen in this world, and it proved to be just barely enough. with morgan almost within literal sight of the prize, and possessed of newly-dried powder with which to resume the fight, the british army finally decided to get out of bed, and see what was afoot. instead of meeting a superior force in possession of all the seats of power in the city and negotiating with the locals to join them in revolt against the crown, they met rumors of a few dozen determined american soldiers lost in the streets of the city, and a lower city gate easily locked to prevent any escape for the rest who had entered. the 500 british did just that, and after all the other colonials had given up, morgan and his band were finally forced to surrender.

carleton calculated 30 americans killed and 431 taken prisoner, while arnold had it at 60 killed and 300 captured, against which carleton's records indicated 5 canadians killed and 14 wounded. 10 and 1? i'd say 10 and at the very least 2.

of course, arnold being the jerkface he was, he refused to quit the plains of abraham with montgomery's force of which he was only too happy to take command having lost his entire own, claiming somehow that this proved he had not been defeated. outnumbered 3 to 1 by this time, and freezing to literal death on the plain while the canadians and british slept snug and well-fed inside the city walls, he maintained this "siege" for months in the face of carleton's indifference. (carleton, being canadian, had the luxury of learning from past french and english mistakes not to leave the walls to sortie against folks on the open plains, so simply resolved not to do what he didn't have to do). in early may, after arnold had thoughtfully been relieved by washington, and after english ships bearing hundreds of fresh troops had arrived to reinforce and restock the city, the colonials finally decided to beat their final tail-between-their-legs retreat. their general by that time, john thomas, himself also was felled like so many of his soldiers by smallpox, so there really wasn't much of a command structure in place when carleton and his fresh british forces came out from the gates in the better spring weather to clean up the mess at their doorstep. and carleton didn't stop until he had kicked american ass all the way back down to fort ticonderoga where the whole sorry mess had begun.

so much for "greeted as liberators" huh?

if it's tuesday... no, wait, it's monday...

2011-10-17T07:54:00.003-04:00

it's been a whirlwind few weeks here and i'm never sure whether to apologize to or congratulate readers for reduced frequency of content. work's been crazy busy and last week it was a vacation tracing the major portions of the route of the 1775/6 us invasion of canada. (i skipped the ride through the wilds of maine without even needing the example of 1775's failure to point out there's little reason to ever go there). but now i'm back and i'll see if i can't recap the salient points throughout the day as time allows. it's remarkable how quickly ones brain is forced to expand when immersed into other places and cultures, and i say "immersed into" and not "confronted with" because i think there's a HUGE difference between an open vs a belligerent mind, and i believe we as americans need far more of the former and far less of the latter if we're to get through the next few years all of one piece, but lets not digress. (i think benedict arnold was taught to agree, though he could have used more study on fidelity before he quit camp and sulked home).

the first point i'll make for the week is to riff on the observation that us scrip is trading at a discount against canadian currency of which is historically almost unheard. unemployment above the 49th parallel (or 45th if you're a vermonter, which illustrates the optical illusion on our maps that new england is nowhere near as far north as folks presume) is around a tolerable 7%, and if they measured it the way we measure it, the number would be even less than that. (what? our government dissembles over how bad things really are? say it isn't so!) their cities are clean, and their hockey teams are even almost as good as ours. (sorry, couldn't resist). their gas, of course, is over $5 a gallon, but they actually walk and bike to work and other places, (even in their winter, which is saying something), and pay a reasonable amount of attention to the sustainability of their environment and their economy. (what a concept!) if you haven't been, make yourself a plan, pack your passport, and head north. it'll do you a world of good.

about the only major policy differences i can name to distinguish the two leading north american economies is to point out the absence of foreign military boondoggling and deficit drunken-sailor-spending on behalf of the canadian government, and we should think about this over the course of the next year as we plan our presidential plebiscite. if you're a leftie, you'll love that they've actually outlawed fox news, not to mention that their universal healthcare system actually works, (though their choice was to err on the side of supply instead of insolvency, so make your appointments early), and, if you're a rightie, you can take solace that after they elected the conservative guy (stephen harper) in '06 they stuck with him since, not to mention that their love of country music is second to none. (i don't take harper's refusal to legislate against abortion rights and gay civil unions as a coincidence to his electability, but, hey, republicans here can pick their party planks any way they choose, regardless of how stupidly they do it).

all in all, there's a lot to love about canada, and love it i surely do. but it's great to be home, and there's no place anywhere like shangri-lowell.

hello, rangoon

2011-10-10T09:53:00.003-04:00

(props to duane ingalls glasscock by way of chuck lacquidara)

i leave phone messages and i send emails (the latest one 3 weeks ago, but, of course, like the rest it remains without response) but the city recycling coordinator and solid waste manager ignores all of them. today i forwarded my most recent to the city manager with a copy back to said unresponsive city employee. we'll see if anyone is listening. i know there's a lot of stuff to be cleaned up in the treasurers, city clerks and inspectional services offices, but sooner or later i'm hopeful they'll come to clean up the garbage in the garbage office. ridiculous.

some (many) people owe the city manager another apology

2011-10-06T15:53:00.003-04:00

lots of political vitriol has been spewed on the subject of "professional management" vs "hiring local", with certain local pols (rita mercier for one obvious example) continually excoriating the city manager for his apparent and obvious practice of not granting favoritism to the entrenched city employee base while picking his staff and other city employees. in many cases, of course, the best person for the job is a lowell resident, and certainly bernie has not hesitated to hire that way when it suits him and/or the city. and in some cases, i'm sure, the outside competition has made it unfortunately difficult for a local lowellian to serve. but, in other sensational and scandalous cases, certain entrenched locals have proven themselves to be, at best, corner-cutting exploiters of the system, (yeah, i mean you, sandy ames), or, at worst woefully unqualified to serve in their positions, as have, apparently, proven the entire treasurers' office, if not outright criminals stealing city gas, city employee time, city materials, etc. etc. etc. etc.

you can see today's sun for details on yet another jaw-dropping scandal, but i won't link it, because they charge for content and i'm getting this from the print edition as can all of you. suffice it to say that the treasurers office can't find half a million dollars in accounting discrepancies, and it's possible that the city will never get to the bottom of why, nor recover any funds potentially stolen, misappropriated, or simply lost due to incompetence.

rita, of course, as she did with the city clerk scandal a few weeks ago, is always the first to cry out that the sitting city employees are under-appreciated and under-rewarded, whether she knows the actual truth of her assertions or not. frankly, someone who hands cash over to someone else without audit trail or question is not my idea of a qualified city clerk, but, hey, i must be in the wrong since i agreed with the other councilors who felt squeamish enough to want to retain the temporary outside clerk while they shopped for a qualified permanent one. i'm guessing rita will remain silent on the treasurers office scandal, what with the smoking audit gun just lying there on the table, but in point of fact i think she and all those who have conspired with her to paint the city manager as a carpetbagger owe our city manager a profound apology yet again for the importance of his efforts to hire qualified professionals for these positions, and not simply promote patronage hires who can't do the job, or won't. (we won't even talk about the stealing).

yes, non-lowellians steal, too. but, see, here's the point: when a proper system of accountability and oversight is put in place, it's far harder for both lowellians and non-lowellians alike to steal from our city coffers. if city residents possess the experience and resolve to put them in place, i say let's hire them. but, until then, i also say lay off with the politics while the city manager does his best to clean up DECADES of malfeasance, patronage and graft.

good room plus great music = fantastic saturday night

2011-10-03T10:46:00.002-04:00

saturday night we crossed the river to head to fody's in nashua to catch peter lavender and the limbo souls, and i say "we" because, in addition to all the locals there enjoying the invasion, the room was as comfortable and familiar as any in lowell for all the folks recognized and felicitous who had the same idea. (you know how they say certain sports teams "travel well"? well, peter lavender and the limbo souls have proven that they do, too, and they were absolutely playing to a home crowd even as full as it was with "away" fans, too, and the best part is that everybody gets to win when that happens).

so, where was i?

oh, yeah: fody's... fody's is part of the oldest brick building in nashua, and it wears its ambience extremely well. the food (had some jalapeno and corn bisque for starters, and the lobster ravioli for a main course) is well beyond "bar fare", though it's all that, too. (reports on the burgers were uniformly of a rave nature). the prices are comfortable, too. AND (you knew this part had to be coming) they've got fresh newkie (newcastle) brown ale on tap. the dining room gets shifted to hold the music, and the space for the performers is generously and acoustically right on. so, take all that, add peter lavender and the limbo souls, old friends and new friends, and you've got the makings of one fantastic saturday night.

they say you make your own luck. well, let me tell you that i had me one extraordinarily lucky saturday night.

lowell rocks!

never underestimate the power of a good room

2011-09-30T09:15:00.003-04:00

i was wandering out downtown last night and stopped in a few joints and couldn't help but take some impressions of lowell's various purveyors of nightlife. to one extreme, the comfortable and inviting confines of the back page were well-attended, and for nothing more grandiose than a loose collection of volunteer musicians just hacking around. (they called it a "blues jam", but, seriously, when you're covering donny hathaway like that, it's more than just that, isn't it). to the other, there's one so-called italian eatery and bar of noteworthy discomfort and uninvitation (we'll keep the names out of it in the interest of trying to stay positive) where, on both trips past, coming and going, there was not one single paying patron in the entire place. in the middle, but most certainly toward the under-attended end of the spectrum, was a spanish eatery and bar of likewise notable discomfort and uninvitation, which had invested in professional performers of impressive talent, but nonetheless suffered a dearth of attendance even so. and i can't help but blame the room--not the intent, or the people, or the music that was being put down.

if you want to provide a place for people to meet and linger, and perhaps enjoy some entertainment, wouldn't you think comfortable lighting, decor, environment, acoustics and seating would arise somewhere in your figuring? (for success on all counts, stop by the back page and note the fixtures, decoration, air conditioning, sound system quality and furniture, and then try to nominate another place downtown which is even within squirming distance). but, somehow, business owners with cheap lighting, tacky decorations, bad HVAC, poorly-matched PA's and cheesy yard-sale tables and chairs seem to want to throw their good money paying entertainers after the bad they've not invested in their places, and feel like it's unfair that they just can't bring in the bodies.

the excuse i've been hearing so often it makes me want to laugh in their faces is that the neighboring establishment(s) are ruining theirs, as if the long lines to get into a place like brian's ivy hall somehow makes it harder, not easier, to induce one or two to stop in next door to have a look. the italian place even had the better part of a year without anyone across the cobblestoned street with whom to compete in order to build a loyal clientele, but within seconds of an alternative turning up, the crowds were already gone. and it's not because of the musicians, certainly, because these same musicians are now enjoying bigger and better crowds elsewhere.

it's the room.

if you don't have a good one, you either need to invest in a significant upgrade, (not just lame half-measures), move to a new one, or just do without the patronage. because i'd rather sit for hours in a warm comfortable space with good beer listening to good music than to endure 10 minutes without any of that, even given the same good music. (and don't get me going about quality of service--the service in the two-unnamed establishments above is atrocious, has long been atrocious, and is in no apparent danger of becoming un-atrocious--how do bar owners think they don't have to worry about such things???)

either way, i'm happy to know that some establishments get it. saturday night i'm traveling up to fody's in nashua to further learn how it ought to be done. (peter lavender and the limbo souls in a room deserving of them--it's a beautiful thing).

see you there!

a missed trick

2011-09-30T07:53:00.002-04:00

spain has wrestled with the same financial sector demons as has the us, but their response has differed in one significant aspect: the spanish government didn't "bail out" their bad banks--they confiscated them. (which is to say, took ownership stakes with the money they gave them, instead of just pissing it away). people might be tempted to ask what a government could possibly do with a failed bank, but i would point out that, as an alternative, we have NOTHING to show for all the cash we squandered on ours, and even then they're STILL cheating us. (and, to add insult to the irony, the banks are naturally worse off for having cut the corners).

banks are, second only to insurance companies, de facto rackets incorporated to extort and cheat, (even, it can be argued, steal), and should not be trusted further than their marble buildings can be thrown. islam, for all its bad press, at least gets this part right. (in islam, echoing jesus' tossing the moneylenders' tables in the temple, and much the same as our own usury laws, only set at a much more reasonable threshold, i.e. zero, it's illegal to charge interest). which is not to say that concentration of capital and mitigation of risk aren't important elements to our system--just to point out that close scrutiny is the least of our communal obligations to economic justice and our own societal solvency. for banks to be "good", like the wolves we domesticated millennia ago, they must be carefully trained, and very often kept on a short leash.

yeah, dubya started it, but barry has done nothing to improve on the folly, and right now our incoming joint chief of staff (shouldn't that be chief of joint staff?) is enduring a certain amount of national security scrutiny over the importance of government solvency to our national defense. dempsey may like to believe we need to prioritize security independent of means, but history is chock full of stories of even absolutely powerful monarchs who were undone by the unrest unreasonable tax burden places on those otherwise sworn to fealty. if we'd like to remain secure in our beds, we ought not to ignore the implications.

called it

2011-09-29T09:14:00.003-04:00

can't help but brag a little... last night, at the bar, with the rays down 7, and the sox heading into their rain delay up 1, i called it. you could feel it, clear as day--destiny does not pause for such trivial obstacles. didn't even have to watch when they dragged pap out to try to staunch the bloody gore that was the 2011 season. (he's no mariano rivera, is he). yeah, the yanks having clinched and being compelled to keep the greatest closer who ever lived and still lives safely at the furthest back of the pen had something to do with it, too, but that's baseball, and all she wrote.

it's hockey season, and i couldn't be happier.

in baseball, as in hockey, there are gods who oversee all, and guide every element of every game. an historically bad opening bookended with an historically bad end are affronts to such gods as cannot be overcome, even by achieving the best record in baseball in the middle of it. in baseball, as in hockey, it's a six month season, and it's not how you open, or how you run through the middle, but how you finish (your season or your checks). the '11 sox dissed wake one too many times, pitched the asshole lacky a couple dozen too many times, and got the off-season they earned by stumbling and bumbling through a september to always remember. some have tried to convince me "they tried", but you could see it clearly, like last night's train wreck coming a mile away, that it just wasn't the case. tried? check out the highlights from last night's game in tampa for "tried". just don't look too hard at the stands, because those fans there don't deserve what they have. (florida baseball, though a spring training necessity, should never have been, and, like the DH, needs to be retired in order to save the game).

i enjoyed this season. i thoroughly did. i loved wake's 200th, and i loved watching reddick and lavarnway (how about these past few games!!!) and even weiland, overmatched as he was out there before his time. it's just time to drop pucks is all.

rock and roll

2011-09-29T08:36:00.003-04:00

rock and roll is coming to downtown lowell (gary hoey's ho ho hoey's home for the holidays) and gary's packing lita ford for the ride. (got mine front and center). can't wait.

but while we have to...

last night at the back page before the open mic opened, stephe clements booked an opening set from nicholas bogosian that dropped jaws and did what only the best music can do--silenced (pin-drop silenced no word of a lie) a bar full of conversations and glass clinkings to a hush of pure musical communion. nicholas plays appalachian-style banjo and fiddle and accompanies himself with nothing more than his own feet tapping out the rhythm on a square of hardwood parquet, and from such simplicity rose everything that music has ever dreamed to accomplish in this world. it's fair to say he had the room in the palm of his hand, and he rocked it at the same time. (it's for moments like these that a music fan lives). ask anyone who was there. (and if you've never seen a line of penny pinching artists lining up to buy CD's you haven't seen love).

rock and roll will never die

job creation preventer-in-chief

2011-09-28T11:52:00.006-04:00

barry o has proposed letting jobless people sue employers who don't hire them, and i cannot think of anything more stupid and less productive in light of our necessary goal of getting some of our legions of unemployed back into the employed column. if any company were ever tempted to hire from the pool of unemployed amercans, they now have compelling reason to never ever publicly open another new position to be filled.

in my company, "internal candidates" already fill most postings, and pre-selected others fill much of the rest. (via head-hunters, employee referrals, etc.) the result of passing such a proposal would be to guarantee that not most, but ALL of the postings will be filled by internal candidates and pre-selected others, since publicizing an open position to the general public would necessarily expose the company to uncontrollable risks that are little to no profitable benefit, via inviting suit by those frustrated that they might not have been the one to be selected. and the more people who are unemployed, the greater the risk, and the greater the incentive to never consider opening a public hiring process ever again.

this proposal would hurt unemployed people, not help. it would also harm employers, who will mitigate their risks of suit by happily preferring the marginal cost of not possibly hiring the best person for a job in return for remaining reliably free from being sued. it's at best populist tripe to propose something like this, and it's also a compelling reason to ask the democrats via their top guy why they hate america so much these days.

the rose by another name

2011-09-28T09:58:00.004-04:00

cobblestones is doing yeoman's public service by bragging on their special menu addition for the week, "pork osso bucco", but that's the rose by another name, and i am not confused in the least. in germany they call it schweinshaxe, and my german grandmother called it ham hocks, but it is, by any name, the sweetest smelling and tasting and eating rose on the porker, even, i realize today drowning through my instant salivation, above the belly. (you like bacon, don't you?).

i'm given to understand that "osso bucco" is italian for "bone with a hole in it", and if you've ever seen the shank cut cross-section you'll know what they mean when you see it. the germans prefer to serve the hock all in one piece with the bone sticking out of the top of a softball-sized mountain of carnivorous pleasure, (as, often, do the italians even with their contradictory nomenclature), and i can't say which way the cobblestonians have determined they're going to make our dining week, but, honestly, in the end, it's good either way.

braised is the right way to do it, imho, and if they serve it cross-section, it's the little scoop of marrow in the hollow of the osso bucco that will be (would be--i hope they don't miss that trick) the crowning glory. if they go whole-hog, so to speak, and serve the entire lower shank in one big piece, then digging for the marrow becomes more challenging, but all the sweeter surrounded as it will/would be by the surfeit of splendor that is the whole enchilada. you really can't lose.

so who's coming with me tonight?

connect the dots

2011-09-28T08:57:00.003-04:00

earlier this week, new york police beat down a small peaceable group of civilians exercising their 1st amendment rights fully within both the letter and the intent of the law. they were, as can be see here, met with violence and repression for nothing greater than choosing to point out the massive fraud being executed by wall street banks. central to the editorial commentary was a rant about police brutality, but that, honestly, is the least of my outrage with the incident.

a few days ago, the BBC interviewed someone who may or may not be who he represented himself to be, who said "governments don't rule the world, goldman sachs rules the world". (video and commentary here). much like the editorial slant above missing the point of the protest, the pundits discussing the BBC interview are similarly losing the thread.

for refreshment of memory, here's a salon piece on wall street's de facto ownership of our government, and, my favorite, a stanford magazine discussion of what happens to would-be regulators who see the fraud happening, and then are elbowed away from influence so that the fraud can continue unabated.

connect the dots.

idjits part next

2011-09-27T07:32:00.006-04:00

not to be outdone by the yahoos and right wingnuts beside them, the lefties are spewing their own preferred brand of fabricated nonsense amongst themselves, too. (one of the funnier aspects of my discovery of this piece of complete and utter nonsense was the caption the referring facebook user chose on their "share": "why do people believe only what they want to believe?", and did you note the bogus citation at the bottom: "source: treasury department"?)

speaking of data from the treasury department, here's lefty-friendly cbs news headline on the same subject, aka the treasury department's latest figures on the debt: "national debt has increased $4 trillion under obama", with the editorial comment prominent within the piece that "it's the most rapid increase in the debt under any us president".

why indeed do people only believe what they want to believe?

obama, like the slavish morons repeating his BS, cites the policies inherited from his predecessor as his excuse, which, i really have to scratch my head to understand--he's 100% extended and expanded all of these on his watch. his rebuttal cites "two wars we didn't pay for", which is rich, because he's not only "surged" both of those, but added two more of his own for good measure. it continues to cite "prescription drug program for seniors...we didn't pay for", despite his having squandered his two years of democrat congressional majority passing a national healthcare law which exempted big pharma from prescription drug controls. it concludes by citing "tax cuts in 2001 and 2003 that were not paid for, despite, as was mentioned in the previous sentence, enjoying two full years of congressional majority during which the repeal would have been as easy as waving a presidential rubber stamp, had something been done about them.

but nothing was done about any of it, except to spend money even FASTER than before.

lefties complaining about righties' proclivity to ignore facts should take a long hard look at themselves in the mirror, and figure out that they are their opponents' reflection, and nothing better.

the only fact that matters anymore is that these two most recent presidencies, one republican and one democrat, have combined to best even hoover for the most economically destructive in history. the answer cannot be swapping deck chairs anymore. what the republicans couldn't destroy, the democrats have most surely, and we're facing economic cataclysm of historic proportions.

did everybody (anybody?) see jon stewart's interview with ron paul last night? (click quickly, it'll only be on top for the rest of today until it's replaced by the one with seth rogan to take place later tonight). ought to be required viewing for both lefties and righties with fact problems, which would be, sadly and apparently, all of them...

idjits

2011-09-26T07:50:00.003-04:00

you read (perhaps) yesterday my essay on the abomination which has become our present presidential administration, and the ridiculous suggestion that things could possibly be managed worse. (think about it--the foreign wars, the deficit spending, the confiscation of constitutional liberties--they're all dubya policies writ even larger and more cataclysmic, and trying today to claim it's all been in our best interests, while a couple years ago crying that it was ruining our country, is completely non-sensical). i have no patience for the bullshit.

but, if anything, there's an even more pernicious flavor of bullshit out there coming from the other side, all of whom, apparently, if it can even be believed, with ALL the actual facts on which to take issue with the present administration and donkey in chief, insist upon rallying around lies instead.

to wit, i raise to you the clusterfuck which is CFL light bulbs. have you received an email, or seen a discussion in the media or elsewhere online taking obama to task for what's going on? have you thought to yourself, "yeah, i don't like what's happening, and maybe these yahoos have a point"?

well, if so, you're a dupe.

here's an article from 2007, during a moment while the presumed to be villain of the piece, barry o, was undoubtedly hanging out at his kitchen table not voting on legislation as was his habit as the junior senator from illinois: http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=45156

notice anything? like, say, perhaps the presidential signatory to the legislation?

CFL lightbulbs are yet another bequest from saint dubya, the patron for all the ignorant, effectively illiterate among the outraged out there, who would like to assist those reasonable among us in unseating the scourge currently bedeviling this country. well, here's a word from the middle:

please don't.

you're making it worse. you're making it possible, like with the idiocy with the birth certificate, for those wrong to make it appear right by being innocent of the scurrilous accusations, and never answering to the real charges.

the real charges are the deficit, the debt, the foreign entanglements and the extension and expansion of the "patriot" act. (i still can't write that without quotations, defiling as it does one of our most important words). they're extended by the levying of an impossible-to-afford healthcare boondoggle which exempts big pharma from drug price controls, and big insurance from a single payer system which would inhibit them from charging whatever they can extort from our already insolvent system. and, believe me, that ought to be enough.

the CFL stuff? that's faceless, party-less bureaucracy run amok. you know some senator somewhere (not illinois) got paid off to nominate to give GE a de facto monopoly on CFL bulbs, which they then used to move their factory to china and their corporate dick up our collective asses. (sorry, 14 year old daughter rule suspended). dubya signed it, and, like all the rest of his failed policies, it stands to nominate him for the worst presidency in the history of the country, the competition for which is rapidly becoming only his successor's.

idjits. repeating nonsense only allows the guilty to perpetuate the fraud.

please--get it straight.

oh, this is rich

2011-09-25T19:11:00.002-04:00

barry o has just soundbyted that he thinks the GOP vision of government would "fundamentally cripple america". lemme get this straight:

* trillion dollar deficits against a historic 14 trillion dollar debt and an imploding economy that has sustained 10% unemployment and no visible prospects of turning around
* a rogue federal reserve printing money on behalf of foreign economies and wall street banks who in turn get to use that monopoly money to garnish future taxes for what may very well be forever
* renewed "patriot" act abominations against our constitutional liberties, proliferating foreign military entanglements, etc. etc. etc. and a flawed eventual-to-fail healthcare boondoggle that exempted big pharma from drug price controls, and big insurance from a single-payer system of controls

and somehow we're supposed to believe anyone could possibly do worse???

you have to give the man credit for a having an extremely active imagination.

we have met the enemy

2011-09-25T08:18:00.002-04:00

a fiscally conservative (coincidentally republican, though you know that's not always a 100% correlation these days) friend of mine, whose common sense i respect a great deal, is frequently observing to me how bureaucracies always act to sustain and enrich (expand) themselves. create a turnpike authority to finance construction of a roadway, and even write into the charter the intent to disband once final payment is complete? sorry, but wake up to find "massDOT" bigger and (not) better than ever, and choke on the irony that it was a republican pol, bill weld, and not a "big government" democrat at all, who handed the "big dig" assets over to the turnpike authority and guaranteed that it could not be retired.

we have a problem in this country with a government that has expanded to not just cause, but BECOME our national insolvency. party political racketeers have been spinning stories to pin all the blame on the "other guys" for years, but it's getting so rich and so deep these days that it's impossible not to picture ourselves nero as our rome (the entire world) burns.

one out of six is a proportion i've read, but whatever the number actually IN government, the truth is far more pernicious, as the rest of us OUT of government become personally attached to our own pet entitlements. (spare me that government sponsored health-insurance is not an entitlement, no matter how long you worked or how much you paid into the system). the crowning irony this morning is reading the local republican point of view, (here at right side of lowell), that free benefits to vets and oldsters to audit state university classes at UML are a travesty to be cut back by shifting more and more of the curriculum to "online" (i.e. not free) status.

how are we ever going to vote to cut off the oxygen to this behemoth who is literally smothering each and every one of us, if all of us insist that the fat off the particular portions of pork being doled out onto our own personal plates should not be trimmed for the good of the whole? this one likes free tuition. that one likes comprehensive cadillac-style healthcare coverage throughout retirement. everyone with a house likes home mortgage tax deductions. and nobody with any income at all cares to be fingered for paying for any of it.

we have a problem today, and it's our collective addiction to government bloat. democrats don't even bother to hide their enthusiasm that government continue to increase in size, until everyone is receiving all the government-sponsored handouts they can rationalize they may or may not need. (i marvel that democrat tv's never seem to be able to tune in the news from greece, where the country spends a similar portion of their GDP to ours on social safety nets and other citizen entitlements, and the whole thing has gone to shit because they, unlike us, haven't been able to print funny money to cover their asses, but, hey, maybe we need an FCC program to give everyone new broadband internet-enabled tv's so there's equal access to information...)

but our real problem is that republicans are fully engaged with the game, only bullshitting us about it so that we don't notice that the original source of our present insolvency, and the authorship to all the current administration polices, and most certainly not the solution to our malaise, is on them. the reason i say the "real problem" (many republicans in the audience will want to say "hey, but the other guys are worse") is that it's the pepsi to the coke that chokes the soda aisle with nutritionally void overpriced sugar water, not the existence alone of coke.

we need to cut government. actually, i should say, we need to SLASH government. we need to throw everyone, and i mean EVERYONE, out on the street without our blankies and entitlements and party membership cards, so that the entire electorate doesn't conspire every election to re-elect the tag-team of republican and democrat bozos who put us in the crapper in the first place. (democrats are now crying that this will hurt people--there's always an argument against it that cannot be countered, except by observing that broke is broke, and we can't afford to be this way any longer).

if you cash a social security check, or skate on a portion of your taxes owing to a mortgage interest deduction, or enjoy free tuition at a state school near you, and opine and lobby and vote to sustain such, YOU are the problem.

WE are the problem.

"everyone should have skin in the game"

2011-09-24T13:25:00.004-04:00

over at right side of lowell, (comments disabled there for whatever reason, so i have to do it here), there's an essay on fair federal income taxation and the suggestion that it's important that "everyone should have skin in the game". the author's point, if i may be so presumptuous to paraphrase, is that "we should be careful about going after the rich to pay more", and especially when "not everyone has skin in the game".

really?

let's talk about skin, shall we? we can start by reviewing the latest census figures that show that more than half of american families are making less than $50,000 per year, and a sixth of them are living beneath the poverty line. (when you select families based on those with children, the poverty percentage skews to 20%--that's right, one out of five american children live in poverty already, even before we decide we want to tax their parents further). we can continue by adding up the taxes already being paid on gasoline, unemployment insurance, medicare/medicaid, social security, and etc. and then we can ask ourselves, exactly, what skin of theirs isn't already in the game? i hear a lot about the fact that federal income tax at these levels of income is allowed to fall to zero, but i really have no idea why it's concluded that somehow these people are getting any sort of free ride, or are any less frustrated to see so much of their income whittled away by taxation, or should be first in line when talking about shouldering a larger portion of our massive federal debt.

in fact, you could tax ALL these people ONE HUNDRED PERCENT of their income, and you STILL wouldn't overcome our present budget deficit, or add up to the tax breaks currently being enjoyed by the wealthiest americans who are all, as i'm given to understand, or at least all besides warren buffet, whining that it's really unfair that their top marginal rate be increased from 36 to 39 1/2%.

skin in the game???

imagine you make $50,000 a year, and already pay $5,000 of that in social security and medicare/medicaid taxes. imagine further that you found your family of four an apartment for $850 a month (another $10,000 off the top) and put $20 a week in gasoline taxes not into your fuel tank to get back and forth to work (another grand). by the time it gets time to feed and clothe your family, pay for health insurance, (if you can afford it), and do everything else that's required to survive, tell me how much skin you're going to have left with which to put more "into the game"?

imagine, on the other hand, you make $500,000 a year. we're talking about rescinding a tax rebate you've been enjoying for the past decades of around $20,000 per annum. (that's actually what the aforementioned impoverished family of four LIVES ON, but who's counting). so, what sort of standard of living impact do we imagine will be happening when the effective income of this wealthy person when they're asked to "make do" on $480,000? (and, actually, the numbers here aren't actually nearly as high as i've made them seem--the top marginal rate isn't paid on all that much of the total, and is likely much closer to $10,000 than $20,000, but, again, who's counting).

"skin in the game" is an easy thing to tell everyone to have when, on the one hand, it's actual skin, flesh and bone you're suggesting to take from one family, and a rounding error on their petty cash that you're suggesting is too dear to take from another.