Jill Stein at UMass 2010

Green Party candidate Dr. Jill Stein brought her longshot campaign for Massachusetts Governor to the University of Massachusetts this afternoon. There was a decent turnout.

Stein gave an informative, if somewhat wonkish speech, but it is her lack of political polish that is part of her appeal. She accused her opponents of being sell-outs to special interests, but was harshest towards incumbent Deval Patrick, whom she accused of "corporate misdeeds" when he worked in the private sector. The truth is Stein really is a breath of intellectual fresh air in an otherwise dull field. The shame is that on most issues she is virtually a socialist. However, she is very libertarian on the legalization of marijuana, and it was her lines in support of legal weed that drew the loudest applause from the mostly student audience.

Among those in attendance was Amherst/Granby State Rep. candidate Dan Melick (left). He has caused a stir in his campaign by calling for the legalization of all drugs. 

Not surprisingly the pro-pot angle brought out longtime legalization advocate Terry Franklin.

Following the speech counter-culture comedian Norman Bie did his latest incarnation of his longstanding routine "Deviations From the Norm."

Meanwhile in Tom Wesley's race to replace Richie Neal in Congress he received a major boost this week from an appearance in Palmer with his former GOP primary rival Dr. Jay Fleitman. Now the Republicans are formally united coming into the home stretch.

Meanwhile this highly unflattering video of Congressman Neal has been making the rounds. 

 

A McCarthy for Senate sign in front of Gateway Hardware in the Pine Point section of Springfield.

That's no surprise, since Gateway is owned by the candidate himself Tom McCarthy, shown here hard at work in his store the other day. 

A political tempest arose this week in Springfield over the illegal placing of a Democrat Party campaign sign on the pillars of City Hall. 

Although the sign was quickly taken down after complaints came pouring in, it was never determined who exactly had delivered the banner to City Hall or ordered it put up. Although some argued that the controversy helped to publicize the event, others suggested that the Democrats had damaged their cause by appearing arrogant, as if City Hall was the personal property of the Democrat Party. Others expressed anger that city workers were being used to promote Democrat Party events. This partisan favoritism reminded me of a similar controversy that occurred years ago.

In Springfield during the Albano era, the candidates who were loyal to the city's corrupt Democrat Party political machine were allowed to use the inside of City Hall to hold campaign announcements and press conferences. Obviously this gave the machine-backed candidates an advantage in how they appeared on TV and in photographs, as they were able to impress voters by making it appear as if they were already operating out of City Hall. However, when critics of the local machine tried to use the same City Hall settings for their campaign affairs, they were told it was not allowed!

Enter into the picture Brenda Branchini (above) a local hairdresser who decided in 1997 to run for City Council and wanted to use City Hall for her formal campaign announcement. Branchini was a colorful character, whose now defunct Court Square hair shop was notorious for offering, for an extra fee, the option of having your hair cut by females in very skimpy lingerie. Sadly, that sexy side of her business overshadowed the other more relevant aspects of her candidacy, in which she had numerous commonsense libertarian views. In many ways she ran exactly the kind of issues based campaign one always hoped to see in Springfield during those days of political stagnation and corruption but seldom did.

As a public figure Brenda Branchini came across as bold, sassy, unbossed and unbought. In protest of her exclusion from City Hall she led a motley parade down Main Street that included homeless people, dogs and cats, sex workers and radicals of all stripes who went dancing along with flutes, whistles and horns while waving signs demanding to be allowed to hold a rally inside City Hall just like those candidates blessed by the political establishment. Branchini and her supporters were turned away by City Hall security, but the protest parade managed to attract media attention. Once it became public that City Hall was being used to stage campaign rallies for privileged insiders that were forbidden to other candidates, the policy was finally changed to close City Hall to all partisan political activity.

Or so it seemed until this week. Hey Brenda, maybe it's time to come out of political retirement and lead another parade!

 

Authenticity

For some reason straight people like to think that gay people have special codes or clothes they wear to alert other people that they are gay. I think it makes the straights feel safe, that they don't have to worry about who's queer because they can tell just by looking. It makes them nervous to think that an athletic he-stud or a glamorous sex-kitten might be queer as a three dollar bill. In the dark days of the past when it was genuinely dangerous to be open about your sexuality, maybe you needed certain subtle symbols that only other gays would know, but that hasn't been true in a long time. The truth is that gay people are just like any other people, and generally act and dress the same as straight people, unless of course they're just playing up to stereotypes for fun in order to mess with the heads of the straights.

That's not to say that there won't always be fashion trends among subcultures. When I was growing up the hot clothing item for gay guys was the baseball cap. Almost no one wore baseball hats on the streets in those days, unless they were on their way to play on a baseball team, and it was sort of an insider gay thing to wear one. But as they say, if you live long enough you'll see everything come back in style, and I have lived to see the day when almost everyone wears a baseball cap, as it has become our unofficial national hat. Although it's lost its status as an item of gay chic, I still wear a baseball cap most days, in that stubborn way most of us have of clinging to the fashions of our youth, even as the hair beneath my hat turns grey.

Oh well, better grey than gone.

Sometimes people buy me baseball caps as gifts. Recently someone gave me a rather unique Pink Floyd baseball cap. Of course there is nothing particularly special about an item of Pink Floyd clothing, as they've been selling them since at least the early '70's. What was unique about this cap was that it looked like it was manufactured many years ago. The Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon logo was scuffed and the cloth of the bill was worn ragged in several spots. The black color was faded as if it had been exposed to many years of washings and rainstorms.



Yet the truth was that the hat had been purchased by my friend at the Hampshire Mall the day before! In fact, when I flipped the hat over, I could see on the inside the clean virgin cloth of a hat that had never been worn before! I realized that the hat had actually been manufactured to look old and beat up on purpose. Since then, I've learned that clothing that is meant to look worn out on the first day you wear it is actually a new fashion trend. Or new to me anyway; look at these allegedly ultra-trendy jeans promoted in a January trend alert.

The trend alert explains:

The vintage/worn look has never been so in. Everywhere you look, you can find a pair of distressed jeans, cut offs, tees, and even tights! While many people opt to ‘distress’ their clothing themselves, many retailers and designers have caught on, and started to make their new clothing look not so new....

According to the trend alert there are also strict rules for wearing new clothes that look old:

The distressed look isn’t for everyone, and can be done completely wrong. There is a fine line between keeping up with a trend and looking like you just rolled out of a garbage bin. Its important to remember that sometimes less is more, and never wear something with a massive hole in it or more than one distressed piece of clothing at a time.

Only one high-priced rag at a time? So if I'm walking down the street wearing my raggedy hat, then I am a true fashionista, but if I wear it with a pair of old jeans then I am suddenly just a bum. Sheesh, with the subtle, hard to follow fashion rules of today no wonder the popularity of nudism is rising.

And don't assume that this fad has anything to do with trying to save money in these times of economic stress by making old clothing seem fashionable. It actually costs EXTRA to buy your clothes already worn out. My scuffed and faded Pink Floyd hat retails for almost $25 dollars, which is about an extra ten bucks to buy it looking like it was rescued from a dumpster!

I realize that some of this is just the silly randomness of fashion. In fact, there is something humorously reflective of the general affluence of our society that we can afford to pay extra just to look like we can't afford new clothes. Tattered hats, ripped t-shirts and holey jeans - hey, it costs a lot of money to look that broke!

Yet I can't help but see in this fad something more disturbing. It's part of a modern phenomenon I first became aware of with the arrival of the national chain Applebee's Neighborhood Bar and Grill.

The food at Applebee's isn't bad, at least not as national chains go, but I remember thinking when I went to my first Applebee's, "Can you really mass produce a neighborhood bar?" I have to say that I share many sentiments with this person's review of an Applebee's:

I'm probably opposed to Applebee's as much on principle as I am on the generic food they serve. It really upsets me how these huge national chains are homogenizing our country, erasing all of the regional character that used to differentiate one city from the next. What really gets my goat about Applebee's, however, is how they try to cultivate the false image of a long running family owned neighborhood hang-out joint. You can see this in their obnoxious TV ads and in the sometimes fake local memorabilia that they use to decorate the interior of their restaurants. To the uninitiated, all of the local crap on the walls would seem to lend an air of authenticity to the place, as if it had been a local icon for years and years, when in fact most of the items are likely to pre-date the chain restaurant's existence.

In the Springfield neighborhood of ol' Pine Point where I grew up, we had a genuine neighborhood bar appropriately called The Pine Point Cafe. Here's a picture Jay Libardi took of me outside the joint in 1993.

 



As you can see, architecturally it was nothing special, really just a cinderblock box. Inside it was just as plain, decorated with little but electric booze advertisements and some faded pictures tacked up of drunken evenings from long ago. It was indeed a hard drinking place, where the only barriers to your consumption was your wallet, as no one was ever asked to leave as long as their money held out. If that meant you got so drunk that your friends had to help you home, then that was okay, because it was easy to sympathize with that, Pine Point being the kind of neighborhood where everyone seemed headed toward a tragedy, or getting over one. Everybody knew everyone else, and they sorta cared about everybody else, and that made it a place that was special from anyplace else you could go. I have fond memories of the Pine Point Cafe that even my alcoholism couldn't erase.

The Pine Point Cafe did not have corporate backing. It would not have made an appealing setting for a national TV advertisement. It was not fashionable to say that you went there. Actually it doesn't even exist anymore, unpaid taxes and neighborhood do-gooders having finally forced its doors closed several years ago.

But that dive was real in a sense that I don't think an Applebee's could ever be. Or a pre-tattered Pink Floyd baseball cap. Because no matter how much you pretend that the Applebee's is your oldtime neighborhood bar, or that your tattered cap is the treasured relic of your years of devotion to a classic rock band - deep in your heart you know that the Applebee's just opened last year and that you bought your hat at the mall last week.

What the Applebee's and the hat are meant to be are substitutes for something that's supposed to be authentic in our lives - places and things that reflect memories to be treasured - and the fact that so many people need commercial substitutes for those places and things, in numbers sufficient enough to support a national restaurant chain and a line of mass produced clothing, says something about the way we live today that is sorta sad. 

A pumpkin sale in front of a UMass frathouse yesterday afternoon. 

Recently I walked a bit of the Knox Trail in Holyoke. It is a beautiful stroll through the New England forest. 

This waterless brook bed illustrates what a dry summer it's been. 

Pulaski Park in Northampton continues to be the canvas for a chalk artist. Whoever it is I hope they keep it up. Ya gotta admit that's a lot of work for something that will only exist until the next cloudburst. 

out the bus window on route nine. 

Scott Brown in Hampden

Hey, I went to the fundraiser last night at the Hampden Country Club for State Representative candidate Jack Villamaino (above) with special guest speaker U.S. Senator Scott Brown. Of course the Senator's presence brought out all the local media, such as WWLP-TV22's Julie Tremmel and her cameraman.

Mike Dobbs of The Reminder.

David Miles of Turley Publications in Palmer brought his sense of humor in the form of one of his famous hats. 

The candidates trying to oust Congressman Richard Neal were in attendance, with Tom Wesley posing here with Jennifer Devine. A relative of mine? Among the Irish we're all relatives. 

Agawam City Councilor Bob Magovern is shown here on the left with Neal's other challenger Dr. and Mrs. Jay Fleitman. 

GOP gubernatorial candidate Charlie Baker didn't make it, but his running mate Richard Tisei did.

 



State Senator Mike Knapik.

State Representative Don Humason.

Tom McCarthy, the state senate candidate from my childhood stomping grounds of Springfield's old Pine Point was there.

But not all the candidates present were Republicans. Democrat Hampden County District Attorney candidate Jim Goodhines was there. Goodhines is a man of sterling character in a race otherwise populated by rogues such as Michael Kogut, a former stooge for Springfield's disgraced former mayor Michael Albano.

Non-candidates in attendance included Miss Teen Massachusetts Tamara Sacharczyk from East Longmeadow.

Also attending was my fellow Pine Pointer Kevin Gray, who used to live on the street behind me when I was growing up.

Senator Brown had to drive to the event all the way from Washington D.C. and was delayed by traffic, forcing former state rep and retired Judge Bob Howarth to tell bad jokes in order to pass the time. 

Finally the rock star arrived.

Senator Brown is famous for his unusual background, having been a model in his youth who once posed nude for Cosmopolitan. His wife has also reported that he wore pink leather shorts to their first date.

Eat your heart out Scott Brown!

Two of Massachusetts' grand eccentrics. 

A great time was had by all. 

Here's a picture of WGGB-TV40's Dave Madsen with James Taylor in Stockbridge. 

This is from the Green River Festival in Greenfield last weekend.

 

16 Acres of Hell?

How did this escape my attention for so long? There's a great website called Hell's Acres that I recently stumbled upon that is written by someone who grew up in the 16 Acres section of Springfield, which is located right next to my old stomping grounds of Pine Point. Indeed, there is a lot of cultural overlap between the two neighborhoods, with Pointers feeling a special affinity for the Acres and with Acres folks also having a special relationship with the Point. For example Danny Croteau was a 16 Acres kid, but was well-known in the Point because he went to boy scout meetings at the Point's Our Lady of the Sacred Heart Social Center and also attended school there. The author of Hell's Acres doesn't reveal his identity, but explains his quest thusly:

You can't go home again," wrote Thomas Wolfe. Well, I was born and raised in the Sixteen Acres neighborhood of Springfield, MA. Then, after college, I got out of Dodge and lived in Boston for 21 years, only to return in 2007, when my career brought me back here. I don’t live in the old ’hood now (my new digs are in Wilbraham), but I work in The Acres. Although this blog isn’t exclusively about growing up—and returning to—the Springfield area, I can’t seem to escape it. Or can I?

Whoever he is he writes well and entertainingly about his 16 Acres boyhood, along with historic photos and other nostalgia. Some of it inevitably concerns Pine Point, such as this pic of a sign from the late, lamented Russell's restaurant parking lot.

Or this advertisement for their sister restaurant up the road, Abdow's Big Boy.

But the real gem is this image of the long vanished Boston Road Burger Chef.

For years I've told people that I seem to remember a special that Burger Chef used to have on some occasions of ten burgers for ONE DOLLAR! So many people have scoffed at that price that I hesitate to tell them that I also seem to recall one time when they sold a dozen burgers for a buck! Thanks to this blog, I now have a newspaper advertisement showing that their regular price for a burger was a mere 15 cents, thereby proving that I am not mistaken about that special.

Anyway, if you'd like to further explore this treasure chest of local memorabilia, click here.

Speaking of Pine Point, here's Dorman School where my Dad attended when he was a boy. 

The playground of Dorman has been renamed Jimmy Park after the late State Rep. Jimmy Grimaldi. Actually Grimaldi was considered something of a hack, but he was spot on in his criticism of the downtown "revitalization" projects of his day. He repeatedly ran unsuccessfully for mayor and he was a relative of former Mayor Mike Albano, who was responsible for the playground being named in Grimaldi's honor..

 



Oh well, if Richie Neal can have a building named after him and he ain't even dead yet, then I guess ol' Jimmy Grimaldi can have a playground. Here is a newsbox on Boston Road in Pine Point showing a paper last week praising the renovation work done on State Street.

Unfortunately State Street changes its name to Boston Road when it hits Pine Point so no work was done in that neighborhood. In fact you can see in the road the very line where the new State Street ends and the old Boston Road begins.

There's a new song out about the suicide of South Hadley's Phoebe Prince. It has sorta trite lyrics but the tune itself is good and it would serve the bullies right if it became a hit. 

Big Hat Daddy

 

Hey everybody, I was in Springfield all day yesterday, so of course my camera was snapping! My bus trips to the city of my birth always take me first to Holyoke, where I have to transfer to the bus to Springfield. While waiting I noticed that yet another spring has sprung with no sign of life at the old Holyoke Catholic High School. 

One of Holyoke's abandoned factory smokestacks.

Once in Springfield, I headed up to ol' Pine Point to visit my friends and relatives in Saint Michael's Cemetery. While there I was surprised to see standing right near me a wild turkey! If I'd only had the sense to just aim my camera and shoot I would've gotten a good picture. But of course I had to try for the Pulitzer Prize winning shot by taking just a few steps closer - which spooked the creature and left me with only this shot of the bird running away.

Later I enjoyed some moments of peace and serenity by the Mill River.

It's hard to believe that nothing remains of the old Russell's Restaurant.

I also stopped by the site of the original World Famous Thomas M. Balliet Elementary School, now a shuttered ruin.

But looking through the front window, I was surprised to see the school entrance mat still in place.

Frankly I don't remember us ever calling ourselves bears in my day. My mother however did coach a girl's softball team called The Balliet Bombers.

Passing through downtown on my way home, I took a picture of the famous Puritan statue next to the City Library. 

Many people assume it is a statue of William Pynchon, the founder of Springfield, but actually it is of Samuel Chapin, the patriarch of one of the city's founding families. I wonder what he would think if he could see the city today.



They were hard judges, those puritans. 

 

I remember one time I was taking pictures of the statue when two black kids, who looked like they might have been brothers, asked me why I was photographing the Chapin statue. I was amused that they called Chapin by the name "Big Hat Daddy." I explained that he was one of the founders of Springfield, but it appeared to be the first they'd heard of it. They also told me that they lived in the apartment tower right across the street. I asked them if they would pose for a picture with Big Hat Daddy, but they refused.

Later I visited the nearby Dr. Seuss National Memorial and stole a kiss from my childhood friend The Cat in the Hat. Now there was a real Big Hat Daddy. 

Finally I arrived back in Northampton, heading downstairs for a relaxing cup of tea in the Haymarket. 

Ralph Hexter, President of Hampshire College, has responded with wit to the declaration by the Huffington Post that his college is the most hipster in the nation. President Hexler figures that makes him "hipster-in-chief" and asks: "If I were truly hipster-in-chief, shouldn’t there have been a photo of me, preferably with my husband?"

President Hexter and his husband Manfred Kollmeier

 

When YouTube was introduced in 2005 I was the first local blogger to make use of it, thereby helping to launch the video revolution in our Pioneer Valley blogosphere. I remember that this was the first video I ever saw appear on YouTube about Northampton that wasn't by me. 

 

Here is some classic footage filmed by someone going down Route Nine while riding into Amherst on a bus way back in 1995.