Snark Free Sunday

Greetings Camistas! Clamuniards? Clamunists? Let us know what we should call you.

As commanded by the major Abrahamic religions, it’s critical to have a day of rest. A day set apart from the others to recharge our batteries and reflect. For instance we are going to spend most of the afernoon with a big book of clam puns preparing for the week ahead.

too forced?

too forced?

So, let us take this beautiful Sunday and endeavor to revel in the wonder that is life without feeling the need to strike out at others even though they probably richly deserve it. Let’s see what we have in the Clam Box.

Hey! Here are a series of awesome photos from the Mad Hot Ball a couple of weeks ago! Taken by Martin Del Vecchio these are the incredible shots that should have been in the paper but weren’t because… oh yes. Sorry. Forgetting ourselves here. Click the pic to check ’em out!

awesome kids being awesome

awesome kids being awesome

The other thing to take note of, and I’m sure it will be in a wide variety of media but it deserves as much attention as possible, is that our amazing local restaurant Duckworth’s is in the Globe. Click the photo, you can almost taste it.

ohhhhh yes

ohhhhh yes

Duckworths is more than a restaurant, it’s become a hub for writers and lectures from the Eastern Point Lit House [event tonight: Margaret Young leads a discussion on Kurlansky’s The Last Fish Tale] and the way they have created a community between themselves, their staff and Gloucester at large is a testament to our philosophy that we are on this Earth to make cool shit happen.

OK, that’s enough of that. Tomorrow it’s back into the snark tank.

Gloucester Responds to The Clam

So, we’ve been up for just a few days and already more than 12 thousand hits. This is more than can be accounted for just by a simple batch of bad meth causing people to mash their keyboards uncontrollably and unintentionally landing on our URL, which was our original hypotheses. It seems folks really want the voice that is “The Clam” in the Gloucester mix.

No one has ever accused us of being a sensible people, I guess.

Looking at our frankly unbelievable site stats we see that global citizens have linked to The Clam from over 20 countries, including almost the entire English speaking world (Screw you, New Zealand!) and we’ve received tons of feedback:

I don’t think I get it

Clams live in muck and feed on filth

Howard Blackburn was NOT married to Ann Landers

I find the crude language to be distasteful

I wish that horse would stop yelling

Cpt. Blackburn giving us the finger

Cpt. Blackburn giving us the finger

There has been incredibly positive feedback as well. Our tires have yet to be slashed, for instance so we’re taking that as a good sign.

We’ve got a lot planned, suggestions are pouring in. We did a podcast with Joey over at Good Morning Gloucester at like seven this morning because Joey apparently never sleeps which was hilarious for us and sort of a Gloucester bucket list check-off. People are stopping us on the street and on the train and our Facebook page has been growing steadily.

click for half an hour of two dudes talking about  blogging if you have no life

click for half an hour of two dudes talking about blogging if you have no life

All in all, things in the nascent Clam media empire are taking off and this is all due to the folks who’ve read, forwarded, shared, pondered and laughed along with our introductory pieces. We can’t thank you all enough and hopefully we can continue to be a voice that people want in the mix.

Oh, also we have an Ann Landers Cpt. Blackburn erotica site in the works. Working title: “Codpiece”

Clammers, out  –KT, JD, soon to be others

Oh God, Fuller Again? Really?

We get it Elrond. We really do.

The editorial in today’s Gloucester Daily Times (paywall to hide their shame) gives us searing insight into the inter-department payment negotiations around the lease of the St. Ann’s school as the temporary site for most West Parish kids during the build out of their new facility. It bears all the hallmarks of the GDT’s recent journalistic area of expertise, the ‘blithering nontroversy’ beat. There is nothing in this story besides the exceptionally routine squabble between two departments who each don’t want to pay 500 large and are saying the other one should. It will get worked out and indeed the editorial itself even calls for them to just split it, like a lunch check. Wow. The whole screed is essentially an excuse to put on the little cowboy hat and take a ride one of the GDT’s favorite hobbyhorses, the Fuller School. From the Editorial:

Neither school nor city officials want to hear it, but — even if renovations to the former Fuller School proved more costly — the city, by renovating Fuller into a temporary home for the West Parish students, would at least be putting money into a building the city already owns, and could use as a future temp site for students from other local schools while their buildings were rehabbed or replaced in the years to come.

Notice anything missing? What don’t you see there? Look carefully and unfocus your eyes like one of those ‘Magic Eye’ books where the unicorn comes out of the blurry dots. See it? See the actual numbers associated with this plan being advocated by the city planning wizards over at Eagle Tribune’s Finest? No? Of course you don’t because they aren’t there.

Let us clamsplain once again: Making Fuller into a temporary home for students was going to cost 14 million bucks. Fourteen. Catorce. This was the number given by trained and certified engineers and architects. You got a better number? Show me your license. That is the number.

Elon Musk will get this baby into space for that

Elon Musk will get this baby into space for that

Getting St. Ann’s up to speed is about $1.2 million and then a $4-500k lease. So we’re out for around a mill and a half. Maybe more, if the project runs long. Lets call it three. According to the calculations of the GDT dropping $14 mill is better because we somehow magically recoup those costs in the ‘years to come’. What the what? How does that work?

TIME FOR SOME CLAM MATH

So, young numerologists- how many schools would we then need to rebuild at the estimated 3 million cost in order to recoup the 14 million dollar investment? If you said ‘5’ or ‘what the fuck are they kidding?’ you would be correct. This does not include operating Fuller btw, just the buildout.

FIVE for 14 Million. Even if we use it as the temp site for all 5 that that works out to 2.8 million apiece notably THE SAME FUCKING COST AS ST. ANN’S!

Sweet Gillnetting Jesus, do we have to keep doing this? It makes no sense to rehab Fuller even under that logic because we’re not guaranteed to get the money back by any stretch. If we decide to sell or give it to the YMCA, for instance, most of those costs will have been wasted because the Y does not need classrooms and kitchens and a host of other things we would have spend beaucoup dollars on. It takes a lot of cash to make a structure compliant even to temporary school standards. This is like telling a family whose car has broken down to buy a Bentley because they keep their value better than a Camry. Yeah, but not a very practical use of working capital is it?

Question for the GDT: Did you come up with this plan based on the same business logic that determined you should charge as much for your online subscription as the Wall Street Journal’s? You know, the news outfit with 2K reporters in 51 countries whereas you guys can’t even get over to the Mad Hot Ball? Honestly, people.

In the end, our best bet is to do exactly as we have done: keep the temp site flexible and to get rid of the albatross that is Fuller.

I'll drive

I’ll drive

We can put the public safety folks out there, sell or give it to the Y in trade for their downtown building, USE IT TO TEST RADIOACTIVE MUTANT LASER-EQUIPPED WOMBATS we don’t care but it’s never going to make financial sense to use it as a school again.

Additional question: when can we start drinking today?

UGH CANADIENS BRUINS GAME 7

SPORT HORSE BACK, TALKING ABOUT GAME SEVEN.

SPORT HORSE DOES NOT WANT TO ACTUALLY RECAP GAME 7. SORRY CLAM BLOG FOLKS. TOO DEPRESSING. I MEAN MONTREAL SCORED 3 MINUTES IN, AND DESPITE ROUGHLY SIX HUNDRED AND THREE CHANCES, BRUINS JUST CANNOT TIE IT. STUPID 3RD PERIOD PENALTY ON JOHNNY BOYCHUCK AND THAT WAS IT, CANADIENS SCORED 3RD GOAL AND IT WAS JUST OVER.

SPORT HORSE IS MOROSE TODAY. IT NOT END OF WORLD, BUT TEAM SO GOOD ALL YEAR AND TRY SO HARD AND STILL NOT WIN. THAT IS LIFE THOUGH IS IT NOT? IT ALL ONE BIG MAELSTROM OF UNFAIRNESS AND CHAOS. SOME WIN IT ALL AND SOME LOSE. EVEN THE MIGHTIEST OF MEN FALL BEFORE THEIR TIME. BUT SPORT HORSE NOT WANT TO GET PHILOSOPHICAL. NOT SPORT HORSE WAY.

SPORT HORSE DREAMS OF THIS MOMENT EVERY NIGHT.

SPORT HORSE DREAMS OF THIS MOMENT EVERY NIGHT.

THERE A REASON EVERYONE HATE MONTREAL HERE. FOR REASONS LIKE THIS (FROM TODAY’S GLOBE AND MAIL):

“As the game played in Boston came to an end, even Montreal police officers stationed on Ste-Catherine Street pumped their fists in celebration. Outside the Bell Centre after the game, someone put a Bruins jersey on a hockey stick and set it on fire as people began stomping on it.”

IT LIKE THEY STOMP ON SPORT HORSE HEART.

OH WELL, NEXT YEAR. NOW SPORT HORSE RECAP RANDOM RED SOX GAMES. OVER AND OUT. AS ALWAYS IF U NEED ME, EMAIL ASKSPORTHORSE@GMAIL.COM

Five Things it’s socially Acceptable to do in Gloucester but Nowhere Else

A few years ago, we were driving off on vacation with the fam in the minivan. Once we got past the malls our wife let out a huge sigh. “This is the furthest I’ve been over the bridge in six months,” she said. This was an exception during a particularly busy time, but it does serve as an example of how insular our little burg can become. Our isolation can lead to misunderstandings as our habits and customs do not always track with what those on the outside would consider “normal” or even in many cases “particularly sane”.

As a public service The Clam offers a short list of five things we do here and nowhere else. Take note if forced to interact with people from further away than Exit 14.

1. Carry Dunkins Cups Everywhere When we would do a thing called “stay out late” we once bore witness to an altercation between two drunken swains on lower Main Street. These dudes were swearing at each other, puffing out chests, offering threats of physical violence and eventually one of them took a poorly executed swing. The guy on the receiving end of the punch dodged it and put other guy in a headlock and they did that intoxicated man-hug shirtgrab deal that passes as a fight amongst the surpassingly inebriated. What made this so incredible to watch was the one guy who skillfully kept his Dunkins upright throughout as if it were positioned in the center of an invisible gyroscope. Of all the times you want two hands free, you’d think a streetfight would be it, but no. Not here.

If they ever bring capital punishment to Gloucester, this thing is going to need cupholders

If they ever bring capital punishment to Gloucester, this thing is going to need cupholders

In Gloucester it is perfectly socially acceptable not just for sidewalk brawlers but for attendees of any event large or small to perpetually clutch a Dunkins in the free hand: A pallbearer, best man at a wedding, a mohel, the defendant at the arraignment, everybody sips coffee at all times. It should be noted this is not cool in the outside world where commuters and patrons are socially allowed to have active beverages, but everyone else is expected to be able to go an hour or so without a regular with two sugars.

 2. Operate a Free-For-All-Rotary With Minimal Signage Every time we turn from the left lane in Grant Circle toward Blackburn we check the car to our right for telltale ‘out of town’ hallmarks such Yankees stickers or lack of duct tape in order to gauge if they will actually turn right or not. We live in a constant fear of a ‘sweeper’ one of those fools with the erroneous belief they have the right to just carelessly amble around the rotary from the right hand lane.

The law is on our side, but in the outside world a two lane rotary merging with a two-lane road is a traffic rarity, like car-swallowing sink holes outside of Florida or a Prius in Texas. You’d think there’d be a sign or something, but no. On the plus side this is not a bad intro to the Gloucester experience in general.

nice try, dude

nice try, dude

 3. Park Frigging Everywhere On sidewalks, up to the ends of intersections, on crosswalks and in front of curb cuts for wheelchairs and strollers (where they exist), in front of driveways if you are only ‘going to be a minute’ and in fire lanes. We have dear friends who live next to East Gloucester School and they regularly come home from work unable to park because strange cars are parked in their actual driveway in front of their house. At the Temple downtown people just straight up park in the private, posted lot and stroll on into the Y. Once one of the folks there went out to tell a guy that the parking is for members only and the guy punched him. Yes, seriously. The thought process that must have been something like: “I believe the private, religious organization in whose marked lot I have left my truck is obliged to provide me with parking to the point where I will physically assault someone.” In other places you park in parking lots or marked spaces and there is resident-only parking on the side streets. In Gloucester we’d park on your grandmother’s grave if it meant a better position in line at George’s.

 4. Yell at Other People Rather Than Just Walk Over and Talk to Them Everywhere else in the world yelling at someone is an effort to warn them of consequential and immediate danger or to signal that you are ready to commit an act of tremendous violence upon their person. Not so here. When we lived downtown we were surprised to find that many people on one side of the street would have long, shouty but otherwise banal conversations at all hours of the day and night with people on the other side:

FIRST GUY, YELLING LIKE A SPARTAN WARRIOR: “Dude, I saw youah brotha yestaday, he was with that chick Stacey.”

SECOND GUY, SHRIEKING AS IF PASSING A KIDNEY STONE: “Ah, shit no, really? I thought she had a order on him?”

FIRST GUY, POSSIBLY ENGULFED IN FLAME: “Naw dude, they were togethah.”

SECOND GUY, LOUDER: “Ah shit. Hey, you got a cigarette?”

FIRST GUY, SUBDUED BUT STILL LOUD: “Yah dude, I’ll come ovah.”

In other parts of the world it is considered polite to cross the street in order to discuss the various chicks with restraining orders against one’s brother.

5. Refuse to Engage in Any Transaction Until it’s Determined ‘Who you are’ This one is weird. You try and engage a local business or service provider and nothing can happen until they figure out where you fit in the great scheme of things. “Who are you again?” they’ll ask. They don’t want your name, they want your pedigree. “Oh, I’m related to the so-and so’s, the one’s who live out by such and such, my uncle is that guy with the thing who used to have the place on…” This is a totally normal way to interact with people in Gloucester. It’s like you are a Viking noble proclaiming your right to the throne: “I claim this seat as Sorgen, son of Galden who won the battle at Borggen Fijord, Grandson of Troddggenn who added consonants wantonly to his last name after sinking the Saxon fleet in the Sea of Blugregnerennn with his kinsman my great uncle Glennnn of the many ‘N’s’ at…”

 

we could not resist

we could not resist

 

Most places you can just give them a valid credit card and they’ll do business with you.

 

We hope this has been helpful.