Turns out you can be pretty hilarious in 140 characters or less.
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On Moving to West Gloucester from Downtown
I’m a downtown sorta gal, if we’re using fifties slang to describe ourselves (and we are, goddamnit). I lived at the same spot near the train station and Shaws for ten years – the entirety of my twenties – but recently I moved to the woods of West Gloucester. Not entirely on purpose – you try finding a goddamn year-round rental in May in this town. You take what you can get, and you like it! I ended up lucking into an adorable tiny house near West Parish school, or “the bones of the new West Parish school” as it were. It’s been… a change. My first day here, a tractor rumbled down my street, loudly, with several SUVs honking maniacally behind it. “This is just life now,” I said out loud, to no one in particular.
In today’s GDT police notes…
The first thing I noticed, of course, was that out here in bumblefuck, I could no longer overhear the coughing of my chain-smoking neighbors, their entire animated conversations from my bedroom window, or their two-hour vocal symphonies calling their feral cats that pooped in our yard home for dinner. It turns out that when you’re 150 feet from the nearest house, there’s far fewer domestic disputes and/or drug transactions you overhear. Of course, that has been replaced by birds. A lot of birds. Birds that start their jibberjabbering at two in the fucking morning. It’s not even close to light out at 2 AM, birds, are you drunk or lost? So either way, earplugs. No net gain there.
Being out in the woods after so long in an urban core (before Gloucester, I lived in downtown Lowell) is honestly kind of weird. I feel like at any given moment, a pack of coyotes, wolves, coywolves, bears, or woods-people are going to show up on my back deck and just maul me. And no one would hear me scream.
I’ve noticed that no one in two weeks has thrown trash in my yard. Nary a Fireball nip bottle has shown up in a potted plant. No stray work gloves, bottles of bleach, empty packs of Virginia Slims, nor individual skis have sullied my driveway or yard. It’s uncanny. But here in the boonies, everyone has land in which to keep their own detritus – mostly in the form of ramshackle falling down sheds, 1985 Dodge Ramchargers, and thousands of empty pots that probably once held flowers but now hold standing water and mosquito larvae.
But the lack of litter and quiet isn’t without its pitfalls. No people means no fun. Downtown has walkability – I could tuck and roll out my front door and hit a couple bars, four pizza places, two chinese restaurants, six nail salons, and five convenience stores within a few blocks. Here? We have, uh, a church, and a variety store like a mile away. Dislike.
It’s not like I forgot car culture existed, as I drive several piece of shit vehicles around Gloucester on any given day (wave, everybody, there’s KT with half a bumper!) – it’s that I honestly can’t get ANYWHERE without a car around here. Except for the variety store, if I want to spend an hour walking to go get a soda and an ice cream. Do they have Keno? I don’t even know. Probably. This is America, after all.
In the end, I miss downtown. I’ll probably be back eventually. Just as long as I don’t end up in Rockport. God, not Rockport.
An Open Clampinion to the New Leadership of the GDT
It seems new leadership has come to the Gloucester Daily Times, or as we like it call it here: “The Cape Ann Cane Shaker”. We’re hard on the Times here but only because it’s been terrible. Think we’re being too harsh? Take this little example:
Back in April there was really sweet coverage of Rockport High School inducting 19 new members into the National Honor Society. This is both great and swell. Huzzah to the Rockport students inducted, nice going, all that. Oh, and by the way: There were also 39 students of Gloucester High School inducted. Why am I not linking to this story? Can you guess why? BECAUSE THERE WAS NO FUCKING STORY. This is par for the course.
The Gloucester Daily Times has become, at best, an intermittent news source on topics, educational (where we have a particular passion) and otherwise. For most of the declared snow emergency this winter it bizarrely featured not much more than artisanal pizza recipes on the front page and we had to go to the awesome Korey Curcuru in his living room for actual information about the storms, the parking bans, the DPW’s movements and other information essential to surviving the unprecedented weather events.
Let that sink in: Our paper of record was scooped during a time of crisis on a daily basis by a dude with a webcam in his living room.
I could go on. And on. And on and on and on. The reporting is spotty at best. We regularly get requests here at The Clam to go in depth on actual news stories because folks don’t know what’s happening in regard to essential issues. I am loath to have to keep reminding this, but The Clam is a satire-based snarkblog and if you know the right passwords the Internet’s leading HR Puffenstuff erotic fiction hub. We are not Journalists. It shouldn’t be up to us, for instance, to be the only only outlet that has published the reports regarding the possible uses of the Fuller School.
an amphitheater for robot gladiators? Yes, fine. Whatever. Just shut up and do it already.
All this having been said, we’re hoping for a better GDT. A fresh start, as it were. So here are The Clam’s top suggestions for an improved Gloucester Daily Times since the opportunity seems to have arisen. Understand that there are years of pent up frustration tapping the keyboard right now, so if it seems overly harsh we’re sorry. But holy crap, do we need to even go into the 1-800 number we were supposed to call to get updates on the Mayoral race a couple of years ago rather than use, oh I don’t know, some kind of instant electronic transfer of information that might be available to 90+% of MA. Households?
- Your website is a crime against humanity I’m sorry, but it is. It is the spammiest, most obnoxious, hard to navigate site I go to on a regular basis. It’s crowded, you can’t tell what’s ad and what’s content, it auto-opens a second page to offer me more adcrap (which no one does anymore) and there is all this auto-generated filler from who-knows-where that clutters up the page. I know it’s a nightmare to make money from news websites these days, but this is not the way.
- Stop it with the Fuller/#Benghazi bullshit This is a huge peeve. There’s a notable stream in the general conversation about Gloucester which boils down to: “nominally-informed yelling to no practical end.” The paper should not be contributing to this problem and the issue of the Fuller School is our leading nexus of same. We’ve covered it here. It’s gone way, way beyond the necessary evaluation of the management of Gloucester’s capital assets. It’s now a conspiracy theory mixed with an ancient grudge whisked into a batter of dumb and poured into the waffle iron of asshattery, served dry. The majority of us just want to know what’s next for Fuller, how can we best use it to the city’s advantage and don’t want to spend our time shoveling coal into the rage boilers. If nothing else, please read the reports by professional architects and engineers before writing any editorials. That would be a huge step forward.
- Every third LTE/editorial seems to be about how terrible technology is Oh man. Nothing demonstrates a “hip” and “with it” vibe to younger readers than columns and ceaseless editorials about how the so-called “smart” phones are making us all into drooling antisocial screen-zombies. There are weekly columns that sound like someone made Andy Rooney a key character in Blade Runner: “These flying cars everywhere make it so hard to fly kites and I don’t care for all these noisy replicants running around with the shooting and the yelling of ‘What is my incep date? How long do I live?’ How long till you shut up is more like it. Back in my day we didn’t have bio- soldiers and we fought wars on the Off World colonies the old fashioned way, with attack ships off of Orion…” OK, in retrospect that sounds totally awesome. But it’s lame as balls in the Gloucester Daily Times, take my word for it. Make your regular columnists stop doing this, I beg you.
- Math matters The current GDT has a numeric allergy. There is, for instance, a regular call from the editorial page to consolidate the elementary schools into one mega school for ‘savings.’ How much savings? What kind of outcomes should we expect? Hellooooo? Anybody in there? We see this all the time. Someone saying the schools have too many administrators. Do we? What’s the typical ratio for school districts like ours, especially ones that have outcomes we want to emulate? How are they structured? Differently? The same? It’s hard work, requires looking things up on the Internet and making calls but that is sort of the job. Even political races, which are inherently mathematical, have had no reporting of hard numbers or percentages. Microsoft Word has a table function. It would be awesome if you guys would use it.
- Very few people actually fish I know this seems weird to say, but the vast majority of people in Gloucester and especially on Cape Ann, do not. The industry is clearly a core issue, it’s our historical basis for being here, but sadly there are only a few hundred families that still make their living from the sea. My brother has been working on shellfish draggers for most of his working years (He’s moving to New Bedford if anybody knows a boat that needs a competent crew member, btw) and I know the life, but still: Most of the people here do not fish.
- Gloucester education is about more than sports Oh man, if I had to drink every time I saw a front page that featured an educational achievement by Rockport of Manchester/Essex students and an athletic one by Gloucester students…wait. I actually do that. Saturday we had a demonstration of amazing robotics, drones, 3D printers, artwork, song, drama, music and all kinds of stuff. Here is the front page of the GDT:
So much sports…
There was a GDT photographer there, but the story is for some reason buried in the “News” section and third over in the slideshow up above, but even there the reference photo is not awesome robots but a mom (an awesome mom, by the way Hi Laurel!) and no clear image of Gloucester students who designed, coded and built all this tech without the reader having to go dig for it. But plain as day is Rockport’s honor roll. Way to go Rockport! You guys are awesome! What do you have for 3D printers over there? You have one of ours you borrowed? Oh…cool. Guess that didn’t make the papers.
- We don’t really care about what goes on in Danvers, Beverly, Salem, Newburyport or effing Haverhill This is the last point, but if this consolidation is supposed to combine content from Salem, Beverly and Gloucester, don’t bother. A few years ago we got tons of stories from the Merrimack Valley which is like telling the hill tribespeople of Papua new Guinea about the Winnipeg public bus system. Simply, no one gives a shit.
So that’s it. Remember what Menken said about newspapers, that they are to “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.” Good luck!
Clamsplainer: Our Schools Are Awesome So STFU, Haters.
A friend of a friend opened his stupid facehole the other day and the garbagewater that spilled out was, “Ugh, you live in Gloucester? The schools are so SHITTY there.” It took a lot of effort to not just throw myself on the floor and roll around yelling insults.
The schools aren’t shitty here. They’re not even CLOSE to shitty. Can we just stop with this dumb myth? I admit, that when I first had a baby and knew no one here, I’d heard that the schools were a mess. I believed it because I didn’t really know any better – and I was pregnant during the “pregnancy pact” bullshit. But oh my sweet crap on a cracker, was I wrong.
The singular data point you need to believe me on this was this weekend’s Gloucester Educational Fund arts festival downtown. Lured in by the promise of robotics and my kid’s art, I showed up – and was BLOWN AWAY. I’m a huge supporter of GEF, although my grinding, ceaseless near-poverty precludes me from donating to them all the money I wish I could.
Recycled plastic art. It’s like they know me!
Although it had a ton of amazing arts turnout (including a multitude of bands, and the EGS Ukulele concert!) what really took the cake for me (because nerd) was the robotics program. As you may know, we here at the Clam were a part of the Great 3D Printer Build last year, where the GEF purchased almost 30 3D printers and we all spent a weekend assembling them and then went delirious at the end from lack of sleep and that fucking clearly stoned guy trying to explain the assembly in a series of aggravating Youtube videos.
Anyway, the HS robotics club had some amazing interactive exhibits that truly showed how above average our Engineering program is. Like, with remote control tanks.
Our assorted Clamchildren, doing what they do (fighting over cool toys).
One of the things Maggie Rosa tracked me down to make sure I saw was the sand installation. “A sandbox with stuff projected on it – interesting!” I thought. UNTIL I SAW IT. The sandbox is two 3d cameras that take real-time height information from the kids making hills and valleys in the sand, sends that info to a laptop, that turns it into a real-live topographical map that is projected back onto the sand via overhead projector. High school students made this! HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS MADE THIS.
They will grow up not thinking this is incredible at all.
The presentation by the robotics kids and teacher Kurt Lichtenwald was pretty dang impressive. It had ping pong balls, homemade guitars, and of course, drones.
Our lives are mostly just drones at this point.
Turns out Gloucester High has one of the top engineering departments in the goddamn state. Kids are getting into WPI with no problems because they’re involved in our engineering programs.
Gloucester’s future is technology. The Clam wholeheartedly believes this (and not just because we’re epic super nerds). We’re doing amazing things, and our kids are going to be rock stars if we play this right. GEF is a huge part of this, as well as handfuls of amazing, dedicated, forward-thinking people. Our kids? They’re gonna be just fine.
And the schools are great. So STFU and enjoy it, instead of complaining.
No Snark Sunday: Addicts
When our daughter was born we lived between junkies and a liquor store. It was a gorgeous apartment, the owners of the store were great people. We loved everything about it except for the constant parade of despair seeking one or the other (or often both) fixes.
It was pretty much a nightmare. Our stuff was always being stolen. Sometimes I’d be filling the coffee pot in the morning and look out the window to find people crashed out on our deck. The junkies in residence had literally burned down their previous house trying to convert the hot water heater to propane grill tanks because their natural gas had been shut off, so there was a constant fear they were going to do something similar and endanger us as well. Out on the street mothers left babies in hot cars to go inside and buy (they were selling). As for the booze crowd, there is apparently a thing where you buy two single Twisted Tea tallboys, chug one on the sidewalk, throw the empty into the back of your truck and then crack the other, putting it in the beverage holder, and then take off down the street. This is, like, a normal part of some peoples’ day. I saw this out my window multiple times a given week. I was a regular on the police tip line.
“Daddy, there’s a man sleeping on our porch and he smells like tinkle”
It sucked. We moved.
So, given my experiences, I see a massive challenge for myself at least with our new compassion policy toward addicts here in Gloucester which we here at The Clam whole heartedly support. Namely: Some addicts are frequently really fucking annoying and even dangerous. I’m not blaming here, It’s a disease I get it, I’m just stating a fact. It is a pain in the ass to have people nodded out in your deck furniture and having to check for needles before you let your toddler go out and play in her own yard. It’s dangerous as balls to have blitzed dudes driving around in huge trucks.
What are we supposed to do with our anger and annoyance at the breaking of the social contract that comes with a highly visible percent of a group of people in the full blazing flame of their addictions?
I don’t have any good answers. I’m tremendously glad the police, as a matter of policy, are making a change. I hope beyond hope that those in need take the police and public health system at their word and get help and that it works, that folks get into treatment and their lives and their families lives and the life of our community are transformed as a result. This is a fresh start for us all and I and we here at your favorite snarkblog intend to put all our effort and energy into making the new system successful even past its inevitable hiccups as it comes on line.
But I’m still going to be pissed as fuck when my bike gets jacked at the train station for the fourth time so someone can sell it to one of the scrap dudes for just enough to score on. One of my favorite quotes is by one of the pioneers of quantum physics, Niels Bohr. He said, “The opposite of a fact is a falsehood but the opposite of a profound truth is often another profound truth.” Let’s apply it to this situation:
“I like to think my bike is there even if some jackwad stole it”
Derek Potocki was ensnared so tightly in the grip of his addiction he donned an absurd disguise and robbed a local bank in a generally safe, trusting community, apparently without any kind of even rudimentary plan to ensure his own success.
Derek Potocki is an idiot jackhole.
Both of these are true. People in the grips of their addictions do things they otherwise wouldn’t. Idiots in the grips of addiction do astoundingly stupid things involving false beards and running around town like some kind of whacked-out Papa Smurf until the cops nab them at the train station in what would make the lamest episode of “The Fugitive” ever.
This kid is stealing…my heart
So, I’m asking myself, where am I going to find this compassion as the inevitable visible reality of addiction hits me in the face when I’m least suspecting it? I am most certainly going to dig for my better self, but I have to admit I don’t feel an increased need to tolerate the nuisance or dangerous behavior caused by addiction, plain old garden-variety uncaring stupidity or the all-too-prevalent cocktail of both. I have compassion for addicts as human beings. But I have none for behavior that makes my town feel like a shithole or endangers others. It’s just that simple.
My fervent hope is that the new policies and support systems provide actually less of an excuse for chemically-induced dubmassery as now there is a place where addicts can go for support and thus even less call to steal a bike or rob a bank or pass out on the bench in front of Clammedia Tower surrounded by Dunks cups and sandwich wrappers.
So with that hope in place I’m going to do my best to make this work. I commend everyone involved especially Chief Campanello . It’s not going to be easy and we can’t give up. I want to break the back of addiction in Gloucester and move on to our future, which I know is bright.
Because what we’re doing now clearly isn’t working.