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They are trying to keep the Citgo sign in Boston.

I saw two of them. The first was, as I recall, green and white. Then they changed their logo and the sign went "quiet" for awhile.

It returned in full force color and will, apparently continue for a long time ahead.

Boston Developer Buys Building With Citgo Sign, Raising Preservation Hopes

Here. Take a look for yourself!

Labels: Boston

It took me awhile to see this painfully pointed film.

Spotlight (2015)

In which the Boston Globe Spotlight Team uncovers and prints a major series of stories about the clerical abuse that has raged for years in the Catholic Diocese.

We were there at that time. In fact we knew one of the priests from meeting him at a gay resort. Paul Shanley the "street priest" who had one of his boys in tow.

Very interesting guy. A vision of evil.

By now this is well known, the web of abuse cases stretching across the world but this is the first place that the lid came off the box.

There are many familiar scenes of Boston. No movie sets here. The acting is superb. And for a "talkie" film where there is a dense accumulation of data and structure it cuts straight to the center.

A would be willing to see it again making it a 4 out of Netflix5.

Labels: Boston, films

Boston will always be my home town.

I adopted it as such when I went to MIT and stayed there for nearly forever. Or at least within 50 miles maximum.

In the last years I lived within a very short distance from the distinctively designed City Hall and it huge expanse of red brick paving on the Cambridge Street side. It was actually our back yard.

I even met John for the first time on the brick field. He worked at City Hall and we were to meet at the T station on the right end. I can still see him coming towards me. I knew it was him.

And it was.

So this comes as a funny shock.

Boston Enlivens City Hall Plaza by Rolling Out Green Carpet

Someone covered it up with fake grass and put in lawn chairs.

An obvious joke but apparently not appreciated by some. There are always a few killjoys.

Labels: Boston, life

Every good actor comes to a time when he has to do a switcheroo.

This is Johnny Depp's time.

And he is Whitey Bulger, the infamous Boston racketeer.

Bulger's story is pretty fantastic. His brother was a big politician. And a successful one. Whitey was successful too but played for the other side.

Jesus. Johnny. You are out of the heartthrob category with this one.

I cannot wait to see it.

Labels: Boston, films

I am watching the news of the Tsarnaev trial very closely.

One, because it is in Boston, my adopted home town. Two because it is a fascinating case from the very start.

I do not understand murder per se. I do understand terrorism. It is an effective tool for people who wish to disrupt.

What I do not understand is the wish to disrupt.

It is just not in me.

The thing that makes this trial fascinating is that there is no question of guilt.

They have already pled guilty.

What is at hand is the question of punishment. And there lies the interest. From the beginning because as we can see, the penalty, the punishment was never enough to thwart the crime.

And never will be.

These people are driven by different motors.

They are not psychotic at least the way that lets them off. They are driven by ideology.

In this case, the defense hopes to show that young Tsarnaev was driven by allegiance to his older brother who already died for his sins. A good thing, I think. That he is dead. Gone. Finished. Punished forever. But then that was what he wanted so is that punishment?

It is all very twisted and like a mirror world.

I find myself looking at drawings of this boy, because he is very young, sitting and listening to them talk about his life.

There are no photographs. Only artists' renderings.

So there it is. I am stuck. Just what the fuck is going on here? How does this work? What do we do?

I suppose if he gets the death penalty, this fascination will last until he dies. Or I do.

Incidentally, I really have no position on the death penalty. It is pretty final. I know that.

Labels: Boston, terrorism

Labels: Boston

Things seem to be clearing up in Boston.

As a retired Bostonian living in a new place I still have roots there. They are strong and deep and location of my current life cannot remove them.

So I read this item with great interest and affection this morning.

Finding Out Who Shoveled the Boston Marathon Finish Line"

It was a great idea and somehow took a lot of the pain out of the bombing aftermath which seems to bleed daily into all the news outlets.

I will let you read why he did it but it is for the best reason I can think of.

Let's say reverence or affection. It is in his work neighborhood and there it was and he took a shovel to it.

This is the kind of thing that regularly can take the sting out of life's downsides.

I am not a fan of the whole "Boston Proud" thing. Another slogan tainted with the same mindless boastfulness that offends in all other areas of life. Hokum for the boobs.

But there is a quiet pride in Boston in my heart. One which does not go toward aggrandizement or making the town bigger than it is already in my heart.

True pride is quiet and loving and fond.

And, apparently it had nothing to do with the crazy brothers.

Labels: Boston

I went and retrieved the Volvo from the dealer service today.

They had to replace a chip in the starter electronics and do some kind of upload of info.

A 21st Century ailment.

A minor annoyance which I sort of blew out of proportion. I didn't have plans for using the car. But without it I felt twinges of anxiety which made no sense.

It is my experience that trying to reason with ones self in these circumstances is not very useful. The angst is there. Trying to explain it only makes it stick out more.

There is the "do I want to go out to eat" thing. Followed by a few "what ifs" like needing it for an emergency.

And so on.

I had fun with the driver who brought me home yesterday and the car this morning.

A natural born desert rat who can't wait to get out of the desert. And that would be to Boston!

As far as he can figure to go without traveling overseas. He has a friend at Wentworth and will be going to join him. He has no idea of work once he gets there. Carefree.

He has never been cold, never seen snow, never had the pleasure of thick immovable traffic.

It made a kind of unpleasant experience interesting. I didn't need the car but doing without it felt bad. I am an American.

I don't get too nostalgic about Boston but everyone in awhile I surprise myself.

Labels: Boston, nostalgia

Our weather this week is very much like being in Boston.

It is cloudy and a bit humid and the evening temps are in the low 70s. The day almost balmy in the low 90s.

There is humidity in the air but not a whole lot and there are showers on and off.

Everyone agrees this has been a mild summer and this is another example. The first humidity of any consequence that we have had (forecast for all week) and nothing truly uncomfortable.

Weather here is very unreliable in the sense that almost anything can happen any time.

I am sure that we are going to be affected by climate change as everyone else is but here it will be harder to detect.

It was only several years ago when I went to San Diego a bit later than normal and when I came home over the mountains, it was so cold I craved the warmth of my descent into Palm Desert.

This time, two weeks away and nothing special.

Those of us from the east welcome these respites from the sun and clear skies all the time. A little weather never hurt anyone.

Labels: Boston, desert, weather

AND THE WINNER IS

When we lived on Warren Avenue in Boston, we had two parking spaces behind the house and would let friends or neighbors use the second one if it was available which was most of the time. This is not the first time in our lives when we had just one automobile.

Now, we realize, we were sitting on a mushroom! Which has gotten bigger and bigger.

This at an IRS auction this week:

Two Boston Parking Spots sell for 560,000

But Commonwealth Avenue is a bit higher in price, to say the least or most, than Warren 6 blocks away.

Location. Location.

Imagine. This woman needs five spots! For friends and workpeople.

This is a new level of wealth in a world that can hardly be imagined.

When we lived on the back of Beacon Hill, around 1988, we used an old beat up garage down the street two blocks.

I don't remember what we paid which wasn't too bad.

I can remember the shock when we found that a newly built garage just off Charles Street went for, as I remember, $85,000.

This is now, that was then, and this is CommAve.

Labels: Boston

NEAR MISS

Obama was campaigning in Boston today and stopped for a sandwich at Charlies Sandwich Shoppe which is about three minutes from where we lived. It is on Columbus, we lived on Warren.

If we hadn't moved 16 years ago, I would have been able to go see him!

Labels: Barack Obama, Boston

QUIET

Never ever saw it like this.

There is a first time for everything.

Ten Surreal Before and After Pictures of Deserted Boston

Labels: Boston, terrorism

FEELING

It has taken awhile for me to wrap my mind and body around the bombing in Boston.

I lived in Boston for more than 38 years if you don't count the few times I left to work in another city.

From the time I went to school there it has been in my heart.

Our last ten years are only a five or ten minute walk from the bomb site.

I never went to see the end of the marathon as it was too crowded. I liked the idea of it but there were too many people on my front lawn.

Finally, after two days, I read this and I got it. What I was feeling or not feeling.

Messing With the Wrong City

I like the "going on with life" kind of revenge. These bastards only do these things for the purpose of fear. It is not even retaliation.

Some stupid faith or obsession.

The cops will work it out. The courts will have their day. There will be punishment.

Ask how people feel about the drones now if we knew who the perps were. Zingo.

But that is a side dish.

Go on with life Boston.

I miss you.

I wish I was there to hold your hands now.

But my heart is there.

Labels: Boston

YOU CAN TAKE A GUY OUT OF BOSTON BUT YOU CAN'T TAKE BOSTON OUT OF THE GUY

I am 15 years away from the great city in which I lived for many many years.

I still get a lump in my throat over this.

Mayor Menino will not Seek a Sixth Term

Menino was coming in during my late period.

He was a vastly underrated mayor mostly because of his down low way of talking and acting. They called him "Mumbles". Not nice.

But he came in on the end of the lavishly corrupt Kevin White administration. The one that started with such high promise, actually did some good stuff, then faded into scandal and controversy.

Menino took the good stuff baton and ran with it.

A low key guy. A drone, a worker bee.

It will be fun to see who tries to fill his shoes.

I knew some of the White gang and they all disparaged Menino. He showed them his stuff and passed them on the track. Surpassed.

Labels: Boston

SNOW JOB

Record snowfall and blizzarding in the Northeast today.

All the family is accounted for but one household which is sort of ground zero in Scituate.

I assume no power.

I have been looking at Boston snowfall photos.

Two feet they say. Drifts. Big plowed up piles and piles. I watched a guy in Copley Square last night on the Weather Channel.

It looked familiar! The Boston Public Library, The Copley Plaza hotel. Copley Place. Just hook a left on Dartmouth Street and you would be at the corner half a block from our house on Warren Avenue. A bow windowed six story row house.

The storm was compared, variously, to the Boston storms of 1978 (almost on this date) and of 1996.

Both are quite significant for us.

In 1978, John and I had been "together" for three years but were not yet living together. I lived in Charles River Park (where we would move in together later on the 12th floor with the incredible view) and he lived over in the Back Bay.

We had plans to go to Fort Lauderdale together and the snow came a few days before the departure date.

The city was frozen in. Totally disabled. No traffic. No nothing. Fun in the streets as long as you could stand to be outside in the wind and blowing, still drifting snow.

We held on to our plans.

The morning of the day we were to fly from Boston to Newark to Fort Lauderdale it was announced that the first trains would be leaving Back Bay Station at about 1 PM.

We called Eastern Airlines and made sure that we would be on the last plane out of Newark that night. That airport had already opened because the storm had passed earlier and not as severe.

So we got our luggage and met about half way to the Back Bay Station, probably at Arlington Street and something. Newbury?

We drew catcalls. "Where do you think you are going"?

But we persevered. The train did leave kind of on time. We stood or perhaps I just think that we did. For a lot of it.

Incredibly, John's ex-wife was also on the train. We helped her get to where she wanted to go.

We came in at Penn Station and had to take the subway to Grand Central to take a bus or something to Newark Airport.

We had dinner at the Oyster Bar. Nice break.

Then, off to Newark where we made our plane.

We got into Fort Lauderdale really late. We rented our car, the parkas going into the trunk, and headed for our destination. The old Marlin Beach Club which, at that time, was a premier gay destination. Still seedy though.

They had our room ready. We had called ahead. And the next morning, met a gang of guys we knew from the Boston bars who were still stranded there.

Of course, they were not making nearly the effort to get back to Boston as we were making to get out of it.

The 1996 storm was the last big snowstorm that we lived through in Boston.

It was a bastard and a real confirmation that we had made the right decision about moving out.

We remember it well because it was our last but also because a lot of shit happened to the house, busted pipes in the basement. The heat going off. That kind of shit.

A horror show.

And we got through it.

I think that we also got taken by the plumber who dragged the job out.

The good thing about the Warren Avenue house was that we had a small yard in front and you only had to clean that portion of the sidewalk. It was actually kinda fun. Not so fun was the back yard, two parking places, which also had to be dug out. They faced on a small alley which would be the last to get plowed out and always, always, always, after we had shoveled the parking spaces out.

Those were the days.

The thing is that in 1978 they were totally not ready. Period. This time, the State was closed down at 4PM and there were now stranded people. Members of my family were prepared. In 1978, no one was ready.

Labels: Boston, weather

DOING THE ROUNDS

Thrilled to hear that Obama is appearing in Boston's South End Cyclorama building as I type.

Only a few blocks from "our house" there.

We would be there if we were there.

The Cyclorama is the original home of a Civil War painting in the round. You sat in seats and were pushed or pulled along a circle to watch the diorama with scenes on the canvas and a foreground set.

The painting still exists somewhere.

Maybe it tells you the details in here. I don't feel like looking it up.

And, oh, it is officially called the Center for the Arts now but no one ever says that out loud. It is still the Cyclorama. In fact, the White House announcement today says "Cyclorama".

Labels: Boston, Re-election of Barack Obama

THE LEONARD P. ZAKIM BUNKER HILL MEMORIAL BRIDGE

So I found out that the bridge in Boston is named after a local civil rights guy who died young from bone cancer. The bridge was named for him but, true to Boston's tradition of intramural fighting, it wasn't easy.

This from Wikipedia.

The bridge's full name commemorates both Boston civic leader and civil rights activist Leonard P. Zakim, who championed "building bridges between peoples",[4] and the Battle of Bunker Hill. Originally Massachusetts Governor A. Paul Cellucci sought to name it the "Freedom Bridge". In 2000, however, local clergy and religious leaders, including Cardinal Bernard Francis Law, requested the Zakim name shortly after Zakim's death from myeloma. Although Cellucci agreed to the naming, community leaders from Charlestown objected to the name as they felt that since the design reflected the nearby Bunker Hill memorial, it should be named the "Bunker Hill Freedom bridge". Allegations of antisemitism were leveled against members of the mostly white, Irish-Catholic community as reasons for resistance to the Zakim name, based on some comments quoted in the Boston Globe. In response, several community leaders spoke out against the allegations in a press conference, stating that the claims, made by Professor Jonathan Sarna, were his alone and not reflected in the Jewish community at large.[5]
Eventually a compromise between the Boston City Council, the Massachusetts State Legislature and community activists brought about the current name. As with the Hoover Dam, however, different communities will call the bridge by different colloquial names. Many people in the Charlestown area refer to it as the "Bunker Hill bridge", while most, including the local press and traffic monitoring services, refer to it as the "Zakim Bridge".
At the time of the naming and sponsoring of the Boston Garden an article discussing appraisals of the other Boston landmarks suggested the probable amount that the naming of the bridge would have cost a sponsor would have been US$100,000,000.[citation needed]

It seems to me that this was a short term sentimental decision. I go with the Bunker Hill or Freedom Bridge.

Zakim had a lot of money and I am sure that had something to do with it. There are funds and trusts. But they didn't pay for the name.

But no one asked me. And it is too late. It is a pretty bridge though.

They were putting it up when we left.

I used to run by it.

Labels: Boston

APOD IN BOSTON

Today's APOD picture has the big moon rising behind the Boston Skyline.

We missed the entire show. It was cloudy and rainy here on the opening night and even the next evening. Now it is gibbous.

The skyline has changed a lot since we were there, most notably the cable bridge across the Charles. The Zakim. A fine old New England name if there ever was one.

I had read that this will not happen again for 18 years but, right here in the APOD, it says next May.

What a relief. A second chance.

The photo looks a lot like a drawing. I guess the lens.

I know. It is too big for your computer page. Scroll left and right.

Labels: astronomy, Boston

POULTRY CAPER

This is one way that I miss living in the city.

Chicken Vanishes, Heartbreak Ensues

We too, for awhile, lived a bit on the edge of gentrification and it was a lot of fun.

A few years later, the frontier moved on and we were left with a lot of white gay men like us who were nice enough but didn't quite have the edge.

Just a little bit before, and a lot afterwards, the wave moved and the neighborhood ended up with all white heteros with children.

So much for neighborhood cohesion.

I have had chickens. I know how you can get attached. I loved the eggs but when it came time, I could not face the hatchet. My wife did it for me. An RN who had seen her share of blood and death.

There is nothing like the city where we live now. They call it a city. But no. It is not.

There are chickens though. Illegal as the ones in the article are no doubt illegal. We hear a rooster crow in the morning and it is heaven. The natural world. The divine chicken. A beautiful bird with a great heart.

Labels: Boston, urbia, wildlife

BEANTOWN NO LONGER A BACKWATER

I still have some Boston pride.

It is good to see that the city is in the running along with New York, of course, for most busy financial fraud.

Boston emerges as a major hub in insider probe

A highly photoshopped night view of the Boston Financial District.

When I was a kid, I came to Boston in 1958 and the tallest building on the east side was the Customs House seen on the right, the clock. And in the Back Bay, there was the old John Hancock building with the weather light.

All the rest is since then.

Well, that was almost 60 years ago.

Labels: Boston, economy, finance