Mayoral candidates have exact same opinion on T service

As previously mentioned, I’m a bit dissatisfied with the current crop of Mayoral candidates. That said, I’m willing to hear what they have to say, and will inevitably vote for one who loses in the run-off (looking at you, Arroyo) before being forced to choose between a corporate shill and a union hack.

But okay, currently there are a lot of candidates. I wasn’t excited to have to wade through all of their platforms, but luckily on the issue of late-night transportation, they’ve saved me the trouble by all having virtually the same position![i] And what’s that position? According to a Boston.com “Meet the Mayoral Candidates” piece, it’s that Boston should be open later.

City Councillor John Connolly. Get used to this face.
He's probably your next mayor.

So every candidate agrees we should be open later. Then how do they separate themselves from each other and help us separate the almost nonexistent wheat from this ever-growing pile of chaff? Let’s read more closely and find out!

Both Felix Arroyo and John Connolly manage to use the term “24/7,” while Bill Walczak suggests we become a “24-hour city.” Mike Ross, John Barros, and Walczak all hoped for “late-night” service, while Charlotte Golar-Richie couched her position by saying she’d “strongly encourage the MBTA to make improvements to the system.” That’s lovely, candidates. Very innovative. But what are you actually planning to do?

As far as tangible ideas and proposals, John Barros came out swinging. He mentioned working with the Governor (which, to fix the T, you’d need to do) to get system the funding it needs, and proposed a student discount pass for university students, which is a really good idea given how expensive being a student in Boston is.

There’s a new royal baby. Can we all calm the hell down, please?

Kate Middleton and whichever actual British Prince she is married to (I’m guessing William?) had a baby yesterday. I’m sure they’re thrilled. The American press sure is!

Huffington Post - by most accounts now a major news source - is leading this with ridiculous headline:

Boy King! I’m serious right now. An American news source is leading with the birth of the newest incarnation of an institution we oppose as a nation on principle. And what’s worse, we only do it for that royal family. There are royal families in Belgium and Spain. Where was all this press for Infanta Sofia of Spain or Princess Elisabeth, Duchess of Brabant? We don’t celebrate them. Why? Partially because they don’t speak English and we like that, but mostly because Americans are under this insane impression that we are somehow linked to Great Britain because the majority of the founding population was Anglo-Saxon. Nevermind that we aren’t anymore, or that they consciously made the decision to no longer be British and specifically avoided establishing an American royal family.

2013 is not Boston's year.

I'm a big fan of the city of Boston.

I grew up around here. I’ve lived in the city proper for 12 years. I’ve voted in every election, been in the clubs, seen a lot of the bands, and watched all the teams. There have been few moments where I haven’t been proud to be from here, and I have a knee-jerk civic pride that borders on supporting forming our own New English nation-state and declaring Boston the capital.

With that in mind, it’s hard to say we’ve been having a very good year.

There’s the obvious thing – the bombing. The bombing was terrible, but produced a really interesting and positive reaction within the community. Boston Strong, before it was co-opted to be a synonym for “Yankees Suck” or “Fuck the Canucks,” was a really positive rallying point that definitely made me feel closer to my neighbors. But then Boston Strong became some weird money-making scheme. T-shirts with no connection to One Fund Boston have popped up everywhere, and the benefit concert went unaired due to rumored promoter opposition in hopes that they could sell a DVD, despite airing the concert live being a much more beneficial way to raise money and serving as one big advertisement for the DVD besides. So now I guess they’ll release it on a medium most people don’t use anymore long after the majority of people even care about the cause (not trying to be nasty on that last part – people have short memories and other bad things happen). The lineup also left something to be desired. While the Sandy benefit had predictably big names because of its NYC connection, Oklahoma’s Tornado fundraiser had the (granted terrible) national names like Tobey Keith and Garth Brooks. Sure, we had Aerosmith, but really, the Boston concert wasn’t exactly dripping with relevance. Names like Dropkick Murphys and NKOTB certainly have national appeal too, but they’re really local names at heart. At least Dane Cook was there. He just doesn’t ever want anyone else to see it.

A Gay Citizen and a Straight Soldier

I’m a very lucky man.

When I was a teenager, I was in a punk rock band. That band had five members: guitar, bass, drums, and two singers. It wasn’t very good, but that band changed my life.

I was one of the “singers” (read: screaming). The other guy was a guy named Tom. Tom was gay. We all knew he was gay, but apparently, he didn’t. He came out to us, and we accepted him because he was our friend and we already knew it. It apparently changed his life. I don’t even remember it because it was so inconsequential to me.

There was also a guy named Eric in the band. There were two other guys named Corey and Chris in the band. They are both wonderful people, but they’re inconsequential to this particular story. Eric ended up having an unexpected child, getting married, and joining the military, where he served valiantly.

Tom came out to us as a gay man. Eric came out to me as a conservative. They both accept each other, and I accept both of them. These two men are two of the most influential people in my life. I love and respect them both. They are both strong-willed and opinionated. They disagree on a lot of things, but they agree on the humanity of the other.

I am worried most of the time about how there’s no middle ground, and about how there isn’t any hope for us to find it. I’m concerned that we’ll find a way to kill each other. I’m worried about division.

Talking to both of these guys gives me a lot of hope. They occupy opposite ends of the political spectrum in a lot of ways, but they still give a shit about each other. They’ll always be friends. That gives me a lot of hope. There needs to be more Toms and more Erics. They’d be helpful in making the Matts of the world understand the grey areas that are so hard to understand.

Stories in Criminal Class, Savage Kick, book review, etc.

A brief update on written work. My first published short story, "Crooked," is available now in Criminal Class Review, Vol. 5 (Chicago). You can order it here. "Crooked" involves a weak-minded drug runner, his prostitute girlfriend, and their dealings with a crooked cop in an also-ran city.

Next up, the first story I ever submitted is finally coming out in the next few months via Murder Slim Press's literary journal, The Savage Kick #6 (United Kingdom). I'm pretty excited about this one, because Savage Kick's reputation among crime-noir-terrible-people writers is sterling, and the piece they're printing is the best story I've written. The story revolves around a bad and abusive father's accidental killing of his young daughter. 

I've also got a book review coming in the fall issue of The Historian, and am diligently working on a novella which I hope to finish in September.

Happy reading,

MW