Ornoth

I used to spend my free time hanging out in the Boston club scene, seeing live music nearly every day. In those years, I saw a lot of noteworthy shows, some of which are cherished memories.

But those days peaked about sixteen years ago. I really don’t go clubbing anymore, and don’t really listen to much music at all. But I keep my eyes peeled, and once in a while I see a show that’s too compelling to pass up.

The last time that happened was three years ago, when Devo came out of retirement to record their first album in 20 years. Being a huge fanboi, there was no way I was going to miss their first live show in New England in more than two decades. And it was, as they say, an electric performance.

Recently, a remarkably similar series of events took place. Another of my absolute favorite bands from the 80s—The Cars—got back together after a twenty-year hiatus and put out a new album and a handful of concert dates to support it. I made damn sure I was there when they took the stage at the House of Blues last week.

It was my first time in the new House of Blues on Lansdowne Street, which consolidated the space formerly occupied Avalon and Axis. Not bad, but not as intimate as those smaller clubs, and absolutely nothing like the old, original HoB location in Harvard Square. I took up a position above the stage, near the mezzanine rail (echoes of Paradise), and settled in for the show.

It was gratifying that despite their advancing years, the band played pretty tight. Ric’s voice is still a perfect match for Greg Hawkes’ awesome synth work, and Eliot executed his guitar solos with energy and precision. They put on a really good show.

The setlist featured a handful of okay new songs, several of the obligatory classics, and a generous number of their slightly more obscure songs. I was especially gratified that “Moving in Stereo” was the first song played for their encore.

The Cars are a Boston band, and they appeared to remember it fondly, making reference to the Rat, and telling the crowd it was “nice to be home”. Seeing them on Lansdowne Street, the row of clubs behind Fenway Park’s “Green Monster”, then walking home and stopping to get some ice cream at JP Licks on trendy Newbury Street… it was a quintessentially “Boston” evening.

Although I haven’t picked it up yet, I will probably acquire the new album sometime in the near future. Looking forward to that, too, although like the new Devo album, it’ll probably be a mixed bag, with some hits and some real misses.

But all in all, a new Cars album makes me happy, and finally having an opportunity to see them play live was ridiculously cool. Although I did get to meet Greg Hawkes and see him perform a couple Cars tunes at the tribute show at TT’s a few years ago, as described here. That was ridiculously cool, too.

Rock on!

After two fun kayak excursions last year, this spring I ponied up for a season membership at Charles River Canoe and Kayak despite my unemployment, hoping that it’d both save me money and incent me to spend more time paddling on the river.

So how did it go?

Kayaking and cycling compete for good-weather days, so even though I had the whole summer off, I wound up going out 9 times: once in June, August, and October, and twice in May, July, and September. I went three times from CRCK’s Kendall Square location, and twice each from Nahanton, Allston, and their primary facility in Auburndale.

With a total of 30 hours on the river, my average outing was 3 hours and 20 minutes. I paddled a total of 90 miles, averaging 10 miles per excursion, with my longest being 15 miles. GPS logs of my paddling trips can be found here.

Had I paid for my own rental time, that would have come to $458, but the season pass only ran me $292. If I include the discount my brother and niece got on rentals via my pass, that’s $173 less than what it would have cost renting by the hour. So the pass wound up saving me 33 percent.

Having a pass also allowed me to stay out as long as I cared to, without worrying about how much each excursion would cost and when to get back. As such, I found it not very difficult at all to go out and do 10 or 12 miles per day.

I encountered a surprising amount of wildlife (muskrat, painted and snapping turtles, great blue herons, hawks, cormorants), on the river, even right in the middle of the city. Tho I didn’t see either the harbor seal or the alligator that were discovered in the river this season! I particularly enjoyed playing in the shallow rapids below the Watertown and Newton dams, and in the huge waves kicked up on windy days in front of Community Boating.

The next step in my paddling evolution would probably be excursions out into Boston Harbor.

It was fun exploring the river, and I covered just about the entire expanse of water accessible from the CRCK locations. However, it wasn’t quite as interesting returning a second time to areas I’d already covered. For that reason, I don’t feel the need to buy my own boat right off, since I’d quickly tire of endlessly paddling around the Charles River basin. So I don’t think I’ll buy a boat of my own until I have a car, so that I can transport it to new and interesting places.

While I thought that kayaking’s upper body workout would be a good complement to cycling, it wasn’t quite what I expected. If you do it right, the proper kayak paddling motion mostly works the hips and core abdominal muscles, rather than the arms. So unlike true upper body work, it wasn’t a perfect complement; on the other hand, paddling was actually of direct benefit for cycling, since you use those same core muscles to steady your torso and back on the bike.

Will I buy another membership next year? Actually no, not unless I’m unemployed again. When I’m working, I only have nights and weekends to ride, which makes it hard to get sufficient training time on the bike. So I wouldn’t spend enough time kayaking to make buying a membership work financially, though I will probably take a boat out a couple times on an hourly basis.

But I’m very glad I took the membership out this year. It definitely was a great way to spend the “rest days” built into my cycling training schedule. And there’s nothing like spending a sunny Monday afternoon paddling alone on a quiet stretch of river, thinking about all one’s wage-slave friends trapped in crowded office buildings, far from nature.

Two years ago, I posted a pointer to a Globe article about Louie Evans, Boston’s iconic tricycle-riding “woop-woop guy”. At that time, someone had stolen his bike, and the guys from my local bike shop, Back Bay Bicycles, were taking up a collection to replace it.

Then, last June, I mentioned in this blog entry that I watched Game 3 of last year’s Celtics championship over the Lakers at the Rattlesnake, sitting next to Louie.

Now, (and about time, I must say), an Emerson student has taken upon himself to film an excellent little eight-minute documentary on Louie. Includes interviews with the guys at Back Bay Bicycles, and images of him riding around my neighborhood, including the closing shot you see here, which was taken just outside my living room window.

Brian, thanks for letting us share and preserve the memory of this Boston icon, and thanks to Back Bay Bicycles for taking good care of him!

So the Celtics won the NBA championship, and they won it in championship fashion, with perseverence, character, teamwork, and—as a result— complete dominance of their opponent.

I watched nearly all of the 2008 playoffs from Joe’s American Bar & Grill on Newbury Street. I groaned as the pathetic 37-45 Hawks took the Celtics to seven games in the opening round, followed by another seven-game nailbiter with LeBron James and the fourth-seed Cavs, and a fine six-game contest with the second best team in the league, Rip Hamilton’s Detroit Pistons.

Despite the Celtics having the best record in the league, everyone picked Los Angeles to win the title, including 9 of 10 ESPN analysts. I quietly voted my mind: the Celtics in six. Right on the munny.

I was watching Game 2, with the Celtics up 24, when Joe’s caught fire, forcing everyone out. At least I didn’t have to pay for my dinner! Meanwhile, the Lakers staged a comeback that fell just shy of completion. While Joe’s was closed, I had to watch Game 3 at the Rattlesnake, sitting next to Louie Evans, Boston’s infamous tricycle-driving Woop-Woop Guy.

And then Game 6, back at a crowded Joe’s. None of the bartenders I had become familiar with, and no sign of Dani, the barfly I secretly looked forward to seeing. After ending the first quarter with a mild four-point lead, the Celts took control in the 2nd, distancing league MVP Kobe Bryant and the Lakers by 24.

My routine has been to order supper at the tail end of the 2nd, so I can eat through the break. That was okay when the games started at 6pm, but with games starting at 9pm, that pushed suppertime out to 10:30pm. I’d eaten a plate of chips & salsa after work, so I wasn’t that hungry, and I was kinda tired of meat, so I ordered two ears of corn on the cob and ate them sitting at the bar, to many confused looks from the sizeable crowd.

The final two quarters must have been torture for the petulant Kobe Bryant, because the Lakers had no hope, trailing by more than 40 points, but they still had to spend another 24 minutes on the floor of a raucous Boston Garden, watching Boston’s second string hit an unending sequence of humiliating threes and dunks and alley-oops. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a dominant performance on the court. The Celtics won in true championship style, and there’ll be no apologists accusing them of backing into their title.

And then it was over. Paul Pierce was declared Finals MVP, but not before drenching coach Glenn Rivers with Gatorade. Kevin Garnett knelt at center court and kissed the leprechaun, then hugged Celtic legend Bill Russell. And team owner Wyc Grousbeck dedicated the title to recently-deceased Celtic patriarch Red Auerbach. That’s Celtics Pride.

I remember the first Celtics game I attended, back when I was too young to know what it was about or care. I also remember playing Bas-Ket as a child with players I named Tiny Archibald, Dave Cowens, John Havlicek, M.L. Carr, Cedric Maxwell, Bob McAdoo, and JoJo White, after players of the ’70s. I remember watching the fat Eighties years, rapt by players like Bird, Parrish, McHale, Ainge, Dennis Johnson, and Dee Brown.

And I remember the horrors that befell the team after 1986. Repeated draft failures. Rick Carlisle, Chris Ford, Len Bias, Acie Earl, Reggie Lewis, Rick Pitino, Antoine Walker, and Dominique Wilkins. And Paul Pierce… a real talent who had Celtics Pride, but suffered for a decade with no supporting cast.

Enter Danny Ainge. The same Ainge who was traded from Boston to Sacramento for a guy named Joe Kleine. Now Celtics GM, and architect of deals that brought Boston that supporting cast. Paul Pierce is the only player on the 2008 championship roster who survives from the team that Danny Ainge inherited. Ainge deserves all the accolades that can be heaped upon him for keeping only seven players from last year’s worst team in the league, supplementing the keepers with major league acquisitions, and turning the Celts into this year’s best regular season team and, of course, world champions.

And then there’s Doc Rivers. He has his share of detractors in Boston, especially after last year’s pathetic season. And he has certainly made his share of ludicrous coaching decisions, including many during these playoffs. But he deserves credit for doing one thing right, and it’s one very big thing.

Before this year’s season began, Doc took the team to Rome for a special training camp. He took this diverse group of individual contributors with immense egos, and got them to believe in the importance of defense and team play. He got them singlemindedly focused on one thing—earning an NBA championship—and settling for nothing less. And, most importantly, he got them to appreciate the story of the greatest franchise in professional sports history, and see their own role in it, if they stepped up to the challenge. The same Doc Rivers who played against us for the detestable Atlanta Hawks: he taught these guys Celtics Pride.

And they’ve shown it. They played unmatched team defense. They played through lineup rotations, adversity, and injuries. Through it all, they remained a team, a family working as one toward the only possible goal: lifting their own championship banner to fly with the legendary other sixteen up in the Garden rafters.

Teams and families are not homogenous; they’re made up of people who fill various roles, so even though the Celtics live and die as a team, I want to talk a bit about the players, because each of them showed both individual skills as well as depth of character that make them admirable role models.

I have to start with Paul Pierce, because Celtics fans can identify with him. He joined the Celtics full of pride and hope, and he brought that hope to thousands of fans. Then we struggled together through ten long years mediocrity before this year’s opportunity. That shows the depth of his loyalty to the team. But during that time he also grew as a person and player, becoming the acknowledged leader of the team. In the Finals, he played amazing ball, including suffocating defense against Kobe Bryant, despite suffering a painful knee injury in Game 1. Watching his reaction to finally realizing his—and our—dream is a memory I’ll always treasure.

Kevin Garnett is one bat-ass crazy mutha. The intensity of the desire and emotion he brings is downright scary, like the crazy berserker Picts who used to paint themselves blue and go naked into hand-to-hand battle. He’d been eerily ineffective during the three games in Los Angeles, but came back strong in Game 6 to provide the emotional spark the Celts needed, including an unbelievable line-drive conversion after a foul that will surely appear on posters for years to come as the defining moment of the 2008 Finals.

My impression of Ray Allen is that of quiet, introverted humility tempered by self-confidence. The shooting guard couldn’t find the hoop with Google Maps during the conference finals against Detroit, but he persevered and finally started pouring in threes when L.A. came to town. He, too, overcame adversity, this time in the form of his infant child’s hospitalization, not to mention the eye injury he suffered in the middle of Game 6.

And then there was this Rondo kid at point guard. Could a 22 year old second year player play the leadership role on the floor necessary to get through the playoffs? The questions were doubled after he bruised his ankle in Game 3. The Lakers cheated off him on defense, exploiting his reluctance to shoot from the perimeter, and fans groaned every time he drove the lane, got right to the cup, and passed up the open layup in favor of passing to teammates on the outside. But when he did take shots, he often made them, and his playoff performance was truly admirable, especially considering his limited experience.

Sam Cassell played backup point guard and brought both Finals experience and an offensive spark off the bench.

Eddie House also shared time at point guard, and provided needed offense when Rondo struggled. Between the three of them, they managed to divide the time at this key position without devolving into selfishness.

Kendrick Perkins, the big man in the middle, was an awesome presence defensively and on the boards. The man quietly does his job, and does it superlatively well. Huge unsung hero.

And when it wasn't Perk, it was Leon Powe, whose character, forged in family adversity, is so deep that they made it a halftime story.

And James Posey, Boston’s other Finals veteran, brought perspective, a stifling defense, and a killer three-point shot. Every time the Lakers cheated off him on defense, he made them pay.

So that’s the summary of the 2008 Celtics: a collection of great individuals, forged into a single, unbeatable team.

But what of the future? I think Posey and Ray Allen are the most likely to move on, which would leave Boston with a gaping hole at the shooting guard spot. Will that hurt them next year? Only time will tell, but that’s where I’d focus my effort if I was Danny Ainge.

But for now, it’s time to savor the first Celtics victory in two decades, capped by a dominant, stupendous final game against the old nemesis the Lakers.

Go Green! Awesome job, all around. Thank you for a storybook year.

Answers to the “interview me” meme, with questions posed by lothie. Actually, I didn’t ask to be interviewed, but since she took the time to come up with questions, I figure I orta answer.

I passed on this meme the first time it came around, so I’m not looking to ask anyone else any questions, but if you insist, I’ll do.

What's your opinion on the Tao?

Not much, actually. It’s kinda orthogonal to Buddhism, or at least the southeast Asian Theravadan Buddhism from Thailand and Sri Lanka that I’m most familiar with. The Tibetan, Chinese, Korean, and Japanese forms of Buddhism might have been more influenced by it. But aside from that, I’m nt sure I fully agree in the whole balance idea, although there are aspects of it that do appear in the concept of the “Middle Way”.
 

If you could have dinner with a famous dead person, what would you eat?

Well, they’d probably turn my stomach, being dead and all, so maybe something very light. And they’d probably smell really bad, so something aromatic. Dead people aren’t the greatest companions, or at least so I believe, never having supped with one.
 

What is your least favorite thing about Boston?

Hmmm. Corruption. How hard it is to get some obvious things done. The barriers that people put up and how difficult it is to meet people. The whole car culture; there are several areas of town that should simply be closed to motor traffic, period. The lack of light in the winter and its duration. Those are probably the big things.
 

Spam: evil or food of the gods? Discuss. Give examples.

Spam is pretty useless. It’s 82% fat, and one slab is 750mg of sodium, so it’s basically a death bomb. Fried, it’s really not very appealling. I seem to recall my mother maybe putting it in ham salad back in the 70s, when I actually ate such things. On the other hand, it’s mostly pork, and pork is the food of the gods; it’s just that there are much healthier and tasty ways to get your piggy on than Spam.
 

Any do-overs you'd like to have?

Not many, but a few. I would like to have treated most of my SOs better. I would like to have been more sexually active when I was younger. Those are really my only significant regrets.

No shit, there I was: scenic Lechmere T station, one cold October afternoon, looking for a bus to take me into the bowels of Meffid. When what to my wondering eyes should appear? Well, look for yourself! This is why I love that muddy water.

Over two months ago, in this post I gave you a one-week opportunity to select any element of my life that you might want me to photograph.

Thanks go to the people who responded. It wasn’t the most creative assignment I’ve ever had, since all the requests were for essentially the same thing. On the other hand, it’s produced a little mini-application that allows you to see a little bit about what my house is like, including, as requested, my favorite view and the contents of my medicine cabinet.

If you have any questions about any of the stuff you see, feel free to ask.

The only thing you asked for that this doesn’t cover is more pictures of me, which hopefully can be fulfilled with this.

Finally, my apologies for how long this took to turn around. Life’s been a bit of a slamdance lately, and my art has suffered because of it!

Today’s Boston Globe has an article on Newbury Street’s DuBarry mural, which depicts nearly a hundred famous Bostonians in a trompe d’oeil façade.

The mural sits just outside my condo’s bay window, and is a well-known and popular landmark. Every day without exception, a dozen or so Back Bay shoppers and sightseers stop and photograph the painting. Numerous tour busses stop here to disgorge their camera-wielding passengers, who gather uncertainly in the middle of the busy parking lot that faces the mural, gazing silently up like a flock of emperor penguins. And, of course, there’s the constant stream of Duck Boat Tours, whose announcers also point out the mural on their loudspeakers as they swing by.

The accompanying photograph was taken in May of 2001, the day I moved into my condo. As you can see, there were maybe a half dozen small areas of damage in the middle of the mural where the brick was exposed. As usual, click for bigness.

Today, I would say that nearly a quarter of the mural is gone, either fallen, as you see, or peeled off. The mural’s decay has been precipitous, and it has become an eyesore, although the tourists still come by the dozens and take their pictures still. Hence the concern over the mural’s fate that you can read about in the article.

Amazingly, the article even mentions the “homeless squatter” that I wrote about a year ago in my journal entry “Home is where you hang your cinder block…”.

The renovation of the building—which excludes the mural—has been going on all winter, and looks like it will continue for quite a while to come.

Pathetically, the question of ownership and responsibility for the mural’s party wall remains an unresolved issue between these two prominent businessmen. The mural’s prognosis remains uncertain.

So last year the MBTA (Boston’s public transit system) upped its subway fares by 25 percent. The system still runs on tokens, and, as many Bostonians were wont to do, I decided to buy a few extra tokens just before the price increase.

Tokens can be bought in rolls of 40, and because it wound up being more convenient, I continued buying my tokens in rolls throughout the year. As a side effect, this also gave me the ability to see exactly how many tokens I wound up spending on the T over the course of the year. I used just under three rolls, or 114 tokens, which excludes several tokens that I found in the coin returns of the T’s antiquated turnstiles.

Now, the T also offers monthly subway passes. They cost a fixed $44, so the point where the pass becomes cheaper than the $1.25 tokens is on one’s 18th round-trip ride of the month, or 36th one-way trip of the month.

Since I averaged less than 5 round trips per month (9.5 one-way rides), the tokens are clearly the way to go. By buying tokens instead of passes, I saved myself over $385 over the course of the year.

But really, for me the most interesting thing is that I took essentially 57 round-trip rides on the subway last year, and that three rolls of tokens ($150) is sufficient to get me through a whole year.

Of course, this will all change late in 2005, because the MBTA is allegedly switching over to a stored-value card system. But at least now I’ve got a good idea what to put on my card!