Bringing the Heat

Was in the midst of a vivid dream when Coco landed solidly, heavier than her normal ten pounds, on my chest this morning. She came to trumpet that, ‘while morning hasn’t quite broken it’s still time to haul your lazy ass outta bed and put some brekkie on the table for me!’

Best alarm clock ever. sigh.

The dream? I was in the living room of my house (which was a rambling old, beat to shit white painted Victorian -- located well beyond Greater Exurbistan) chatting with my old pal Michael.

OK, I was kvetching up a storm, fuming wildly over the evils, the utter indignities, the total fucked upedness of menopause and the sad fact that I’ve been going through this heinous excrement for-fucking-EVAH. WHEN, oh when, will this shite end?

Yeah, even in my dreams I'm a real treat.

I’m sure I’ve asked this before: why is it called menopause? It doesn’t happen to men and wasn’t caused by them -- though that doesn’t stop me from yelling (shrieking?) at The Amazing Bob ‘Next life YOU’RE the girl NOT me!’ Because there is, of course and quite possibly, multiple lives, scads of different time lines, myriad alternate realities and TAB and I find our way to each other in every blessed one. OK, more accurately I find him each time. The poor man.

In at least ONE of these other, miscellaneous states of being, I’m NOT going through this!

Dammit.

OK, found the reason it’s called menopause in Wikipedia:

Menopause literally means the "end of monthly cycles" (the end of monthly periods aka menstruation), from the Greek word pausis (cessation) and the root men- (month).

Back to the dream.

Michael, who’s putting up with my rant to end all rants, suggests that I develop a stand up routine on this and take it on the road. In real non-dream-time life, Michael and his husband TT are performance artists, amongst their other awesome life callings. They are the perfect people to consult about this kind of enterprise.

So, in my sleeping fantasy, I do just that.

We have our creative colloquium while they’re having a bubble bath together. Yes, complete with rubber duckies.

It was awesome. And then Coco landed -- announcing her presence with authority.

It’s Monday

For the billionth time I’ve mislaid my phone. I never had this problem when phones were big and stayed in one place. Dammit. (shakes fist at sky)

I’m still worn out from Saturday’s epic-ish trike ride. (whine snivel)

AND...Jen and I drove down to New Bedford yesterday for gallery hopping only to find all but two galleries closed (mega sigh). We were told that most of New Bedford is still on ‘Winter hours.’ In another month everything will be open on Sundays again.

The first place we hit was the U Mass Dartmouth Masters of Fine Art thesis exhibit. It was tremendously, surprisingly disappointing. U Mass Dartmouth’s art department has a very good reputation so my expectations were tuned up for more than the, mostly, amateur hour stuff on display. I honestly expected a significantly higher overall quality, greater sophistication and better execution.

There were a few stand outs though.
Allison Elia’s nude with apples buzzing around the head grabbed me. My only, slight, grouse, is that I would’ve liked to see the figure’s coloring more mottled or even just starkly one color. Maybe a gloss versus chalky finish? More contrast between the apples and the figure somehow. It’s just a quibble. I really like the piece.

Robert Greene’s man of sticks, standing against the wall was pretty cool too though I’m generally always a sucker for figurative sculpture, especially one’s dejectedly facing walls. Like Matteo Pugliese’s bronzes. Anthony Gormley’s Reflection II. Kyotaro Hakamata’s installation of brightly striped figures.

And this (at left) -- I didn’t catch the artist’s name and had issues with the execution in general but I LOVE the idea. I imagine a body spontaneously combusting from the ankles up -- only feathers and leaves left in it’s wake.

The only other place we found open was the Arthur Moniz Gallery. Most of the paintings there are done by him -- by Arthur Moniz. In particular, I favor Bass Harbor, Blue Crab Color, Tenacity Nova Scotia and Low Tide-Little Bay.

Gotta say, in my pretentious young days (versus my pretentious middle aged years), I sniffed at this sort of art. It was just SO safe -- trite and dull too! Now though, I can totally see the beauty, the song and poetry of them. I suppose I believed that real art should say something BIG and that very large  bigness should describe pain, alienation and the state of being in this hard, hard world and other heavy duty shit like that.

I understand, finally, why artists paint sea and landscapes. It’s not all about the money, about sales (though that’s a motivator too, of course), it’s also about the tranquil joy to be had gazing at and capturing these inspiring, breath stealing views.

I can see myself, one day perhaps, joining the watercolor seascape ranks though I can’t imagine being able to capture the gleaming, brilliant, stone magnificence.

Who could?

Mellow Yellow

Mellow yellow Bug and trike

Boulders along Wollaston Beach

The first-ish commandment of trike riding:

Thou shalt NOT ride out so far that you can’t get home without emergency texting Jen for a lift.

Bring cab fare just in case.

Yesterday was absolutely glorious. Low 60s, sunny, very light breeze -- perfect triking weather. I managed to peddle the whole way over to Wollaston Beach, taking my usual detours along the way, stopping to take pics and then, THEN, I realized (doh!) ‘ooo, I have to get the whole way home now and I forgot to wear my knee supports.’

Mega sigh.

I pushed on and cycled back to Valhalla without that panicked text message to Jen -- even took a new scenic route. Yea me!

Total trip? Around ten miles. Not much really but a lot for me.

After a hot shower and power nap I announced to The Amazing Bob,

 ‘I’ll have to do that route again tomorrow so I can can build up strength and endurance, right?’

Goodness, the look I got from him AND Coco could’ve melted the ice caps on Jade Dragon Snow Mountain.

‘What? Is that a no?’

So, I’m taking a TAB directed day off from triking. Instead, Jen and I will drive down to New Bedford for the gallery hopping I mentioned yesterday. We’ll hook up with The Green Miles and his lovely partner, Bethanie for lunch and then more art viewing.

Or AHT as Jen insists I term it. (We're in Massachusetts after all. I believe Rs might be illegal or something)

Oh and I believe that mellow yellow Bug should be MINE. It complements the trike divinely, doncha think?

Sunday Afternoon in the Land of New Art

AKA, for this Sunday anyway, New Bedford

There are a couple of shows that I’m itchin’ to get to down there. New Bedford’s, surprisingly enough to me, become a real shakin’ art mecca. WHEN did this happen? Must have been while I was napping, huh?

I want to see the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth Masters of Fine Art thesis show --it’s at the Star Store building in New Bedford  as well as the BFA show in the Bristol Building on Purchase Street.

Later in May there’ll be a show entitled New Bedford Harbor in a New Light.

Over 30 contemporary artists have been invited to create a new work centered around a theme related to the harbor and the fishing industry for this a multi-media, open-response art exhibition.

This looks WAY appealing.

And then, next weekend, is Somerville Open Studios which I MUST get to. Mind you, there’s tons of drek to wade through in these open studio events but there’s treasure too. Plus, I enjoy gawking and gaping at all the great and not so great studio spaces.

My pal Pete McGrath’s studio will be open. If you’re in the area, check him out. He does large scale, cold wax figurative paintings.

Meanwhile, here at the home atelier, I’ve got two paintings to tote into the pro art photographer so I can FINALLY fold images of my paintings. pots and sculptures into this blog (a second page? not sure how this’ll work yet). Yeah sure, I could take my own shots but I know my photography limitations and they are just ever so slightly more than legion.

ROAD TRIP!

Copley Square Ten Days Later

I went into town yesterday, intending to gallery hop and take pics of fab art and the lovely, young blooms along Marlborough, Newbury and Beacon Streets.

I was more drawn, like so many others, to Copley Square. The memorial that’s been set up there in the Square, between Trinity Church and the Library isn’t some official deal. Nope, it’s way more heart splitting than that.

Like all those roadside shrines that spring up after life ending car crashes, there are bouquets of bright daisies, daffodils and mums. There are lilies and roses -- many still wrapped in cellophane as though the mourner was in too much pain to do anything but toss the bright bundle onto the still white hot pain point.

Mostly though, there are mounds and piles of stuffed Teddies and Pandas, plush puppies and bunnies.

I don’t understand this, the leaving of plush toy animals but then, I don’t need to. We each mourn, pay tribute to our lost loved ones, salve our pain points in our own ways.

Because I could not stop for Death – 
He kindly stopped for me – 
The Carriage held but just Ourselves – 
And Immortality.
-- Emily Dickinson (from Because I could not stop for Death (712))

Such clouds of nameless trouble cross
All night below the darkened eyes;
With morning wakes the will, and cries,
"Thou shalt not be the fool of loss."
-- Lord Alfred Tennyson (from In Memoriam, [To Sleep I give my powers away])

That boy that they was mournin'
Was so dear, so dear
To them folks that brought the flowers,
To that girl who paid the preacher man—
It was all their tears that made
   That poor boy’s
   Funeral grand.
-- Langston Hughes (from Night Funeral in Harlem)

That boy that they was mournin' Was so dear, so dear To them folks that brought the flowers, To that girl who paid the preacher man— It was all their tears that made That poor boy's Funeral grand. - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15613#sthash.EkBpMn5I.dpuf

Rambling and Rambles

What’s my fav chilly day drink. You’re just itchin’ to know...right?

Of course you are.

It’s the Hot Toddy.

Yeah that’s Toddy not Teddy. I never thought Teddy (Kennedy) was hot. Certainly couldn’t understand how he scored a looker like Joan.

Have I mentioned that she used to be an occasional customer of ours, at the print shop where Jen and I worked in Copley Square? Yeah, she’d stop in for the odd bit of repro and a chat now and then. I never got to see her since I was a basement dwelling pre-press rat but the upstairs crew were always glowing after she’d been in.

They said she was a boozy old thing but witty, warm and totally down to earth.

In any case, I never found any of the Kennedy men attractive except for John John of course. Damn, he had it goin’ on! Very Hugh Jackman-y, no?

Of course, those were the Bouvier genes at play.

BUT, to get back to it, Tuesday was a painfully chilly, drizzly, WHEN-will-Spring-kick-in kind of a day. Hillel and I met at Froggies, (which he’s begun referring to as The Elephant and Iguana). I got there first and ordered my new-ish bad weather bev -- the Hot Toddy.

Dunno how it’s usually made but Wendy, BEST barkeep EVER. always makes mine with Jameson’s (AKA nectar of the gods). I guess I’m a regular and/or word’s gotten ‘round because, on nights Wendy’s not there, the other awesome drink crafters always stop and ask ‘with Jameson’s right?’

I respond ‘yeah,’ and think ‘of course!’ That they asked made me wonder -- how is a Hot Toddy usually made?

Given my google-fu super powers, I checked.

Ingredients:
1 oz brandy, whiskey, or rum
1 Tbsp honey
1/4 lemon
1 cup hot water
1 tea bag
Preparation:
Coat the bottom of a mug or an Irish coffee glass with honey.
Add the liquor and the juice of the lemon quarter.
On the side, heat water in a tea kettle and add the tea bag to make hot tea.
Pour the steaming tea into the glass and stir.

AH. So it can be concocted from brandy or rum too. OK. And I suppose there are other whiskeys out there though why anyone would choose something other then Jamie is just beyond me! (she says with the most dramatic of flounces)

Today’s supposed to be sunny and in the low 60s (fahrenheit) so, in any case, not a Toddy day.

I’m heading into town for the gallery hopping, Public Garden picture snapping, Marlborough/Beacon Street strolling day that I’d originally planned for Monday before last. You know, Big Boom Marathon Day.

I’ll stop by the memorial in Copley Square and, possibly, visit The Charlesmark Hotel, right at ground zero for bomb number two. I used to love the first floor lounge. I’d sit, sip a martini and wait for Jen to get off work. The always stunning barkeeps would pepper me with questions. ‘How do you sign martini?’ How do you say thank you in ASL?’ ‘How can I tell someone to piss off in sign?’ ‘What’s the sign for asshole?’

I was always happy to assist. Swears and cocktail names being the first thing I always try to learn in any new language.

Of course.

Today’s Rant Is Brought To You By The Letter N

N as in Netflix.

There’s nothing I like better than sitting in the dark, watching some awesome, absorbing movie.

Back in my hearing days, I’d, on occasion, take a day off from work just to do this exact thing. I recall a loverly afternoon spent in the Nickelodeon (gone now) down off Kenmore Square, eating hot real butter popcorn, watching Repo Man.

There was another afternoon spent at the Orson Welles (also gone. sigh) on Massachusetts Ave between Central and Harvard Squares, watching Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean. That was the movie which turned me on to Robert Altman. It was like a flood lamp was switched on in my brain. It was also the flick that made me keen to see any movie Cher was in. Shocked me to no end -- she had serious acting chops.

These are just two of so many days of sitting happily in the dark. Harold and Maude, Eating Raul, Jim Jarmusch’s Stranger Than Paradise and Down By Law,  the absolutely brill concert film Stop Making Sense (which I saw no fewer than ten times in the theaters!) and Spalding Gray's monologue performance, Swimming to Cambodia -- both directed by Jonathan Demme. John Sayles’ Return of the Secaucus 7, (The Big Chill was the big, slick Hollywood remake) and Brother From Another Planet. Spike Lee’s She’s Gotta Have It.

I know I’ve mentioned my movie and movie experience love before and the fact that now I have to find either foreign (subtitled) or closed captioned flicks or I have to wait and rent the discs. I’m fine with the rental deal and was signed up with Netflix. Jen and Oni have a big screen (everything’s relative -- it’s bigger than a postage stamp. To me that’s big) and Netflix has a pretty vast collection so I should've been golden. Right?

Ah, nope.

Imagine this -- Jen, Oni and I have done all the prep for our traditional late Saturday afternoon of snacks and movies in their darkened living room. There’s crab rangoons, guacamole, roasted seaweed squares and wasabi peas for me, black bean chips for them. Jen and I have our wine, Oni his cocktail and we are ready to sink into the cinematic reality.

Oni pops the platter into the player and begins all the set up crap -- finding the language/captioning selection and all that -- only to find NADA. No captioning at all.

Mega disappointment!

Now, I know the special features stuff is never captioned (and, boy-howdy, that’s annoying as all hell. I love all that Making Of stuff). I'm not expecting it.

BUT!!!

We’ve rented no fewer than six flicks in the last six months that did NOT have any closed captioning. Not only that but Netflix doesn’t give ANY indication no warning, nothing, that the picture show doesn’t have ‘em.

Bad enough that the movie/documentary/whatever isn’t captioned but Netflix can’t even note this in the DVD's description? ‘The fuck? This is a pretty basic thing, doncha think? I mean c’mon, not ALL customers have beautiful, ‘luxe hearing. There's a fair amount of us who need the damned captions!

Netflix has a handy dandy ‘what up? was falsch ist?’ section. I’ve gone to it. There’s nowhere to tap in that I don’t want to be charged for the rental since there was NO captioning AND no indication, anywhere on the site, of this most sad lack. No warning. You get, like, four options of things that could possibly be amiss. That’s it.

What am I -- invisible now that I’m deaf? Are my needs irrelevant and extraneous?

There’s a customer service ('service'...snort) phone number. Jen called twice. Both times she was told that it’d be over an hour wait to speak with a live human. Yeah, like ANYone has the time to sit on hold for an hour plus.

Christ almighty!

So I quit Netflix. Yeah sure, they’re not gonna go broke without my four rentals per month but at least I won’t have the astronomic aggro anymore.

A Million Miles Away

It’s a deeply chilly, drizzly, grey morning here in Valhalla so, naturally, I had to run up the street to get a coupla shots of the MOST awesome bucket -- spotted yesterday in K&E’s Auto Body lot.

Yeah, it’s a beat to shit wreck of a thing but, mein Gott does it have monster, gorgeous lines or what!? I don’t know what it is or even what year -- ’48 maybe? But what is it? Anyone know?

Want. Need. Must have.

In that alternate reality I have going on, it’s MINE!

Then, on Facebook, a friend posted this:
A baby blue 1959 Austin Healey Bugeye Sprite for sale via ebay for only $16,500 and it’s nearby -- in Providence! Geographically close and, economically, a zillion miles away.

sigh, in my dreams it’s mine -- what a sweet dream it is.

I’m positively tortured by visions of fabulously brill cars!
______________________________________
Flowers are beginning to come up. Thank Kali.

There are daffodils and these things (at left. dunno what they are. Anyone know?) poking up. Jen’s been planting pansies. I’ve been sowing forget me nots  because everyone wants to be remembered. Duh!? Right?

OK, there are certain behaviors and actions of mine that I’d love to erase from friend's, acquaintance's, past love's, lost ally's memories but...I digress. and shit.

Tomorrow is supposed to be sunny and 70. Yea!
 _______________________________________
You can’t quite see it in this pic but my fav bartender’s nails are...YES, the exact same shade as the Cosmo she’d just crafted for me! Wendy IS the best!
__________________________________
Fun with Facebook.
A fab friend of mine posted this column, about the Teamsters forming a human shield to protect mourners from those spectacularly vile ass-wipes from the Westboro Baptist Church (no linky for scum-sucking, ant brained, suppurating sores). In my early morning, fogged brain, I read the comment from a fellow, who went to high school with us, incorrectly. I thought he was expressing support and suggesting we borrow his assault rifle for the day, the task at hand.

I responded by going full metal Big-Swinging-Schwanz, saying,

 ‘we don’t need no steenking assault rifle here in Boston. We’ll take the WBC bastids apart by hand because, ya know, we’re into Artisanal Vigilanteism here.’

Oopsie. I read it wrong. Apparently this brutally cold-hearted, Nixonian, hamster brained (not to dis hamsters, mind you) idjit was advocating the violent death of the Teamster honor guard.

Note to self -- drink my espresso BEFORE commenting on anything!

Wow. Jenny and I went to school with some truly callous, maliciously stupid, appalling bits of slug shit. No wonder we both moved thousands of miles away.

This awesome song by Jim Boyd is, happily, in my head now. A Million Miles Away

Catharsis in Motion

This post is by my pal Hillel Bromberg.

I started riding the Pan-Mass Challenge ten years ago after cancer took my father. I found that I couldn’t sit still and let it devastate other families, so I saddled up for the weekend ride that raises a buttload of money for the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Riding, and putting effort into helping salve others, felt good. Training for hours on the bike gave me time to remember, reflect, and think about dad’s life, and mine, and my kids’. Being in motion was the right thing to do then, and remains so. Every year since, when I gather with 5,200 other riders who pedal in memory and in honor, I am reminded about the power of being active. The motion carries the day.

I was on my bike this morning, but it wasn’t a training ride. An ad hoc group of about 40 Boston area cyclists met in Hopkinton at the marathon starting line. We all kicked in a bunch of money for the One Fund Boston (set up to help those most affected by the bombings), then, joyfully, solemnly, respectfully, we rode the marathon route together. It was a spontaneous effort – one group of amateur athletes reaching out to another. It felt right to be in motion, to work through the events of this past week, to remember and reflect and, perhaps through our activity, lend some strength to those who need healing.

I don’t usually pay attention to my cyclometer when I’m riding, I just check my stats at the end of the route. But as we were riding down Commonwealth Ave, I happened to glance down and, I swear this is true, the odometer read exactly 26.2 miles. My stomach lurched and my throat clenched up. I made the distance that so many others on Monday could not. They’ll never know it, but I was riding for them.

We finished the ride at the Public Garden and were met by a group of college-age kids who were wandering around wearing white T-shirts emblazoned with, “Do you need a hug?” They were joyfully distributing embraces to all comers and I had to respect their own form of catharsis. Then we walked over to the memorial site that has blossomed a couple of blocks away at the end of Boylston Street. There were a few hundred people milling around and some kind of interfaith service going on. From there, I could see the building that houses my office. We were a block away from the finish line on Monday. We heard the booms, we saw the plume of smoke. I don’t know when we’ll be able to get back into our building. All I could do was hold the rope out of the way so some little kid could add her drawings to the growing pile of heartfelt testimonials.

 I don’t have any answers to this madness. We all need to mourn and heal and try to understand in our own way. For me, being in motion matters. There is something about the simple joy of riding a bicycle, along with the very practical help of donating to devastated families, that makes me feel like I’m on the right track.

I hope I always remember to take action. I hope you find your own peace.
_______________________________________________
My pal Hillel and I have been friends since before flat tires were invented. He's a tremendous son, father, husband, comrade in kvetch, grant writer, biker, all around excellent mensch and יָדִיד.

Three Handy Dandy Customer Service Tips

Now that the vile, barbaric, misguided, miscreant bombers have been nailed, we return you to our regularly scheduled kvetch fest.

Here are a few tips for anyone and everyone who works with the public.

1) If your job involves talking with customers, on the phone or face to face, put on a goddamned happy fucking face! No you don’t have to be all Bozo the Clown on Maui Wowie. No one expects that but, please bitch, do NOT be curt, disdainful and dismissive with me. Do NOT cut me off when I’m trying to tell you why I’ve darkened the door of your otherwise fine-ish establishment.

My purchase helps pay your salary. Try to keep that in mind, K?

Do you find yourself unable to control your emotions? Can’t keep your irritability to yourself or at least at a dull, civil simmer? Unable to put aside your anger at something harsh your spouse said before you left for work? Can’t deal with the fast paced, demanding environment? Your boss is making the monster in Alien seem like your sweet, cookie baking Aunt Bess? The last person you assisted crapped in your Hazelnut Macchiato? 

We all have bad days but do NOT make your unhappiness and irritation my problem unless I've given you an engraved invitation!

2) If you find yourself suffering from rampant diarrhea of the limbic system, do yourself, your employers, employees and the public a favor -- get into another line of work. Can’t find work that shields you from us horrid, dreadful masses? I hear tell that Xanax works a treat. Might wanna check in with your primary care doc on that.

Also too, just to be really, wicked clear, NO I do not take your presumptuous, rude, cranky-ass, utterly self indulgent and temper tantrum-y behavior personally. Please, mon ami -- miles beside the point much?

What I most emphatically object to is having to be exposed to your I’m-having-a-bad-day/life-and-want-everyone-to-know-it performance. Life’s too damned short for that excrement.

3) At some point in your customer service career you will wait on someone who’s blind or deaf. Be ready to meet us half way on the communication front.

When I open with ‘I’m deaf but if you speak slowly maybe I can read your lips,’ do NOT turn your head away from me, so I can’t see your lips, and continue to speak. Also, try to refrain from understanding my request/direction as an invitation to break into verbal wind sprints.

Miaow

If I can’t see your lips and you choose to ignore what I’ve JUST TOLD YOU, hell baby, I’m not going to understand a thing you said and you’ve just lost a customer.

Deaf here NOT a doormat. It’s part of your job description to help all customers not treat us like undeserving, filthy peasants.

And that dye job? Looks like it was prolly expensive but, dearie, you’re a little too advanced in years and a shade too chubby to rock the tousled honey blonde, Meg Ryan ‘do. Leave that to the 50 and under crowd. It’s just embarrassing on someone our age.

To be utterly fair, all the other worker bees at the For Eyes in South Weymouth, Massachusetts were friendly, personable, patient and professional. Truly fab. But there’s only two others who normally wait on the public. The odds of having this Diva wannabe as my ‘service rep’ are unfortunately high.

I usually go to the branch in Harvard Square but, with Monday ’s big booms, I thought I’d stay here on the south shore.

The crowds on the subway would’ve been less stressful.  

Walrus Gumboot

Though the mills of God grind slowly;
Yet they grind exceeding small;
Though with patience he stands waiting,
With exactness grinds he all.
-- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The croaking raven doth bellow for revenge.
   Hamlet (3.2.250) 

My ashes, as the phoenix, may bring forth
A bird that will revenge upon you all:
And in that hope I throw mine eyes to heaven,
Scorning whate'er you can afflict me with.
   3 Henry VI (1.4.35-8)

-- Shakespeare

There is pleasure in the pathless woods.

The heart will break, but broken live on.
-- Lord Byron

mercy is a gift
often sought, rarely deserved
revenge fills the gap
-- anonymous

Maybe that's what life is... a wink of the eye and winking stars.
-- Jack Kerouac

Talking nonsense is man's only privilege that distinguishes him from all other organisms.
-- Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky


Come Together -- Beatles (go to the link -- it's seriously beautiful AND I can read Lennon's lips while he sings too! How astoundingly awesome is that? My brain fills in the tune that I can no longer hear.)

Stay Indoors

All I can say right now is !!!!!!!!!!???????????
and when did Boston become such a war zone?

What's that you say? Can you write it down for me? I'm deaf, doncha know.

Monday? Oh.

Watched the news over at Jen and Oni's. Neither can go into work as the city's shut down. Hell of a way to score a three day weekend, huh?

The MBTA isn't running.  Taxi service has been suspended,

Such craziness!

From Bloomberg just now:

Minutes before the bombs blew up in Boston, Jeff Bauman looked into the eyes of the man who tried to kill him.

Two and a half minutes later, the bag exploded, tearing Jeff’s legs apart. A picture of him in a wheelchair, bloodied and ashen, was broadcast around the world as he was rushed to Boston Medical Center. He lost both legs below the knee.

“He woke up under so much drugs, asked for a paper and pen and wrote, ‘bag, saw the guy, looked right at me,’” Chris Bauman said yesterday in an interview.

 and this found on a friend's Facebook page just now:

I just heard the suspect sneaked into somebody's basement and left a pool of blood. Glad he's injured.

Why? Why did they do this?  I just hope the cops, etc. got the right wretched, violent, assholic souls.

Breathe

Copley Square across the bay

Serene morning at home

I can’t exist in a constant state of fear and anger. I can be aware of what’s happening around me, of the life I’m living and even, on the odd, funny occasion, the effects of my actions on those around me. I can, MUST do this without existing in a Thunderdome of alarm, horror and white hot fury.

If not for me, for The Amazing Bob and Princess Coco.

Today is about serenity and NOT watching the news.

A day to breathe in, breathe out, take a long trike ride and paint.

Namaste

The Fine Line Between Trauma Porn and News

At what point do news organizations go beyond reporting, providing us with the information we need about horrific and traumatic events, and plunge head first into Exploitative Bullshit Land?

I appreciate the helicopter shots of all the white hazmat suited men and women combing Copley Square for clues and evidence. OK, it freaks me out but it’s good to see the folks at work.

I can’t stand the interviews with eight year olds. ‘Were you scared?’ What’s the point of this? To rip out our hearts even farther? To boost ratings? Did they run out of attractive, victimized adults to bother?

How many pics of bloodied bodies with fearless yet fearful helpers hovering all around, do we honestly need to see? One? Three? 7,000?

When is the line between need-to-know/basic human interest and Trauma Porn crossed?

DA Dan Conley: ‘What happened yesterday was an act of cowardice.’

cowardice  [kou-er-dis]
Part of Speech: noun
Definition:  lack of courage to face danger, difficulty, opposition, pain, etc.
timidity

I just never understand this sentiment. How is blowing up the Boston Marathon an example of chicken-heartedness? I realize our elected officials are under pressure to come up with comforting, hopeful and encouraging words for us, the traumatized populace but, this trope? Dunno. It always strikes me as a bizarre take. It sounds, to me anyway, like a kid who’s just taken a whuppin’ and is trying to save face with his pals. It seems weak.

A Saudi man, injured just like everyone else in the stands, was interviewed while in hospital for his shrapnel wounds (dunno how extensive they were). His apartment was thoroughly searched.

Last night, a phalanx of officers from the FBI, ATF and Boston swarmed the fifth-floor apartment in Revere’s Ocean Shores Tower in what residents said was a startling show of force just hours after the horrific Boston Marathon double bombing.

In addition to two Boston Police K-9 units and a bomb squad unit, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, as well as Homeland Security investigators and state police also assembled at the two buildings on Ocean Avenue in Revere.

His roommate had this to say of him:

“He’s sweet and kind and a good person,” Mohammed Hassan Bada, 20, of Saudi Arabia of his roommate, who he said is a 22-year-old also from Saudi Arabia, here to study English in Boston.

and

“I was scared,” he said.

He said he had lived with the hospitalized man, and another 19-year-old Saudi man, for five months at the apartment in Revere. He said the 19-year-old was traveling in New York yesterday.

“My roommates are good people,” he said.

Why was this man picked out of the crowd? He’s brown and from the Middle East. Duh. Of course! It MUST be him because, ya know, the Boston Marathon doesn’t attract people of all colors, from all over the world...said no one, ever.
While in this fevered rush to find the perp(s) I sure as hell hope the authorities aren’t overlooking the Timothy McVeigh types. You know, angry, disgruntled white folks who think the Ted Nugents and Rush Limbaughs of this country are visionary leaders instead of the vile, scum-sucking, narcissistic, attention whoring mega grifter, rabble rousing, piles of roach excrement that they REALLY are.

THIS human interest bit I liked! From Rachel Maddow's blog:

Saeed Jones highlighted a detail that I found noteworthy: there are three main officers seen in the foreground of this image, and the one on our right is Javier Pagan, who is Latino, gay, and the Boston Police Department's LGBT liaison.

His husband is a retired NYPD sergeant, who helped rescue people on September 11, 2001.

The fellow on the ground who’s being helped up?

A photo of the 78-year-old Washington state man lying dazed before a group of police officers went viral — one of countless images depicting the shock and confusion of the twin bombings that killed three people and injured dozens at the race.

Iffrig, who was running in his third Boston Marathon, said he was “feeling pretty good” about his time when he saw the finish line in sight about 15 feet away. Then he heard a blast and his body trembled.

He said he was never unconscious, but it took a few seconds to get his bearings. Cops standing before Iffrig, who was in a bright orange tank top, quickly mobilized.

“I made an attempt to get up, and one of the assistants came over and gave me a hand,” Iffrig said. “He went over and walked me to the finish line so I can finish.”

Dude’s 78 years old, knocked over by the blast and he just wants to get up and finish his run. I can only dream of being that strong and stoic.

Maybe when I grow up.

Copley Square April 15, 2013

Marathon Set up on the Friday before

Jen and I worked two doors down from the Boston Marathon finish line on Boylston Street for years -- eons even. Before that, we worked 2 blocks further up the street across from the Prudential Center.

At first I just loved working on Marathon Day. There was a real fab festival feel on the job and in the streets.

Michael, the company owner, always sprung for a big buffet lunch and was cool with only getting half a day’s work out of us. Around 11:30 AM, we’d all trundle up to the huge second floor accounting offices, fill our plates and sit in the enormous, floor to ceiling windows overlooking Boylston Street. We'd kibitz and applaud while watching the wheelchair racers and runners go by. I'd always get choked up by the Denali sized efforts and determination of the runners and wheelers with the happy throngs cheering them on. Beautiful. Just tremendous. I always felt silly for getting teary eyed and would head back to the basement press-room.

Eventually the crowds, the hurdle filled complicated commute and the drunken revelers were too much for me and I began taking the day off.

Massacre of the Innocents -- Rubens

And then, a year and a half ago, I took a job in another part of town. A few months later, Jen followed me.

Thank Bast!

From HuffPo:

The deadly bombing at the Boston Marathon Monday has left at least three people dead -- including an 8-year-old boy -- and more than 130 others wounded.

From the AP:

One of Boston's biggest annual events, the race winds up near Copley Square, not far from the landmark Prudential Center and the Boston Public Library. It is held on Patriots Day, which commemorates the first battles of the American Revolution, at Concord and Lexington in 1775.

At Massachusetts General Hospital, Alisdair Conn, chief of emergency services, said: "This is something I've never seen in my 25 years here ... this amount of carnage in the civilian population. This is what we expect from war."

"We just don't know whether it's foreign or domestic," said Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security.

The attack may have been timed for maximum carnage: The four-hour mark is typically a crowded time near the finish line because of the slow-but-steady recreational runners completing the race and because of all the friends and relatives clustered around to cheer them on.
A woman who was a few feet from the second bomb, Brighid Wall, 35, of Duxbury, said that when it exploded, runners and spectators froze, unsure of what to do. Her husband threw their children to the ground, lay on top of them and another man lay on top of them and said, "Don't get up, don't get up."

a calm, peaceful image to meditate on

So far I’ve heard from all but one of my friends who work in Copley Square or were participating in the Marathon. I’ll untense a smidge after I hear from Jeff.

The folks investigating do NOT know who was responsible for this massacre of innocents so, PLEASE, can the rush to blame. The terrorist(s) may be American. They may be foreign. It’s not known yet. All I know is that the far right and the far left of the blogosphere are blaming Obama. ‘the fuck? No, don’t tell me the rationale. I really don’t want to enter that fevered, fantasy swamp.

My immediate expressive and oh so articulate reactions to my friends and family?

How fucking DARE whoever the pathetic excuse for a train wrecked, asswipe who pulled this heinous travesty!

and

Fuck this fucking shitheaded, brain rotted violence bullshit!

From The Green Miles:  

‘I'm going to the Marathon next year, because fuck whoever did this.’

I end with my eloquent cousin Gary words:

‘May Karma punish those behind this.’