Pre420

Upcoming High Pride celebrations. 

 



Here's a view of downtown Northampton from behind the gates of Smith College.

Sunday is April 20th, or 420, or as it's also sometimes called, Bicycle Day, because that is the day Dr. Albert Hoffman, the inventor of LSD, enjoyed the first moments of psychedelic consciousness. When he first got off on the acid, he rode his bicycle home stoned out of his mind, making the act of riding a bike the first psychedelic experience.

Anyway, I saw from multi-colored messages scrawled on the sidewalk around Smith that the college is having a High Pride celebration on the campus quadrangle Sunday afternoon. 

Of course tomorrow is the annual Extravaganja, put on by the UMass Cannabis Club, on the town common in Amherst. I, however, will not be attending any High Pride events. 

I support the legalization of marijuana. It seems stupid to me that such deadly drugs as cigarettes and alcohol are perfectly legal while ganja, the most gentle and harmless of the naturally occurring mind altering substances, is illegal. I live in a halfway house full of drug addicts, and frankly none of us would have ended up here if we had only been pot smokers.  

Normal folks - "Earthlings" as we druggies call them - can smoke marijuana safely and pleasurably and the law should let them do it. I would express my solidarity with the legalization movement by attending the High Pride celebrations but frankly I'm too new in sobriety to risk it. I think I could go and refrain from smoking, but at this point it's better for me to play it safe. I have to remember how close I came to dying last fall, and how I can't be sure I'll be lucky enough to survive again if I relapse.

So all you Earthlings, go to the High Pride events and raise hell! In spirit I will be in solidarity with your noble cause. On 420 itself I will write my long promised review of the videos Captain Skypilot sent me. 

 

Day Off

Schlepping round downtown.

Today was an unusually free day - no psych sessions, no impulse control therapy, no working at the Survival Center. I left the house pure of heart with a sunshine daydream for a day of hangin' out on the streets of Northampton. 

 

My first encounter was with a little birdy that never lies who whispered in my ear that high ranking people are being paraded before a Grand Jury asking them pointed questions about Springfield's school construction projects built during the Albano years. As the FBI likes to say - Stay tuned.

Passing Northampton's First Church, I saw that it is all but invisible behind the wall of scaffolding erected to replace its slate roof. 

What a play on opposites in the line-up of coming attractions at the Calvin Theater.

I had lunch today with the award-winning blogger Bill Dusty.

We ate at Packard's. Here's a view of the parking lot from the window on the third floor.

Afterwards we went to my beloved Norwottock Trail. It was my first time visiting it this year. On the trestle crossing the mighty Connecticut River, I styled my new Conz.

Someone put a sticker of a smiling demon's head on this sign.

 

The sign also suggests that this may be a good area to challenge kids to a race.

Monarch Place

What was lost.

You know that spring has sprung when UMass professors start taking their classes outside. Today this English class was discussing the literary arts on the lawn outside Bartlett Hall.

I've been meaning to comment on these classic pictures of the old Forbes and Wallace building formerly located in downtown Springfield. I was alerted to them by the blog Urban Compass, who swiped them from here.

It was a shame about the Forbes and Wallace building, which was torn down in 1987 and replaced by the failed skyscraper Monarch Place. A classic government financed boondoggle, the Monarch project tanked almost immediately after opening. Monarch Place was eventually bought for pennies on the dollar by Peter Picknelly of Peter Pan buslines for a price so low that the taxpayers ended up losing nearly all of their investment. Picknelly then turned around and used his low mortgage to enable him to  rent the offices in Monarch Place cheap enough to suck up many of the tenants of the surrounding office buildings, resulting in whole streets of downtown office rental properties going vacant. Monarch Place thereby the downtown as a whole was made even more of ghost town than before.

 

 

But perhaps what was most tragic was what didn't happen. An old, largely vacant building in Northampton, almost the same size and age as the Forbes building, opened as a mall called Thornes. Their radical concept was that people might like visiting a mall in an old, historic building, with all its charm, in contrast to the sterility of most modern malls. Thornes sparked an economic revival in Northampton that help transform their downtown (once deader than Springfield's) into the bustling central business district that is the envy of every city and town in the Valley.

Ironically, Springfield had a building in Forbes&Wallace that was perfectly suited to start their own Thornes like downtown mall and begin its own path to renewal. Sadly,  Springfield's incompetent politicians and economic development poohbahs tore it down to build the disastrous flop known as Monarch Place instead.

Hey, there's an article in the Valley Advocate this week that has quotes by me. Check it out by clicking here. 

Queerfest was in full swing at UMass today.

Many came out to take advantage of the wonderful weather. 

Nearby, but not officially related to Queerfest, was this display for the University of Massachusetts Outing Club.

Outing Club? Insert joke here. 

The Outing Club has a great motto: "We take people into the woods and do things with them."

Saco Catjakis was a controversial longtime State Representative from Springfield. His career ended under a cloud, but he has surfaced recently in the oddest place - being interviewed by the crackpot activist Joe Fountain. Despite the source, there are things of interest in these videos, beginning with this unflattering opening shot of Saco's girth. 

This is a tour of Saco's office.

UMass Student Capitalism

Taking care of business.

Dig the intensity of Paolo.

This sign on a fence in Hadley urges people to visit a local Maple sugar shack.



The days have been warm and the nights have been cold, perfect weather for getting the sap to run, resulting in a bountiful crop with lots of the sugary goo available at reasonable prices.

Today was a nice warm day. I spent some time sitting with a friend from the Survival Center at the UMass Minuteman statue, where my buddy took my picture. 

Later we wandered over to the Student Business Fair. 

The campus socialists are slipping, there were no protesters. Instead various student-run businesses peacefully promoted their products. 

One of the most successful businesses on campus is run by the Bike Co-op, which repairs and customizes bicycles and skateboards. They do excellent work. 

I sampled some homemade ice cream. It was delicious!

Good to see these students taking care of business!

Howie on Petro

Howie Carr has a devastating column in the Boston Herald this morning about Tommy Petrolati of Ludlow (above with Mike Albano) and his ties to crime figures. As usual Carr wields his pen like a switchblade:

Who put the rocket in Petro’s pocket? That’s the question at the State House: Who dropped - not a dime, but a bomb - on the “Speaker pro tempore” of the House of Representatives?

It seems that Tommy Petrolati’s contributors’ list is larded with gangsters, bookies, extortionists, bank fraudsters, tax cheaters, cash-skimmers, witness-tamperers and embezzlers.

To which there are two responses at the State House: No. 1, “That’s Petro.” And No. 2, “That’s Springfield.”

Carr also can't resist bringing up Petrolati's close ties to Springfield's first family of crime, the infamous Asselins:

Things are starting to look up for his closest political allies and contributors, the Asselin family. His great friend, ex-Rep. Chris Asselin of Springfield, is getting out of prison on June 15. And Chris Asselin’s wife, Merylina, who was also indicted in the corruption case, just scored a massive Bulger-like hit on the public mammary.

She is grabbing $210,000 in back wages from her job at Chicopee High School as a “guidance counselor,” now that the federal charges against her have been dropped.

Before his incarceration, Rep. Asselin was working as, what else, a lobbyist. Convicted of bribery, theft and mail fraud, he’s at least as big a crook as his fellow lobbyists Felon Finneran or Good Time Charlie Flaherty - plus he actually did time. I think once he gets sprung from Club Fed, ex-Rep. Asselin should reopen his lobbying “office,” just like his fellow felon Finneran is doing.


Today those famous April showers that bring May flowers fell quite heavily, but yesterday by contrast was absolutely gorgeous. After my psych appointment I hung out in downtown Northampton. Here's a picture my friend took of me. 

Later we sat on the fire escape outside the Haymarket Cafe.

It was a peaceful, contemplative place to watch the world go by. Here's the doorway leading to the fire escape.

Full of fun un on the fire escape.

Dented Cans

Buyer beware. 

 



Did you know there is such a thing as Alcoholics Anonymous jokes? Here's one:

Question: How do you know that the two Alcoholics Anonymous members are on their second date?

Answer: Because they're driving a U-Haul.

To get that joke you have to understand something about alcoholism and drug abuse. When you are first getting clean, the most natural thing in the world is to want to romantically latch on to somebody who is also in recovery. If a relationship is based on mutual interests, then what could be a closer bond than two people working together to overcome addiction?

This is especially true because to stop getting high usually requires you to cut a lot of your social ties. The long term goal of every addict is to someday interact in the world like a normal person, which means socializing with people who drink and take drugs without it being a problem. In the short term however, it is usually a good idea to steer clear of users, lest in the weakness of your early sobriety you be tempted beyond your strength to resist.

So as if it wasn't hard enough to give up your addictions, you often have to give up most of your social contacts as well, at least for a while. Therefore you find you're not only craving dope, but you're lonely as well. So an Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous meeting might seem like the ideal pick-up spot for the recovering user.

 However, it is strongly recommended that you don't do that. For one thing, overcoming addiction requires a lot of inward thinking in order to understand what is compelling you to get high in a self-destructive manner. A relationship however is usually other-directed. You are always thinking about them. What is my love doing? What are they thinking? Your mental focus becomes all about them, at a time when it is really more important for it to be all about you.

I do know that I need to stay at the half-way house. My fellow druggies and I have a cruel but true line we say about relationships in recovery; "Looking for love in AA is like shopping in the dented cans aisle."

Of course to laugh at that joke I have to forget that I too am a dented can.

 

I love the classic New England architecture of this church located directly across the street from where I "work" at the Amherst Survival Center. 

I like the clever wordplay of the banner on the front. 

This should be the theme song of the Amherst Survival Center. 

Old Hamp Photos

Scenes from the past.

People send me really cool stuff. For example:

Hi Tommy,

I wrote to you about a month ago when you were wondering about "the thing with feathers" Unitarian sermon title. Glad I was able to assist in solving that mini-mystery. As I said in my first e-mail I grew up in Northampton, but have lived in the New Haven CT area since my mid-20s. I still have family living in the Valley and when I think of "home" it's usually in reference to greater Northampton (the Young homestead was in Leeds). 

I love seeing the area photos (both new and old) that you regularly post and I decided to share some images of my own. My way of staying "connected" to Hamp/Noho is by collecting vintage photographs, postcards, and other types of ephemera/memorabilia. Over the years I've filled up several albums and shoe boxes. The random selection I've sent today date from 1880-1910.

Love your blog. All the best!

Bob Young - Cheshire, CT

 

Main Street parade, Northampton, real-photo-postcard, 1909.

 



Plymouth Inn, Northampton (corner of Green & West Streets) real-photo-postcard, 1906.

 



Hockanum Ferry, real-photo-postcard, 1906.

 



Leeds baseball team, real-photo-postcard, 1910.

 



Man & Dog, cabinet photo, circa 1880.

 



Handsome bearded man, cabinet photo, circa 1890.

 



Last night I saw Motown Bernie doing his thing in downtown Hamp, only this time with female accompaniment. I asked her name but she replied simply, "Freebird."

As a new part of my addiction recovery program I'm required to do community service. Every day now I go and help with the free food distribution at the Amherst Survival Center.

I like doing it. It certainly gives me a look into a side of Amherst you don't usually see. Even in a community as wealthy as Amherst there is a sizable population of hidden poor.

And I count myself in their number! Look at the cool new sneaks I got on a clothes voucher (bless you taxpayers) to replace my fading red Conz, which were ceremoniously put in the recycling bin to a mournful playing of taps on kazoo by the Reverend Shane.

 



My new pair of Converse are bright white, for the bright new future before me.

Finally, this is so bad it's good. Well, almost.