Author: Jim Dowd

Years ago I got the best career advice ever. I was trying to figure out what next to do with my life and my advisor said, “Picture yourself stuck in a strange city. It’s snowing and you’re cold, lost, hungry and alone. But through a downstairs window you see people having a dinner party. It’s warm, there is an awesome buffet and drinks are being served.

 “Tell me, how would you go about getting in there?”

It was a surprisingly excellent question. How do you go about getting what you want from the people who have it?

 One strategy is begging. If you knock on the door and give a sob story they might take pity on you and let you sit in the foyer with a plate of whatever they choose to hand over. You can’t be like, “Hey, I’m famished, can I have at that shrimp?” (I later realized this is, in fact, entirely possible for attractive people).

 But how can you encourage them to invite you (if you are not stunningly attractive) inside? How can you make them want you there?

What if you just marched in and announced in a loud, clear voice:  “Ladies and gentlemen, pardon the interruption, but please observe for just a moment as I juggle these six live ferrets who will in no way be harmed and actually greatly enjoy the experience.” How awesome would that be? Afterwards you’d find yourself parked next to the ice sculpture loading Swedish meatballs onto a plate and telling stories of your life on the mustelidae performance circuit. Even the ferrets would get fed. It would be great.

Wizard of Oz theme? You beautiful bastard

 In my opinion, the ferret juggling is what’s missing from 99% of our conversations about the future of Gloucester.

 I hear and read endless bits around “what do we want Gloucester to be?” I hear surprisingly little of what I consider to be realistic talk regarding what we have to offer. In short, what is our ferret juggling? What particular assets or set of skills do we possess that anyone actually gives a shit about in the outside world? In short, what are we willing to trade to the world in order for Gloucester to be successful?

Wait, discarded nip bottles buried under snowbanks for three months work as room-temperature superconductors? We’re rich!

 Because, like the person standing out in the snow, no one inside actually cares what we want. They’re not even thinking about us. To the extent they do, they care about what we can do for them. So what is it? Our landscape? A site for marine industry? How much call is there for this really and how much of it can be more profitably completed in a modern building in an industrial park near a highway? (see Ice, Cape Pond) Do we trade on our gritty toughness and how do we monetize that besides as the occasional film set? An arts and culture hub? Do we really support the kinds of arts people outside Gloucester are interested in? I hear a lot of talk about us being a hub for innovation and technology, so what do we offer innovation and technology organizations? What endeavours already going on in town do we highlight and support? Should the schools have to beg for funding as our neighbors pass overrides if we are really going to be part of the innovation and technology economy? (spoiler: no)

 Seriously, what is it?

 f you’re gonna make your meals on ferret juggling, you’d better invest in some ferrets, you’d better practice and get good at it and I’m also going to strongly recommend you get a top hat and a purple, velvet blazer like the one Johnny Depp wore in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.

Or Russell Brand’s costume as Trincolo from the Tempest. Your call.

 Or we can just stand in the snow reminiscing about how awesome it was long ago when we didn’t have to throw live animals around for food and bitching about the current situation. Sure, do that for a while but those folks in there are going to finish off the samosas pretty soon.

Three words: tiny little tutus.

Jon Hardy & Alexandra Rhinelander

“I got a call on Wednesday from a woman who wanted a loaf of gluten free artisan bread-  I said that’s a contradiction in term.” – Jon

Ok, so the sea is a tricky place. We know that. But you, dear friends may not know this about your beloved The Clam: we used to work for Outward Bound in Maine years ago and have spent a lot of time sailing around rough water in rickety, open wooden boats. So we were sympathetic when the Liana’s Ransom, a fake pirate ship, was disabled off our coast and was abandoned after a rescue by Coastguardspersons from Gloucester Small Boat Station and Air Station Cape Cod. Word to the USCG, and anytime anyone makes that asshole joke that goes, “The worst thing you can ever hear are the words, ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help'” feel free to punch them in the dick area and say, “Semper Paratus”.

However, when we started looking into the story we have to admit passing some judgement. They lost power? It’s a sail boat. Why didn’t they put a jib up or something? Again, we weren’t there but you know, that’s the standard procedure when on a sailboat, using the actual sails. It’s like in the name and everything. The story said their sails were all twisted around the mast. All of them? The jibs? Really guys?

avast!

Area of doubt #2 came after the rescue when she didn’t actually sink. This is sort of embarrassing. If you abandon a boat at sea after a distress call you really, really want it to dramatically slip beneath the waves on camera within the rotor wash of the helo winching the last survivor aboard, just for optics’ sake. However, abandoning a boat that keeps on floating is sort of bad form in the nautical world. It’s the equivalent of calling the cops in the middle of the night because an intruder is crawling in through your attic only to find out it’s squirrels. They’re going to be “yeah, right, abundance of caution and all that, can’t be too careful,” but you know when they get to the cruiser they’re going: “dumbass”.

I guess it was under threat of sinking? What the hell was going on? Then we saw this video interview of the crew post rescue.

Video from the Gloucester Daily Times

Oh. I get it. You were confined below decks and it was really…uncomfortable? Did we somehow miss the point in this story when the situation became actually life threatening? I’ve had experiences on the commuter rail this winter more harrowing than what was described in this vid. The background music of “Walking on Sunshine” didn’t help with the overall irreverent tone of this video. I’m pretty sure Howard Blackburn would be giving you guys the finger, but, well, you know…

I don’t mean to take umbrage here, but they sent our guys out there to rescue these chucklehads and though I have every faith our motor lifeboat crew is inherently capable of 10′ seas (they practice in much bigger surf), anytime you get two boats near each other in rough seas it involves an element of risk (the helicopter was for an injured crewmember and that seems totally legit). So, I still get that it was scary and everything. For instance we hear someone told the crew to ‘Call their mothers’ which is probably the first time that particular order has been given on a pirate ship, but after watching the video I’d ask the crew to maybe be a little less…flip? Maybe laugh about it not so much?

Yeah, flip. I know this sounds weird coming from your The Clam, but these guys were rescued in a fairly major operation from a boat that kept on floating. So, it’s sort of on the crew here to be somewhat contrite and spend a little time publicly thanking the living shit out of the CG and maybe hold off on telling the bro-tabulous tale of being below decks in a storm that produced swells somewhat larger than what we get here on a regular basis at this time of year.

Sure I know the bowsprit snapped and the chains holding the main were then compromised and the whole thing could have come crashing down. But when you go out and with two motors, have mechanical issues with both of them, are unable to get any sail up, then lose your bowsprit, you’re not demonstrating an abundance of seamanship here. This wasn’t a Nor’easter. This wasn’t the Perfect Storm. From the sounds of things it was more like Davey Jones’ Lockerroom.

But The Clam is honestly glad everyone is OK. Maybe we were just hoping for a little more Russell Crowe in Master and Commander and less Jack Spar-bro.

Oh, and one more thing. Unless you are a sniper or a rapper (signed to a label) the hat brim goes in front. Just a tip.

By and large, Gloucesterites are a frank and voluble people.  So for those with the time and inclination, diligent public eavesdropping can be a deeply rewarding activity.  Such was the case yesterday, as I walked through one of the city’s most fruitful snooping grounds: the downtown Shaw’s parking lot.

Directly in front of me ambled two rangy fellows whose heads were bent together in animated conversation.  Their grooming and attire were decidedly scruffy—unruly beards, muddy sneakers, voluminous flannel—so I wasn’t altogether surprised when I overheard them planning their acquisition of a 3-liter jug of Carlo Rossi.  As they fished in their pockets for crumpled bills to pool, I noted this exchange:

“Let’s get the Burgundy,” one said in a gravelly voice.  “Good tannins.  Sweet finish.”

The other cleared his nose into his palm before offering his assessment: “Too sweet.  Chianti’s better.”

The texture of their conversation—the connoisseur’s intensity and erudition lavished upon discount wine—flooded me with a familiar feeling.  It is a special blend of wonder, equal parts confusion and delight, born of ironic juxtaposition.  And it is something I associate with Gloucester just as much as I do fish, seagulls, and a devotion to tanning as a religious sacrament.

Allow me to provide another illustration.  The post office building on Dale Avenue is a truly impressive pile of masonry.  With its soaring granite façade, Doric columns, and rooftop balustrade, one might expect it to house an Italian aristocrat.  And I don’t mean a six-time winner of the Greasy Pole, but rather some member of the Medici family—a fringe cousin, at the very least.  Yet a Gloucesterite with a parcel to mail will mount the building’s broad stairwell, enter its vast, hushed chamber, and discover someone far more humble: a single postal clerk in a frayed uniform, hunched behind a Formica counter, counting the days until her pension kicks in.  Over her shoulder you might catch sight of another employee shuffling past, wraithlike, pushing a half-empty collection bin beneath the vaulted ceiling.  It both confounds and charms me that such modest activities would unfold within one of the city’s most ostentatious structures.  Proportionally, it’s a bit like commissioning Renzo Piano to design a cantilevered glass dome for your kid’s roadside lemonade stand.

[Nice digs for your PO box]

There’s a different irony but a similar response when I pass the wooden sign of an establishment on Main Street that sells nothing more than olive oil and a few specialty vinegars.  I don’t question their fundamental business model.  Gloucester is home to many individuals of Italian extraction, a population that—I suspect—enjoys a plate of spaghetti aglio e olio from time to time.  By the same logic, nearly every for-profit entity in town—from the roast beef joints to the salons to the insurance agencies—devotes part of its operations to selling pizza pies.  But I do not often see frail Italian nonnas ducking into the Cape Ann Olive Oil Company.  Presumably, these women seek out economy-sized drums of extra virgin and balsamic, the transportation of which requires a team of strapping nephews.  Whereas this retailer—bafflingly, endearingly—insists on peddling slender green vials better suited to the rectal concealment of prison contraband.

[Lemon-infused methadone]

I’ve crunched the numbers, and it seems the most common type of ironic juxtaposition in Gloucester involves the collision of class and cultural opposites.  Think of the Common Crow, with its bulk bins of stevia and refrigerated cases of probiotic yak butter.  Just across the street sits Cameron’s, a defunct townie watering hole whose interior of crumbling plaster, chipped tile, and three-legged chairs looks roughly as it did four years ago, when it heard its last sea chantey.  Everywhere you look in Gloucester, the gritty rubs elbows with the genteel, and the old-timer’s bearded cheek brushes against the newcomer’s mustachioed jowl.  For the most part, the city’s diverse constituencies live, work, shop, eat, and drink next to—if not quite among—one another, yielding a social fabric that is something like a patchwork quilt.  Of course, it’s a quilt stitched with monofilament, whose batting is not wool or cotton but rather vodka-soaked clams.

Gloucester is no utopia.  Frictions exist.  And it’s true that the yachting crowd of Eastern Point have attempted to escape the unwashed masses by backing onto a narrow, easily defended peninsula.  But the last time I was there, I noticed that Dog Bar Breakwater, the furthest extent of the yachtie redoubt, may occupy the grittiest real estate in all of Gloucester.  In the shadows of million-dollar sailboats bobbing in the cove, seagulls paint the granite slabs with ammoniac shit, and striper fishermen fill the air with tinny music and salty jokes in their native Portuguese.  Perhaps this is all unremarkable to you.  But it’s truly wondrous to someone like me, who has spent long years in the suburban South, where people turned White flight into an art form and, in many cases, the divisions still hold.

[The Jackson Pollocks of Dog Bar]

I happen to be paler than the underside of a flounder.  So I can’t do much to contribute to Gloucester’s racial diversity.  Instead, I savor my part in blurring its tenuous class and cultural lines.  Last fall, my wife and I were enjoying a drink and perfect blue weather on the refurbished patio of The Studio, a Rocky Neck institution.  A quick look around the bar revealed that just about everyone was better dressed than we were: breezy linen shirts, madras shorts, and more anchor motifs than you could shake a stick at.  I did notice one fisherman on hand, but he was a crewman on the Hot Tuna, a veritable reality television star.  Halfway through my gin and tonic, a silver-haired gentleman strode in from the dining area to deliver an urgent question: “Is there someone here who came in on a kayak?”

My wife raised her eyebrows at me, and I shrugged my shoulders before standing and waving at the fellow.  “That would be me,” I said. Indeed, we had borrowed our friends’ tandem for the day.  After putting in at the Harbor Loop public landing, we had dodged whale watches and lobster boats and tied up at The Studio’s own spacious private dock.  It turned out that now another vessel was attempting to moor, and our kayak was in the way.  As I eased past many sets of eyes and down the floating ramp, I discovered that this other vessel was only slightly smaller than a trash barge, except it was gleaming, graceful, and purring like a big cat.  Standing on the deck were a young man and woman whom a brisk shake had liberated from the pages of a Vineyard Vines catalog.

[Enlarged slightly to show texture]

In my younger and more Socialist days, I might have put up a fuss, pointing out that my boat had carried the exact same number of patrons as theirs had.  That it wasn’t my problem they wanted to bring their jacuzzi and Viking range to the restaurant.  That they probably wouldn’t expect someone to leave his table and move his Mini Cooper from a parking spot, so that their Winnebago could be accommodated.  But raising a stink would have only reinforced that line between them and me.  Instead, I just took my sweet time untying from the cleat and climbing into the cockpit—relishing that familiar feeling of slack-jawed wonder at the irony of it all.  “Nice day to be on the water,” I called up to the deck, while paddling toward a vacant sliver of dock.  But I can’t be certain they heard me.