I woke up with Joe Keohane… did you?

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Woke up this morning to a truly terrible sight: Former Dig editor and current Boston magazine writer Joe Keohane, staring right into my bedroom from, like, five feet away. He was on the television, but still, it felt a bit uncomfortable that early in the day.

Keohane was pimping his upcoming BoMag profile of (disgraced? beloved?) former senate president Billy Bulger. It's a major coup, because Bulger never talks to the press, and after this story hits the streets, he'll probably revert to that policy with great tenacity.

I've gotta say, the sight of our pasty old boss staring out at us and talking about Billy Bulger is only slightly better to wake up to than the sight of VB smearing bits of lobster roll all over his face. Still, we're all glad that Keohane finally found somebody else, besides us, who'll indulge him while he tells these stories. Really, who hasn't seen Billy accosted by a pack of French-Canadian tourists in search of a State House bathroom?

But seriously, if half of the stuff we've heard about this series of interviews makes it into the piece, it'll be the best story his new rag runs all year. And it'll certainly be a welcome departure from all that stuff about the best towns for your kid's wealthiest doctor to go to preschool in.

Bullshit Watch: Special Casino Gambling Edition!

By Paul on Fri, Sep 21, 2007 3:07 pm

Man, has this been a fun week around Dig HQ. First, Deval Patrick (with an assist from Tim Cahill) up and drops a three-headed casino warhead on us, and then our (admittedly formidable) news department has to slog through a 500-page pile of background material that helped shape the governor's decision. (We should note that, prior to what we were told and reported this week, the packet cost $39.52, not $250.)

We already know from the Herald that Patrick met with a number of casino interests while he was mulling his decision -- in fairness, he split his meetings relatively equally between proponents and opponents of gambling -- and, via Dan Kennedy, we know that Patrick's advisers recommended an independent vetting of the economic analysis contained in his gambling backgrounder. No such vetting took place.

According to press aides to both Patrick and Secretary of Housing and Economic Development Dan O'Connell, the administration's internal study group wasn't tasked with undertaking such an analysis; rather, their job was simply to compile the existing literature on casino gambling and to pass it on to Patrick.

The result of that decision is worse than you could imagine. Patrick not only met with casino lobbyists in the runup to Monday's announcement; he also relied, in part, on economic data provided by the prospective casino developers themselves. Those same developers stand to make billions upon billions of dollars if Patrick lets them build casinos in Massachusetts. It's like basing the state's global warming policy on research bankrolled by Exxon.

Full of outrage yet? No? Yes? Either way, keep your eyes on this space; next Wednesday, we'll be printing a full account of the shitty research that Governor Patrick looked over, and explaining how it helped shape this week's casino bombshell. Yeah, we can't wait either.

Do you waannnaaaaa buy a token?

By Paul on Wed, Sep 19, 2007 5:14 pm

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We've heard reports recently that Spare Change Guy has been roaming around Cambridge, trying to sell old T tokens to passers-by. Which is pretty smart, because the things are absolutely worthless right now.

It's unclear, though, how much he was asking for. Was it the tokens' original $1.25 (or, if you're Mitt Romney, $1) face value, or did the grubby copper coins appreciate inside his pockets along with the last fare hike? If you can't produce a Charlie Card, will the guy charge you the full $2, or give you a break and let you take the token off his hands for $1.70? Can someone who's fallen for this scam please tell us what the F is going on???

Taking Things Seriously - The Interview, and the Party Blurb

By Paul on Wed, Sep 19, 2007 4:29 pm

Josh Glenn harbors a special fascination for junk, clutter, stuff. So do many of his friends, and friends of his friends. So it was that his new book, Taking Things Seriously, came to be.

As its subhead attests, Taking Things Seriously is a visual and literary curio cabinet, a scattershot collection of "75 objects with unexpected significance." There's a '70's hair salon robot, a porn fiend's old cigar box, a one-eyed ceramic frog that sits on its owners' soap dish, a Velveeta box, a T-shirt, a remarkably well-endowed wooden horse, the arm of a cigarette-burned couch, a needlepoint work that simply says "THOUGHTS," a World War I-vintage helmet, a dried up turtle's tail, a stick, a pile of dirt, ceramic dogs, nail clippings, a wooden Santa who's unsteady on his feet. Collectively, it's a fairly unimpressive collection, as far as monetary value goes. But, to these objects' owners, they're the most treasured, valuable items they own. (If any of this sounds mildly awesome, swing by the book release party tomorrow night at Pazzo Books in Rozzie Square.)

Glenn, a former Globe staffer, editor of Hermenaut, and current Ideas blogger, met me for drinks at JJ Foley's last night. We camped out by the Big Buck Hunter machine, thereby dodging another fucking dreadful Sox game, and talked about Things.

"For years, my entire adult life, whenever I'd go to somebody's office, their study, their studio, their workspace, office, living room, whatever, I always gravitate towards that one object they've got on their shelf or the mantelpiece that's an unusual thing," he says. "It might be a rock or a stick or a tarnished little statuette or a bent or broken or burned old toy. Somebody of an older generation would've put something nice there, like a Ming vase or something, but somebody of my generation has this weird half-destroyed toy from the 50's or 60's, and it's displayed like a precious artifact. And I always ask about it, and there's always an amazing story connected to it, and you get insight into that person that you couldn't get otherwise."

Glenn was at a party in New York one night, and spied the book Where'd You Get Those? He turned to the co-editor of Taking Things Seriously, graphic designer Carol Hayes, and said, "We've gotta do a book called Where'd you Get That?"

He and Hayes each reached out to their friends for submissions, asking them to share meaningful objects for the book. "A lot of them didn't have anything we wanted for the book - their objects were significant, but not in an interesting way, to us. We had to say no to a lot of things that people's grandparents had given them, or family heirlooms. We said no to a lot of travel souvenirs, remains, both human and animal. And that's very hard - you contact a friend of yours and you say, give me your most significant object for my book, and he says, OK, here's my cat's ashes, and I have to say, that's not good enough. I think there's at least two or three people who'll never talk to me again after this."

The process of unearthing people's most valued possessions, and asking them to explain just why they're valued, ended up becoming a slightly unsettling exercise in psychology and anthropology. "It turns out," Glenn says, "and I didn't know this going in, that I like things we like in really primitive or tribal or superstitious ways - totems, fossils, talismans, animal figures, dolls, these are all things that, a thousand years ago, people were attaching deep significance to. And really, as enlightened 21st Century westerners, we should not be finding these things significant anymore. We should not be putting things in our house that represent the natural world in significant way to us - we shouldn't have a rock or a stick or a bear or a pig figure that we keep around because it represents the natural world to us. We're beyond that. And yet, people do it, and it's fascinating. We shouldn't keep dolls from our childhood. You grow up and you realize that a doll's not human. It's not alive, it doesn't think, it doesn't love you, and yet people do keep those things. We shouldn't have good luck charms. We're rational people. We don't believe in luck. You don't keep a talisman around. And yet, a lot of people I know do."

What does that say about us, I asked, that we insist on clinging to irrationality, that we hold on to a dried up turtle's tail or a parrot in the freezer? Are we not all we imagine ourselves to be? "This French philosopher I quote in the introduction, Bruno Latour, wrote this book that I've never actually read," Glenn says, "the title of which is We Have Never Been Modern. I think that's true. We are completely, we are all savages with a thin veneer of enlightened, civilized forward-thinking on top. We're constantly backsliding from the sixteenth and seventeenth century. I'm starting to think that was just a trend. It was just a fad, the Enlightenment. It lasted a couple hundred years, and it's ending now. On the other hand, what we're learned from postmodern thinkers, there's a lot of backwards and regressive things about the Enlightenment, about allowing rationality to be the only rule. It's complicated, and there's no right answer, yet. I'll provide it eventually, if I ever actually write a book."

Josh Glenn celebrates the release of Taking Things Seriously on Thursday, 9.20, at Pazzo Books in Roslindale Square. 7pm-midnight. pazzobooks.com

Check It: FOUND Mag at the Burren

By Paul on Tue, Sep 18, 2007 12:36 pm

Tomorrow night, our old friends Davy and Peter Rothbart swing into town to celebrate the release of FOUND Magazine's fifth issue. There will be reading, performing, find-sharing (bring your best), and, if last year's show is any indication, a room that's absolutely rotten with booze.

"Last year was one of my favorite shows," says Davy, on the phone up in Portland, Maine. "The atmosphere was great. The people were ready to have a good time. There was a ruckus, and we're ready to bring more. Our tours are like that old video game Rampage."

"We got a new van for this tour," Davy reports. The last one broke last year, shortly before they landed in Boston. "The van's name is Big Red, according to the woman we bought it from in Cleveland. Her husband had bought it and worked on it for a year; he was going to take it cross-country. Then he got sick. She was going to sell the van locally, as a work van, and then she heard about what we were doing, and thought this was the exact kind of trip her husband had wanted the van to go on. Her name's Eileen; she might join us on tour for a week."

In addition to reading classic finds and selections from the new FOUND #5 (the Crime Issue), Peter will be singing new songs based on found notes, and Davy will be reading a new story about how he and Peter used to torment their deaf mother.

"It was weird," Davy says, of putting together the crime-themed issue. "Halfway through number five, I realized that so many of the notes we received revolved around crime -- crimes of the heart, notes from people writing to someone on the inside. Somebody found this huge folder in a dumpster -- it was this FBI agent's whole file -- all these mug shots, newspaper clippings, letters between him and J. Edgar Hoover. You could piece together the guy's life in novelistic detail. He's so hapless, he keeps loosing his gun, he's pleading to J. Edgar Hoover for mercy. It goes on for 22 pages, and it's such a weird story."

FOUND #5 isn't all secret agents and gun molls, though. Consider this crime against dignity, which Davy found on the floor of a university computer lab:

Andrew, I have not graded your test yet, but it is clear that my message to you about receiving the grade you earn has not gotten through. To write, as you do, “Please have mercy on my soul and give me a passing grade, I think I deserve it,” indicated that, as do your numerous pleas for mercy earlier in the course. Grading is about receiving what your coursework indicates you deserve. Nothing else!! I have operated on that principle for about 40 years, and I am not about to change now. So please stop the undignified pleading. I’ll enter the grades for all students in 344 at the same time, and you will receive what you EARN. No more, no less. - Professor Massey

Or this note, found on the floor of a Michigan unemployment office. The applicant had asked the state for unemployment benefits, only to be denied after the state spoke with the applicant's former employer:

Dear Sir, Your employer has not indicated that shortages was your reason for discharge. Stated you played with matches and set fire to paper in a trash can. Set fire to reports. Wrote abscene graffiti on the paper work, calendars and posted signs. You engaged in hourseplay — pouring ammonia on dry ice in the back room which caused the dry ice to explode. You twirled a broom and hit a customer in the head. Thank You, B. Hartline

"We were going to call the tour 'The Crime Pays Tour,' but some of our friends and readers are locked up," Davy says. "We get lots of letters from people in prison - the letters are so sad and desperate. It's pretty rough."

Davy taught a prison writing course for several years, and FOUND sends off free magazines to anyone in prison who asks for a copy. FOUND #5 reprints several of these letters, and they're alternately hilarious and heartbreaking. One reader told of how he'd smuggled a copy of FOUND into a long stint in solitary confinement, and then handed it off to another prisoner; if he'd been caught, it would've been another month in solitary.

"The nice thing about these letters is, it humanizes people," Davy says. "When you're not in jail, you get the wrong idea about who is in jail. I love that we have so many FOUND readers in jail - they're not that different than people on the outside."

Pressed as to why people should bother coming out to the Burren tomorrow night (there's also a dry afternoon show at Our Lady of Nazareth in Wakefield), Davy responds, "The other night, this guy in his 50's came up and said it was the best live show he'd ever seen. Fucking yeah, dude. I mean, you obviously didn't go to that Public Enemy show in Detroit, but alright. But seriously, it'll be the best 85 minutes of your life, straight-up. We'll be throwing around free hundreds at the audience -- they'll feel that wildly jubilant, even though there will be no real money."

[FOUND Magazine's There Goes the Neighborhood Tour 2007 swings by the Burren, 247 Elm Street, Davis Square on Wednesday, 9.22. 8pm. burren.com]

Adrian Walker is a moron

By Paul on Fri, Sep 7, 2007 11:59 am

There are these things on city streets. Street signs, they're called. They're there because Bostonians are filthy, filthy man-beasts, completely incapable of traversing the public byways without spraying trash, Dunkin' Donuts cups, lottery tickets, half-eaten plates of fried rice [Google Image search didn't work for that one -- ooh, wait, here ya go], broken vodka pint bottles, clothing, sand left over from winter storms, diapers [you're welcome], and other refuse all over the streets. One day, when walking to lunch, Dig staff discovered a pregnancy test box lying in the middle of the road. It had been opened. Lying next to it was a coathanger. I shit you not.

Point is, Boston's a disgusting place. That's why, once every week or two, street sweepers come out and clean the shit up. Then, for an hour or so afterwards, everything looks nice and civilized -- until the savages destroy things again.

I've been covering City Hall for longer than I'd care to admit. During that time, I've been treated to countless dissertations on the disgraceful state of the city's streets. I've also seen red-faced city councilors complain that locals aren't cooperating with street sweeping and resident-only parking regulations, to the detriment of, uh, civilization. In response to these specific, repeated requests, the council jacked up parking ticket fines, hoping to bleed recalcitrant Bostonians enough to convince them that it'd be best to get up at 8am a couple times a month and move their fucking cars like the rest of the world does. By all accounts, tougher enforcement has yielded some measures of compliance. Part of this tougher enforcement involves towing. Shocker. If people are getting towed more, they're only getting what their own politicians asked for.

Problem is, City Hall can't tell Southie what Southie should do. It ain't right. Southie doesn't have parking meters because dudes with baseball bats broke them all, and the city couldn't afford to keep fixing them. The Silver Line doesn't run anywhere near Broadway because somebody would have to be in charge of stopping double-parking in the neighborhood; a meter maid trying to enforce that regulation would be lucky to get away with a hot coffee bath. So you expect residents to actually pay attention to signs that say "TOW ZONE" on them? Not a fucking chance.

Of course, this isn't just a Southie thing. No fair picking on one neighborhood when there are steakheads all over town who think signs don't really mean what they say. And, luckily for them, they've got an unthinking, unquestioning friend whose job it is to shit out bad logic for the city's biggest daily.

It wasn't a squad car or an ambulance. It was a tow truck on street cleaning day, there to scoop up any car carelessly parked in an illicit location.

"It was like they were the bomb squad," said the woman, who asked not to be named for fear of retribution. Yes, retribution - from the towing companies stalking her neighborhood with their flatbed trucks.

Give us your car and nobody gets hurt!

Look out, good citizens. Men in dirty pants are stalking your neighborhood! And they don't just want to steal your five-year old -- they want your car too!!! The amazing thing is, Adrian Walker actually seems to believe what he's saying.

City Councilor Michael Flaherty, whose South Boston neighborhood sees more than its share of towing, might be the program's strongest critic.

He's also up for reelection, and has to service all types of shrill neighborhood types.

"With the city's current street cleaning policy, tow companies are collecting millions on the backs of working families," Flaherty said, adding that the city "must now take responsibility to establish a program that keeps our streets clean while protecting residents' wallets." That doesn't sound like all that hard a balance to strike.

It doesn't. The balance: move your car and we won't tow it.

Everyone wants a clean city, but Boston was cleaned for years without sticking up residents.

No, it was a shithole. See above. Or below.

As seen outside Dig HQ

[Update: Just how dumb is this whole thing? Keohane and Adam Gaffin will also be happy to tell you.]

Arraign-O-Blog

By Paul on Wed, Sep 5, 2007 2:01 pm

Fantastic, highly manipulative political theatre was on display today as Powers Fasteners, the firm that allegedly supplied faulty ceiling epoxy to Big Dig contractors, was arraigned on charges of manslaughter.

The Powers brothers arrived at the courthouse early, dressed in nearly identical dark suits, and, flanked by a PR flak, waited to plead not guilty. And waited. And waited. The proceedings, scheduled to begin at 9am, threatened to reach 9:45 before any action commenced. As the brothers and their lawyers waited silently, court officers bullshitted with each other and with less-well-dressed defendants. A townie dude in basketball shorts and running shoes repeatedly filed in and out of the tiny courtroom, while a pregnant girl sat forlornly on a back bench. One reporter arrived wearing a polyester SpongeBob SquarePants tie, a notebook crammed deeply into his acid-washed jeans; still, the day's fashion prize went to a defendant with giant hair, electric pink lipstick, plaid pants and an ill-fitting top that exposed her shoulders and bra straps. Even the crackhead in the back of the room did a double-take.

The air conditioning in the tiny, cement block room (painted a sickly shade of cream, natch) didn't appear to be working very well; the thing was packed, while a much larger room next door stood nearly empty.

After a long wait, the clerk magistrate settled into a duct-taped chair and asked for the epoxy firm's plea. Defense lawyer Max Stern pled not guilty for the company, and the parties agreed on a September 9, 2008 trial date. Then it was show time.

Flanked by his lawyers and a phalanx of television cameras, Milena del Valle's husband, Angel, was prodded into giving a statement that would sufficiently encapsulate his grief and anger. As his sister, Inez, translated from Spanish, he spoke briefly about wanting to see the case resolved, justice served, and "suffering" every day since the tunnel collapse.

Asked, rather forcefully, to elaborate, his lawyer, Raipher Pellegrino, stepped in. "He's not comfortable with this many people in front of him," Pellegrino said. "He wants justice."

"Can I hear it from him again?" demanded one reporter.

"He's already answered it once," Pellegrino shot back. The reporter made a sour face, then rushed downstairs, where Powers Fasteners' lawyers were staging a similar scene. They were actually kind enough to start their indignant denials over, for the benefit of the cameras that had been detained by del Valle's intransigence.

Jeffrey Powers, the company's president, called the arraignment "inexplicable" and "scandalous" and "the worst kind of abuse of our criminal justice system." He alleged that the indictment was made for "political and financial gain," noting last week's Globe story, in which lawyers in the AG's office told the paper, "One of the reasons [Coakley] went ahead with Powers' [indictment] was to make the point to Bechtel: If you are going to pony up a whole lot of money, you'd better do it damn fast because [she] is closing in on a decision here." The story said that Coakley isn't indicting Bechtel right away because she's trying to squeeze a several hundred-million dollar settlement out of the company.

"We're an easy target," Powers said. "We're only a pawn in a chess game over really big money."

Powers's attorney, Stern, seemed to blame distributors and contractors for the mix-up between fast-set and full-strength epoxy that helped cause the ceiling collapse, but he also alleged that the company had offered to perform a safety test on the tunnel ceiling, but was rebuffed by contractor Modern Continental.

Powers and his brothers were flanked by a dozen company employees, who'd been bused out from New York to support their beleaguered bosses. They gave testimonials to eager TV reporters, and then the whole lot crowded around for a group picture. They were arm in arm, smiling like they were on a class field trip. "That's exhibit A!" Stern quipped to a colleague.

After the picture, the presser seemed to devolve. The busload was kept on hand as a tardy cameraman rushed to the scene; in the meantime, Powers gave an interview to a radio reporter. He was asked how he felt to be arraigned when Bechtel wasn't, and responded by putting on his sternest stern face and shaking his head sadly. "This is radio!" his PR person interjected. "They can't see you!"

Overheard on the Common

By Paul on Wed, Sep 5, 2007 1:01 pm

Overheard conversation between a construction worker and a guy crossing Boston Common with a carton of Marlboro Reds under his arm:

Hey, where you going? Getting a drink?

Naw, can't, I just got outta detox.

Then what? Going to see a movie?

(Cigarette/detox guy shrugs, says nothing.)

GO SEE SOOOPAHBAD!!!

(Construction guy turns to high-five a homeless guy.)

Bullshit watch in Somerville

By Paul on Tue, Sep 4, 2007 12:13 pm

Joe Keohane interrupted a wicked party this past weekend and demanded that I read this incredible story about the name-calling shitshow that's masquerading as a mayoral race in Somerville. I now do the same to you: put down that shot and read this!

Spoiler: It's full of old Italian guys who like to bullshit each other and bust each other’s chops.

Ross to Boston: Green that shit!

By Paul on Wed, Aug 29, 2007 6:57 pm