February 20, 2007 by Dave.

I’m driving on Route 2 to get to work the other day. As I get in the lane, this big Durango-ish thing pulls ahead of me. The guy rolls down the window and motions back to me. I have no idea what he wants, but I thought he kept wanting to pull into the next lane or something, so I kept waving him on. He finally motions me to open my window. I’m like what the hell is going on? I roll down my window a bit (it’s a hassle to do that in the first place) and he yells to me “You’ve got the best bumper stickers ever!” That was totally out of left field.

BTW, the bumper stickers on my car are as follows (in no particular order):

“We are all family/We all have value” — A UU bumper sticker

“Come the Rapture, can I have your car?”

“GOP—Grand OIL Party”

“Evolution is just a theory—kind of like gravity”

“’You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists.’–Abbie Hoffman”

“The media are only as liberal as the conservative businesses that own them”

“RELIGION is for people afraid of going to hell; SPIRITUALITY is for those who have been there.”

“Question War”– placed in a yellow ribbon in the shape of a question mark.

“I LOVE (HEART) NY” – which is another reason to be surprised anyone in Boston would say I have the best bumper stickers ever.

* * * * * * * *

This morning at church, we didn’t have a soloist. We have a small congregation so our “choir” can be small, and this can happen. So our senior minister reached back to his summer camp days (and probably his punk rock days, too) and had us all sing “George Washington Bridge.” You know that song sung to a waltz (which waltz I can never remember):

“George Washington Bridge
George Washington Washington Bridge…” etc, etc.

And since our church has basically three sections of pews, each section had a word and we had to stand up as we sung our portion. I of course was in the “Washington” section and had to stand up twice each time that part of the song came around.

The moral of this story: churches should invest in our musicians. (and Jen Hazel is sorely missed!!)
* * * * * * * *
Last week on Myspace, I got contacted by an old friend from high school. Oddly enough I think I was thining about him the other day–we both went to our senior prom with women who graduated the year before. Anyway, he left me his phone number and told me to call him. The only time I had to call was on Sunday at about 10pm after Sophia fell asleep. Now I haven’t spoken to him in probably 15 years if not more. The conversation started like this:

Pete: Dave?

Me: Pete!

Pete: You’re not watching Battlestar Galactica?

Me: Uh… no.

Pete: Why aren’t you watching Battlestar Galactica?

Me: Uh… I don’t have cable?

…And it went downhill from there. LOL! He later said it was like we started right where we left off. I don’t think we were talking about Battlestar Galactica when we last spoke, but yeah it’ slike we left off in the middle of a conversation and picked it right back up. Good friends are like that.

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

February 15, 2007 by Dave.

I don’t know how bad it is around the country, but  in Boston it is nasty out there. I just got home driving at 20 miles an hour making sure I ONLY stuck to the back roads on the way home. Normally I like to take the back streets of Cambridge because it was a bit faster; tonight it’s because I didn’t trust the roads to be on Mass Ave (for those not Boston literate that’s Massachusetts avenue). And it’s not because I don’t think Mass Ave was well cleared, but my car was not in the best way to be riding in. Two hours after my friend left work, he called to tell us that he just got home because his car sputtered to a stop on Storrow Drive (horrible place to stop) and a statie had him towed all the way to his house at a cost of $250. I was more worried about just getting over the snow bank from the snow plows that usually block my driveway this time of night. However I wasn’t expecting ice—on my windshield. I mean sheets of ice covering all windows of the car. Suddenly I’m living the scene from Fargo where Gunderson is shaving the ice off the windshield. After I realized that I would be at the office for another half hour scraping the damn thing in the bitter cold, I wound up shaving the driver’s side and a small porthole in the right passenger window to see oncoming cars. The car only has a rear defroster. So I drove VEERRRRRY cautiously back home. And I still got stuck on the frozen mini-snow bank blocking the drive. The problem with Boston wasn’t so much the snow itself—we didn’t get a ton of it—but the fact that it mixed with freezing rain to form… well, cement really. The snow you see on the ground will stay in the very form it’s in for the next month if it doesn’t warm up soon.

UPDATE: I’m sure you all know that Turner Broadcasting will be paying Boston $2 Million for it’s marketing stunt (that’s basically a $1 million markup from what they paid to get rid of all the Lite-Brites). Peter Berdovsky still faces criminal charges for his part in the whole thing. He’s now in trouble for videotaping the police taking down one of the lite-brites and blowing it up. Since he’s a video artist, he was doing what he is (kind of) paid to do. But he never notified the police that it was all a marketing stunt.  However his lawyer says there’s no chance of him getting deported for all of this. Which is good because really it was the media and Boston local government who made a big deal of of a bunch of Lite-Brites. Meanwhile we’re a laughing stock of a city throughout the country.

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

February 4, 2007 by Dave.

I happen to go to the same church as two good friends of Peter Berdovsky, the dreadlocked member of the Boston duo who held the city hostage with numerous Lite Brite devices. I asked this elderly couple about this young “terrorist” and found out this information.

He is originally from Belarus. As a Belarus teen, he marched for democracy (Belarus was a former member of the Soviet Republic and one of Stalin’s mass graves was found there). He was arrested for his participation and nearly executed in the streets with a rifle to his head., but a number of his friends were able to save him and drive him across the border to safety. He came to the US under asylum as a political refugee. He graduated from Arlington High School in Massachusetts, and then Massachusetts College of Art (with distinction). Since then he has been trying to eek out a living as an artist.

If Boston refuses to drop the charges, he can likely be deported back to Belarus as he is technically still a refugee. And all this for what? Because Turner Broadcasting paid the total sum of $300 to two people to put up Lite Brites to advertise a cartoon—which it had done successfully in numerous other cities without incident. Living in Boston I can tell you that the $300 would not even fully cover his rent for the month.

Does this seem fair to anyone?

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

February 3, 2007 by Dave.

What a hell of a time to be trying to give up soda for two weeks. I’m recently read an article about how simply cutting soda out of your diet will not only help with weight loss, but it will help you think more clearly by virtue of getting the processed sugars out of your system. Although I’ve been such a sugar addict for a while that I’m gonna hit that wall so fucking hard.

I heard back from that girl again. I mentioned the last communication I tried to call her while I was in New Jersey last weekend. Spoke to her for about two minutes while she was on break. She said she was sorry for being so distant, then got a call from her dad and asked to call me back later. She never did, even though I waited. I wrote her in myspace telling her I wanted to talk to her and that I thought we kinda clicked and I got that she was scared and stuff. She sent me back this note that kind of freaked me out. She didn’t want to hurt me and basically told me to run for the hills and I’d be much better off if I forget her. She did say that she wasn’t looking for anyone right now, and that was probably the only thing that didn’t sound like it was out of a heightened sense of fear. I get that she’s got her issues, but wow just the fear I got off that email was something else. I really do wish there was something to say but that’s pretty much impossible.

Yet I still want to talk to her. Part of it is yeah, I wish there was a chance for us, but honestly I’d love to know where all that fear came from. I’ve been in that spot for a long time and it sucks. It’s sort of like that joke about the guy who falls in the hole, and a friend comes by. The friend jumps in the hole with the guy. The guy says “you idiot, now we’re both trapped here,” but his friend says “yeah, but I’ve been in this hole before and I know the way out.” She sounds like she’s scared and in a lot of pain and I hate that, especially when I can’t do a lot about it. Not talking to her for a while does suck.

Hell of a time to be trying to detox from sugar.

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »