To Kill an amateur production of “Mockingbird”.

A couple of small local theaters were  mounting productions of “To Kill a Mockingbird.”

The Curtain Call Theatre (70 seats) in Braintree and the Mugford Street Players (87 seats) in Marblehead were well on their way toward another opening, another show with Christopher Sergel’s 1970 stage adaptation of Harper Lee’s renowned novel.

That is, until they received “cease and desist” letters:

…threatening a major lawsuit on behalf of a powerful Broadway producer staging the play in New York.

The letter [to Curtain Call], received last week, cites a 50-year-old contract that places limits on amateur stage adaptations of the Harper Lee classic when there is an approved large Broadway or touring production — in this case Scott Rudin’s new Broadway version, written by Aaron Sorkin. (Source: The Boston Globe)

They weren’t the only ones. All over the country, community theaters go the same ding.

But a big Broadway production – written by a big old brand name writer like Aaron Sorkin – going after a bunch of little guys. I believe the only response is FFS.

Here’s the reason behind Broadway saber-rattling at Main Street.

All these little community theaters legitimately licensed the rights to put on “Mockingbird” through an outfit called Dramatic Publishing, which is an official licenser of Sergel’s adaptation.

But Dramatic Publishing had apparently agreed in the way back to limits on amateur hour if there was a Broadway or touring company production of any adaptation of Lee’s novel. These limits would kick in if one of those amateur hour performances was scheduled to take place:

…within a distance of [25] miles of the city limits of any city which had a 1960 census population in excess of 150,000 during the run.

Maybe it seemed like a good idea at the time. Maybe Christopher Sergel, author of the adaptation, had visions of a Broadway production of his work, and wouldn’t want anything to detract from it.

But, well, yikes.

We’re not talking about major local theater groups putting on a possibly competitive performance. We’re not talking ART of anything here. We’re talking community theater.

By the way, 150,000 seems to be something of a magic number, as the cease and desist letters mentioned $150K as potential damages if the little local theater companies brazenly decided to cease and desist.

Anyway, both Marblehead (16 miles) and Braintree (13 miles) are within 25 miles of Boston, which had a population of more than 150,000 in 1960. So they were in the bullseye.

Mugford managed to find a theater in Gloucester (blessedly 39 miles from Boston and nowhere near a city that had a 1960 population of 150K). But for Curtain Call, it was curtains, disappointing their actors and patrons, and leaving them (still) scrambling to find another play.

I’m all for the protection of intellectual property rights, etc. But this seems like ridiculous overreach, bullying, even.

Is there one person on the face of the earth saying to him or herself, “Hmmm, I was going to head to NYC for the weekend and pay $200 for a ticket to the Broadway production of ‘Mockingbird.’ That is, until I saw that Curtain Call was going to mount their own production in Braintree for $20 a ticket.”

I mean, who’d want to see Jeff Daniels play Atticus Finch when they could see Charlie the CVS pharmacist take on that role?

It reminds me of Chick-Fil-A going after a tiny organic farmer in Vermont who was using the slogan “Eat More Kale,” which – as you can imagine – consumers would completely confuse with Chick-Fil-A’s “Eat More Chickin’” campaign. Especially when you consider the overlap between Vermont organic kale eaters and Chick-Fil-A fans.(Other than when I find it in Bertucci’s sausage soup, I can’t stand kale. But I did buy an “Eat More Kale” tee-shirt in support. And for the record, the one and only time I ever had Chick-Fil-A, which was last May in Dallas-Fort Worth Airport, I found it scrumptious.)

This also put me in mind of when Disney went after a family that had the audacity to engrave the image of Winnie-the-Pooh (Disney version) on their child’s gravestone. Talk about FFS.

Anyway, a mega Broadway production going after pokey little mom-and-pop theaters is ridiculous. Imagine what Atticus Finch would say.

No business like show business, I guess.

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THIS JUST IN: Over the weekend (and after I’d written this piece), I read that the meanies on Broadway (obviously anticipating the furor and outcry that would arise from my blog post) had relented and was going to let the little local theater troupes put on the Sorkin (not Stergel) version of “Mockingbird.” Thanks but no thanks for those who’d already rehearsed the original script, but for others, welcome news.

As Andy Hardy/Mickey Rooney said to Polly Benedict/Judy Garland and pals, “Hey, kids, let’s put on a show.

Professional mourners

The tradition has died out, but up until the mid 1900’s, in certain Irish precincts, families hired a couple of keeners to show up at the wakes of loved ones. Keeners were paid a pittance, or a drop or two of the craythur, to sit by the body, crying and wailing.

I never saw a keener in action, but – like any good urban ethnic Catholic who grew up in the 1950’s and 1960’s – I did go to my share of wakes and funerals.

It wasn’t a regular thing.

No, that was my father’s domain: a daily scan of the obituaries (a.k.a., the Irish sports pages), and then heading out to the wake of anyone he knew. Or once knew. Or knew the brother of. Or played baseball against. Or was a member of the Holy Name Society with. Other than his time in the Navy in WWII, my father lived in the same neighborhood his entire life. He knew a lot of people. He had a lot of wakes to go to.

I grew up in a neighborhood that had its share of taverns – Irish bars: Mulcahy’s, Hennessey’s, Breen’s, etc. – but my father wasn’t a drinker. He was a wake-goer.

But if wake and funeral going wasn’t a regular thing for me, it was a thing.

I went to my first funeral at the age of 8. I was 10 or 11 when I went to my first wake in the company of my father, and 11 or 12 when I went to my first wake unaccompanied by an adult, but with a posse of classmates.

For my first solo run, I asked my father – because who would know better – what I should say. (The wake was for the father of a 6th grade classmate.) My father told me to take the widow’s hand, look her in the eye, and say “I’m sorry for your troubles,” which is what the Irish traditionally – and quite peculiarly, as far as I’m concerned – said at wakes.

Having walked down to the funeral parlor from the church parking lot where we’d met up, my friends and I decided not to enter O’Connor Brothers en masse. We paired off and went in two-by-two. I rehearsed with my partner, Mary Agnes, that she would take the widow’s hand, and I would say “I’m sorry for your troubles.”

It didn’t quite work out that way.

Mary A was a shy and timid girl, and she held back, quivering and sniffling. I took Mrs. M’s hand and managed to get out “I’m sorry” but forgot to add “for your troubles.”

I can still perfectly picture the stricken look on my classmate Paul’s face, puffy with the crying, as he stood by his father’s (open, of course) casket. I don’t think any of us actually spoke to Paul. We just looked his way and teared up ourselves.

Mr. M’s wake was typical of the ones I went to as kid. They were for neighbors, or the parents or grandparents of schoolmates or friends.

The first relative whose wake and funeral I went to was a biggie: my father’s, a few weeks after I turned 21.

As I got older, the scene shifted from parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles, to cousins, and the spouses and siblings of friends, to colleagues, and – alas – to spouses and friends.

So I have enough experience to operate as a reasonably adept wake- and funeral-goer.

And now I’ve learned that this skillset, while no longer of much use in Ireland let alone in the U.S., is actually in demand in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

There, in the country’s capital, Kinshasa:

…the mourning business is well-established and lucrative—you need not look far to find pleureuses (“criers”) to hire for a funeral. (Source: The Economist)

And now it’s spreading to other areas.

In Goma, Gilbert Kubali is establishing a professional mourning service, recruiting workers by offering tryouts to those who want the work. He’s the first mover in his city, and “hope[s] to monopolise the market.”

In the DRC, professional mourners don’t hold back. Convulsive sobbing, moaning and wailing help you secure a job offer. Sort of like those old Irish keeners.

Ostentatious grief is tied up with a traditional belief that the dead linger long after their pulses have stopped.

If those lingering dead don’t see a lot of gnashing of teeth, they’re apt to come back and screw up the lives of those who’ve been left behind. Reason enough to summon up some pros.

Running a group of pleureuses can be lucrative.

To hire ten women for a week of mourning costs some $1,500. On top of this the women expect food, drink and transport costs.

The article doesn’t mention how much the professional mourners take home, but in a country where the vast majority of the population lives on less than $2 a day, the job is probably a pretty good one.

Lest we think that a culture of professional mourning is a quaint throwback, something that would occur only in a backward nation, I’ve seen a number of stories of late on calls going out for mourners to attend the funerals of veterans who don’t have any friends or families left.

And there’s a local (Boston) funeral parlor that taps students from nearby Catholic high schools to come to the funerals of those whose funerals would otherwise be unattended.

Most of the wakes and funerals I’ve been to have been blessedly well-attended, those left behind well-supported by friends and families. But the thought of not having anyone to see you out the door is pretty depressing, although once you’re dead and gone, well, you’re probably beyond caring.

Anyway, I wish Gordon Kubali great luck. If he succeeds, he’ll be making a living, the pleureuses will be making a living, and the dead –just in case their spirits are still lurking around – will have someone to shed a few tears for them.

Oh, why not?

That does it, I’m moving to Japan

I had lunch the other day with my friend Grace.

Like me, Grace is une femme d'un certain âge – a woman of a certain age. And that certain age is “older.”

Grace and I met in a writers group, and we’re both working on novels – Grace further along than I am. We both recognize that, at our certain age, it’s almost a certainty that our novels will remain in the drawer. We’re writing for ourselves, largely, and for our writers group cronies. Alas, if we’d wanted to be real writers, writer writers, we should have started in earnest, say, 50 years back.

Nevertheless, we persist. Which is, frankly, what us femmes d'un certain âge do.

There is always, the heartening example from the art world: Grandma Moses, who in her late 70’s got serious about painting.

And closer to writerly home, there’s Frank McCourt, whose Angela’s Ashes was published when he was 66.

The odds, Grace and I completely recognize, are against either of us taking the literary world by storm. Still, we can dream.

Anyway, I was, of course, delighted to read about the old geezer writers in Japan who are meeting with some success.

Aiko Sato is 95. In 2017, his “Age 90: what’s so great about it?” sold 1 million copies – Japan’s best seller for the year.

In 2018 the Akutagawa literary prize went to Chisako Wakatake, 63 at the time, for her debut novel “Live by Myself” with its 74-year-old protagonist, Momoko. (Source: The Economist)

These aren’t isolated instances. Makiko Uchidate’s is 70. Her book “The Finished Person,” was recently published.

There’s an audience of geezer lit in Japan.

Japan’s population has the world’s highest proportion of over-65s, at 28%. People are living longer and staying healthier, so many have at least 20-30 years of retirement, for much of which they are sprightly. And although the Japanese have been spending less on books, that is least true for the over-60s.

I’m guessing that in the US, the over 60s buy disproportionately more books, as well. (And, hey, I’m plenty sprightly.)

After all, we grew up when people read for pleasure, in that way long ago time when there were only three TV channels and no Instagram. We like to read, and we’ve got plenty of time for it.

In Japan, the audience for “wrinkly writers’ books” isn’t limited to wrinkly readers. Younger readers are snapping them up as well.

Some are preparing for their own old age or want to understand the increasing number of old people they see around them. Others find relevance in the themes explored, such as loneliness, a problem that stretches well beyond the silver-haired.

One interesting aspect of Japan’s grey haired literary renaissance is that “the vast majority of authors, and main characters, are women.”

That sisterhood, it’s plenty powerful.

If I had an infinite bucket list, and was wiling to pay for first class air travel, Japan would be a place that I’d like to visit. Sure, I’d probably freak out on the crowded trains, and curl into a fetal ball if I found myself in Tokyo’s bright-lights Ginza District. But I wouldn’t mind seeing cherry blossoms and Mount Fuji, and have some sort of Zen experience in a Shinto temple.

I could live without Hello, Kitty, and given that I’m half a foot taller than the average Japanese woman, I probably couldn’t find a kimono that would fit. But a Japanese woodcut or two? Nice…

I’m not daring enough to try blowfish, and saki will never cross my lips, but I’m down with veggie tempura and Kobe beef.

So I’m sure that I’d enjoy a trip to Japan.

And now that I know that they don’t just revere the elderly, but that they revere elderly writers? Well, Japan is looking pretty good if I decide to relo.

Okay, the only Japanese words I know, other than kimono and saki, are konnichiwa, sayonara, arigato, and yakuza. Still, the Land of the Rising Sun may be the land of opportunity for writers of a certain age. (Grace, are you with me?)

Is it a real fake Porsche, or a fake real Porsche

I was never that much of a car girl, but as I recall, the cool cars of my late teens and early twenties – before folks segued their driving experience into Saabs and Volvos – were Datsun Z’s and Porsches.

Practically speaking, most of the people I knew who had “foreign” cars had Beetles.

But I did babysit a couple of times for a family in which the dad – unlike any other dad I knew – drove a Triumph, and it was a thrill to pipe down Worcester’s Speedway, sitting next to the handsome and dashing Jack McG, top down, on a spring night, pretending I was on a date. As if! (Jack was the decade-older cousin of a good friend of mine. Kathy was the main babysitter for Jack’s family, but I was the first sub.)

One of my friends from high school drove an Austin Mini. This was decades before Mini Coopers became a thing. Kim’s was an Air Force brat, and her family had spent a few years in England, where they acquired the Mini. Ultra fun to stuff a bunch of friends into the Mini and have Kim show off her wrong-side-of-the-road-stick-shift skills. (Bonus points because the tires were really tiny.) I’m still friends with Kim, and it amazes me that, when the Mini Coopers were introduced, she didn’t bite

I had a college friend who had a classic Jaguar, and I spent plenty of time tootling around in that one.

My friend Joyce’s boyfriend –later and still her husband – had a Z for a while.

But a Porsche was the ultra.

When I was a Big Boy waitress, the manager was a very nice, very young, very good looking fellow who drove a red Porsche. I can still remember the little frisson that ran through the waitress staff when John screeched into the Webster Square Big Boy parking lot in his Porsche.

Porsches are a lot more prevalent these days. They even have “family cars,” SUVs.

But back in the day, they were the ultimate cool, sexy ride.(Not that I ever rode in one, although I have a vague memory of John taking turns taking the waitresses for a brief spin around the block. He really was a very sweet guy. A demanding manager, but a fundamentally sweet guy. His brothers Tim and Dan also worked at Big Boy. They were both sweet guys, too, especially Dan.)

Anyway, it’s no wonder that folks who are into collecting classic cars would want to have an old Porsche or two as part of their stable.

If you want to collect a Porsche, one place to look would be a California outfit called European Collectibles.

The Porsche is their “mark of choice.”

Only the finest will do from metal finishing the body to the last original Porsche crest installed on the hood.  While, cosmetics are critical, drivability is essential to fulfilling our ultimate goal of a satisfied client….

Today, we have a full restoration facility employing a staff capable of metal fabrication and finishing, paint and body prep, as well as mechanical staff.  This allows us to perform all restoration functions In House which enhances efficiency and quality control is ASSURED.

It looks like European Collectibles may have gone a bit overboard on restoration. At least when it came to the 1958 Porsche they sold Jerry Seinfeld a few years back for $1.2 million. (I don’t know what one would have paid for that Porsche in 1958, but I’m guessing the appreciation has been pretty good.)

Seinfeld held onto this particular Porsche – he has a large collection of them – for a few years, and then sold it to a Channel Island company called Fica Frio. For $1.5 million.

Fica Frio is now suing Seinfeld, claiming that the Porsche in question is a fake. Seinfeld is, in turn, suing European Collectibles, claiming that he relied on the certificate of authenticity that they provided him at the time of his original purchase.

The question of what’s real and what’s fake hovers around any item – cars in spades – where there’s extensive restoration involved.

If you’ve replaced every component of, say, a ‘34 wagon that you call a woody, with something that wasn’t there when ‘34 wagon rolled off the assembly line, is it still a ‘34 wagon? What if all of the components used come from other ‘34 wagons? What if the body is real, but the engine parts are all remilled? And wouldn’t tires from 1934 have rotten away by now?

A rather philosophical problem, no?

Seinfeld bought and sold on good faith, but now his lawyers are calling out European big time:

The lawsuit alleged that the Seinfeld purchase was not the first time European Collectibles was alleged to have sold a restored Porsche that was alleged by a disgruntled collector to be inauthentic.

The lawsuit said it seeks to “reveal the extent to which European Collectibles deploys fraudulent practices in connection with its restoration and sale of classic cars.” (Source: AP News)

This should put something of a crimp in European Collectibles business. I’m guessing they won’t be selling any more pricey classic Porsches until this sitch is resolved.

In Seinfeld’s suit against European, things get a bit snippy:

“Mr. Steinfeld, who is a very successful comedian, does not need to supplement his income by building and selling counterfeit sports cars,” the lawsuit said.

Counterfeit sports cars, eh? Was European doing more fabrication of hoods and less installing original Porsche crests on those hoods?

When a work of art is bogus, there are some pretty extreme forensic means for determining authenticity. Is there an equivalent for cars, when a lot of the parts are replaced or “restored”?

Guess at some point we’ll find out if the Porsche in question is a real fake Porsche or a fake real Porsche? A $1.5 million question, for sure.

This year’s swag bag. Does Glenn Close REALLY need a poop-emoji toilet plunger?

I ended up watching the last hour or so of the Oscars, turning it on right around the point where Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper did their goo-goo eyes duet of “Shallow.” The song was from A Star is Born -  one of the few “best picture” nominees I saw last year. I also saw Vice and Black Panther, so I didn’t have much way of dogs in the awards hunt.

The Academy Awards have never held much interest for me, even back in the day when I was a pretty avid movie-goer. It’s always struck me as Hollywood bending over to air kiss their own arse. Meh.

But I am always interested in seeing what’s in the swag bag that all of the nominees for the major awards are given.

The bags are basically an exercise in marketing, in which companies hoping for some publicity provide goodies (or gift certificates for the goodies, which is generally the case). The Academy is always quick to point out that the swag bag has nothing to do with “The Academy”. It’s all done through a marketing outfit called Distinctive Assets, which delivers the bags to the nominees ahead of time – I guess so that those nominated for lesser awards (“Best Cinematography in a Foreign Language Short”) don’t get their noses out of joint watching the 1 percenters get mo’ better stuff. (Just checked and “Ain’t We Got Fun,” which has lyrics that include:

One thing we’re sure of
The rich get richer and the poor get poorer

Predated the Oscars and was, thus, never nominated for the Best Song. Too bad.)

Another reason may be that Distinctive Assets doesn’t want folks weighed down with their bags when the nominees, win or lose, just want to get to their post-show party. Wouldn’t want the best actress and best supporting actress nominees to have to worry about a heavy swag bag throwing them off balance while they’re struggling just to stay upright on six-inch Louboutins.

Some of the assets that are included in the swag bags are anything but distinctive.

One of this year’s gems is a toilet plunger with a rubber version of the poop emoji for the plunge part.

On second thought, that is plenty distinctive. But who would want one, other than someone with a 4 year old who has their own bathroom and finds potty humor just hilarious?

Cannabis was a subtheme this year, with gifts that included marijuana-infused chocolates and a year’s free membership in MOTA, a “cannabis-friendly club.”

A travel company is offering glam small-group luxury packages to Iceland, the Galapagos, the Amazon, Costa Rica and Panama. Let’s see, Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper were both big award nominees. Some viewers seem to have forgotten that Gaga and Cooper are actors, and were going gaga over their duet, feeling that it was a tad bit too get-a-room bill-and-cooey. If those viewers are correct, then the couple will be able to take two luxury getaways. Just in case they do need more, and there’s somethin’ else they’re searchin’ for. (For those not in the Best Song know: these lyrics are from “Shallow.”)

Or they could go on a Golden Door Wellness Retreat, where a week of retreating for wellness can run to $10K.

I’m guessing that Gaga, Cooper and all the rest of the high-end nominees already have personal trainers. But if they don’t, they now have 10 free workout sessions with a “celebrity trainer”. Or someone hoping to become a “celebrity trainer.”

Other stuff in the bag includes color-changing lipstick that responds to your body’s pH and skin temperature. There’s organic maple syrup products from Rouge Maple. As a major fan of maple sugar candy, I wouldn’t mind getting me some of that. And there’s a bag in a bag: a tote bag and t-shirt branded Love Is Stronger Than Hate.

Nice sentiment, that, but there’s not a ton of evidence that suggests it’s true. But, of course, even the Proud Boys wouldn’t want to wear a brand that suggests that Hate Is Stronger Than Love.

What else is in there? Lemonade-flavored moonshine, a dog leash, a spy pen, false eyelashes, and something that’s truly not for everyone: a “wearable, silent breast pump.”

The value is well-above $100K – taxable only when you cash in the gift certificates. Don’t know if you have to declare the false eyelashes and MJ chocolates. Or the poop emoji plunger – available at Target, Bed Bath & Beyond, or KMart, if you’re interested. Only $19.99…

Whatever’s in there, it doesn’t make me feel at all bad about, yet again, not being a nominee. (Ugh! Just imagine: the dress, the heels, the hair, the makeup. And you’d have to be there in person. I’d rather not watch from the comfort of my own home.)

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Sources: Money, Vulture.com 

Write on?

Perfect. Sounds good. Works for me!

If you don’t respond to some of your emails – the ones that seem appropriate for a short “smart reply” – gmail waits a few days, and then lights things up with a big, bold hint that you just might want to reply. And even supplies a few handy suggestions, saving you the trouble of typing in a few top-of-head reply.

Thanks! I’ll look into it! I’m on it!

Pithy. Terse. To the point!

All you need to do is click on the response of your choice, and you’ve answered that email without having to do so much as put metaphorical pen to metaphorical paper. No thinking required. Just the doing of a mouse click.

Easy does it.

I haven’t “taken advantage” of it yet, and I find it pretty annoying – what writer wants words being put in her mouth? - but this is just the beginning. Forget about three word replies. We’re not all that far from artificially intelligenced long forms.

It seems that OpenAI (a non-profit - cofounded by the likes of Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, and Reid Hoffman – and doing research on Artificial Intelligence) has come up with a way to generate “convincing, well-written text.”

In keeping with its charter -

Discovering and enacting the path to safe [emphasis mine] artificial general intelligence.

- OpenAI is growing concerned about the potential for abuse.

OpenAI said its new natural language model, GPT-2, was trained to predict the next word in a sample of 40 gigabytes of internet text. The end result was the system generating text that “adapts to the style and content of the conditioning text,” allowing the user to “generate realistic and coherent continuations about a topic of their choosing.” The model is a vast improvement on the first version by producing longer text with greater coherence.

But with every good application of the system, such as bots capable of better dialog and better speech recognition, the non-profit found several more, like generating fake news, impersonating people, or automating abusive or spam comments on social media. (Source: Tech Crunch)

If you’ve used online support, you may have already encountered one of the good bots, as AI (natural language processing, machine learning, etc. – I have a client in this arena, and it’s pretty interesting) is deployed in many self-service customer service apps.

Anyway, OpenAI provides an example of a bad use of their technology, in which a bot could engage in Facebook and Twitter wars. The case they use to illustrate their point is AI making the argument that recycling is a “major contributor to global warming.”

Easy to see that bad bots could be out there making all sorts of reasonably sounding arguments for all sorts of bad ideas. We’ve seen how conspiracy theories and Russian (human) bots can cause all sorts of trouble (even when those Russian bots often speak fractured English). Just wait until there’s no human intervention required.

So OpenAI has put the brakes on their release, putting just a subset of their technology out there. For now.

We need more fake news and bad actors flaming around on social media like we need a bigger hole under the Polar icecap. Bad enough when you need a human or near human (think Alex Jones) to spew nonsense. When the crap can be generated automatically, well, caveat everyone everywhere about everything. Throw in the increasingly sophisticated photoshopping and video editing techniques available, and god knows what we’re going to see out there.

Scary stuff, for sure.

And I guess it’s just a matter of time before there’s software to write blog posts, short stories, novels…

O, brave new world that has such technology in it.

Time for Bob Kraft to recede into the background

A couple of things for the record:

While acknowledging that his organization has a decent record, philanthropically speaking, I’ve never been a big fan of New England Patriots’ owner Bob Kraft. (And being besties with Trump has only a small bit to do with it.)

While I’ve never been a big fan of Bob Kraft, he has every right to have a girlfriend young enough to be his daughter, maybe even his granddaughter. Even if he started dating her three and a half minutes after his wife died.

While I think that prostitution is a really terrible, disgusting, unsavory and pathetic way to make a living, I’m okay when the transaction is between consenting adults. So if a horndog old billionaire wants to pay for sex, let old billionaire horndogs be horndogs.

But jeez louise.

There is a mega distance between pay-for-play congress between consenting adults and sexual exploitation, the trafficking networks (and pimps) exploiting young men and women and treating them just brutally.

For those who haven’t watched any news during the last few days, Kraft has been charged with soliciting prostitution. And it wasn’t just any old prostitution Kraft was allegedly soliciting.

He is charged with having massage-parlor sex (HJ or BJ: not yet revealed, but there are supposedly videos) in a cut-rate, strip-mall joint in Florida where the women providing the “massages” were sex-trade victims. The story is that these women were imported from China, illegally, and, once here in the land of the free: stripped of their passports; threatened with violence towards loved ones back home if they spoke out or tried to escape; sleeping on the massage beds where they worked; eating whatever they could cook on a hotplate outside the backdoor of the massage parlor; and forced to work without days off, servicing up to 1,500 men per year.

This past year, one of those men was allegedly Bob Kraft.

One thought that comes to mind is what in the world was a guy worth billions doing in a place like the Orchids of Asia Day Spa.

I’m sure Kraft was a generous tipper, but the charge for the services provided was $59 for a half hour, $79 for a full 60 minutes. Or, about what I pay, give or take, for a mani-pedi. (Of course, it’s not clear what the women actually made for their efforts. Likely, most of the take went into the pockets of those running the scheme.) Anyway, you’d think that someone with Kraft’s resources would have gone a bit higher end.

But, hey, part of the attraction was probably that the “massage therapists” spoke virtually no English, and were unlikely to recognize a quasi-celebrity like Kraft.

Do I think that Kraft knew the background of the women giving him a few minutes pleasure on his two recorded trips to the Orchids of Asia? Why  would he have? They were just anonymous young things, with an emphasis on the things.

If he’d given it any thought, he surely would have figured they weren’t here on an H1B Visa, let alone an H2B visa, let alone the sort of Einstein Visa that Melania Trump somehow managed to nab.

If Kraft bothered to notice anything about his surroundings, he surely would have noted that they weren’t up to the usual standards that a multi-billionaire was used to. But why bother to notice.

It was just one of those horn dog guy things. Anyone, any place’ll do.

Pathetic, tawdry, shameful.

(What’s also pathetic, tawdry, shameful: folks flocking to the strip mall to take selfies in front of the now-closed massage parlor. As it turns out, my friend John was in Jupiter, Florida, this past weekend, visiting his elderly mother. When John visits his mom, they usually do take-out Thai from a restaurant in the same little strip mall as Orchids of Asia. He predicted that crowds would be there, making parking difficult. And he was right.

(What is wrong with people? Forget I asked. The combination of prurience, sports-related celebrity, old-goat billionaire. Simply irresistible. I guess this is nothing new. My mother was a girl in Chicago at the height of the gangster era, and she remembered reading that theatergoers at the Biograph Theater, outside of which notorious criminal John Dillinger was shot and killed by G-men, dipped their handkerchiefs in Dillinger’s blood so they’d have a souvenir. So wanting a selfie outside a place where someone sort of famous had some sort of sex is to be expected.)

Kraft’s involvement in this awful story is getting most of the attention. But most of the attention should be going to the beyond-dreadful situation of trafficked sex workers. Here’s hoping that the young woman caught up in this awful world get the help they need. Unfortunately, initial word is that many of the women are reluctant to talk, since they believe that if they tell the truth, loved ones back in China will be harmed. Anyway, would that ICE spent more time cleaning up sex trafficking than they do on rousting brown-skinned folks who’ve overstayed their visas.

But Kraft’s involvement can’t be overlooked – especially in Boston, where every move made by those who are part of our world of sport is chronicled on the front-page.

Kraft seems to revel in the limelight, but the limelight he seems to thrive in is being handed the Super Bowl trophy. Riding in the lead duck boat in the Super Bowl Victory Parade. Getting hugged by Tom Brady.Getting honored for his philanthropy. Being seen out and about with this girlfriend. Hobnobbing with the rich and famous. Rubbing shoulders with Trump at Mar a Lago.

Even after the charges against him were publicized, Kraft was still looking for the limelight, showing up at pre-Oscar galas thrown in lush Hollywood estates by fellow billionaitres like Barry DIller.

But I think it’s time for Bob Kraft to pull back a bit, to fade out, to recede into the background.

There is speculation that Kraft will receive some sort of sanction from the National Football League for “conduct unbecoming”, or whatever it is they call it.

As far as I’m concerned, there are few organizations as farcically sanctimonious when they feel the need, as full of hot air phony baloney, as the NFL. But I’m all for them punishing Bob Kraft. Tell him he can’t show up at Gillette Stadium to watch the Patriots for a few games. Kick him off some of their showboat committees.

I really don’t want to see his face anytime soon.

Kraft is 77. Time to retire, Mr. Kraft. Time to retire.

Reimagining Walmart

I can count on one finger the number of times I’ve been in a Walmart. The year was 2003. I wanted to pick some things up for a marketing promotion – those things included boxes of mac ‘n cheese, and bottles of aspirins (don’t ask) – I figured out could get them cheap and in the (modest) bulk I required.

And I did. But I found the store sterile, the experience depressing.

So I was in no hurry to rush back.

Since my visit, I have paid plenty of attention to Walmart, watching the company make a lot more stuff available for a lot less money to a lot more people. Watching them press on the throat of manufacturers, resulting in lower prices and lower quality. Watching Main Street local one-off stores go out of business because they just couldn’t compete with big box Walmart. And, on very rare occasion (not of late), taking a guilty-pleasure peek at People of Walmart, which catalogues weird Walmart sightings. (In general, the cite seems to primarily feature exhibitionists, eccentrics, the totally un-self-aware, and the mentally ill.)

I do know plenty of people who shop at Walmart once in a while, and while they’re not diehards, they do find things they want and need. But for me there isn’t one nearby. I don't have a car. At my age, I don’t need a lot of stuff. And if I want stuff, there’s a Target a couple of miles walk away. There’s Amazon. And there’s the charming little Main Street equivalent just around the corner, where I can get stuff at my charming little hardware store (really more of a general store),  my charming little drugstore, and multiple charming little gift stores. Not to mention the charming little nut and chocolate store, the charming little bakery, and the charming little antique store that specializes in midcentury costume jewelry. There’s also a theoretically charming little grocery store, but appearances can be deceiving. I shop there when I’m desperate, maybe once or twice a year.

So I’m one of those fortunate and privileged folks who still has access to the old timey Main Street experience, which I support, while also taking advantage of the convenience of ordering from Amazon when there’s some little item I can’t find on my charming little Main Street.

Plus I’m walking distance to plenty of other stores, healthcare, entertainment, greenspace, and anything else my little heart may desire.

Interestingly, Walmart is now envisioning a future that kinda sorta resembles my neighborhood.

Walmart Reimagined doesn’t imagine that Walmarts of the future will all be sterile, unimaginative, depressing standalone big boxes. Nope. They’re reimaging, in a few locations anyway, a Walmart that pretty much resembles my neighborhood.

Community connectivity for folks who want to bike and walk to wherever they’re going. Healthy lifestyle destinations. Dining options. Movie theaters. Bowling. Golf. Arcades. Gas stations. Pet care. Parks. Food trucks. Non-Walmart retail options.

Other than golf, this is where and how I live.

Sure, the bowling and arcades are out near Fenway Park, as are the closest gas stations. (Same neighborhood as the Target: about a two mile walk, or a few stops on the Green Line.) But, hey, I can one-up any reimagined Walmart by being able to walk to a major league ball park, plus the home of NBA and NHL teams.

While Walmart is being reimagined, there’s another interesting thing happening.

For years, Walmart was seen as:

…the archvillain of capitalism: the ruthless killer of main streets and mom-and-pops, outrageously profitable and, by all appearances, unstoppable. Now, the 57-year-old retailer has a new role in American society: the anti-Amazon. (Source: Business Insider)

Now it’s Amazon that’s killing Main Street in particular. And killing physical shopping venues in general. Walmart, at least, is some place we can go to. Someplace where we can see what we’re buying, and maybe even spot some of those People of Walmart.

And Walmart, it seems, is embracing its new brand as the defender of wholesome, small town business.

Walmart CEO Doug McMillon – and, yes, I had to look twice to make sure that wasn’t McMillion - seems to think they can carry it off.

At a recent conference, McMillon said:

"There's a strong and heavy dose of humanity in it. ... A differentiating characteristic of our company will be that we still care about people, and they know it."

I don’t know about that. On my one and only visit, I didn’t get the feeling that Walmart cared about me. Maybe I need to give them another chance.

There are a couple of unreimagined Walmarts within 10 miles. I suppose I could Uber out to one of them and look around. Nothing I can think of that I need. I can make my own mac ‘n cheese. Or tap the box of Bunny pasta I have stashed away for an emergency. I rarely take aspirin. But there must be something that Walmart sells that I could use. And, hey, I can always use a heavy does of humanity.

Fire, fired, firing…

When they heard about the Aurora, Illinois, workplace rampage, was anyone really surprised to learn that the employee who shot and killed a number of his co-workers had been fired? It had to be that or a “domestic”, i.e., someone going after a spouse or partner in their place of work and taking out others as collateral damage.

I have been on both sides of the layoff equation, both layoff-er and layoff-ee. And it’s especially unpleasant if you’re the one doing the laying off.

But on the other side of the equation, I’ve been laid off three times.

The first time, I was semi-blindsided and upset as hell. Basically, I was added to the lay-off list after I got into a very heated argument with my boss, the company’s president, about how we were going to discuss our upcoming RIF with the surviving employees. What got me on the the list was throwing down this gauntlet: ‘You say what you’re going to say, and I’ll say what I’m going to say, and we’ll see who they believe.’ In retrospect, not the wisest thing to say if I wanted to stay employed. But professionally speaking, after the first couple of days of shock and anger, getting fired – and I was really more fired than laid off – turned out to be a very good thing.

For my second layoff, I had volunteered for separation. It was touch and go for a while, as word had come down that the president was refusing to lay anyone off who’d taking part in a recently concluded program in which about 50 middle-ish level managers were tapped to participate in a mini-MBA week at Babson College. Our mission: figure out how to save the company. (Hah!) Anyway, I had a good network of more senior managers, which I worked aggressively to get on the list. Again, it turned out to be a very good thing.

My third and final layoff was long-anticipated, and a natural outcome of having been implicated in a knockdown drag out battle between two factions in the company. Oddly enough, the breakdown was tall men vs. short men. I reported to one of the warring tall men, and was closely allied with the others. Anyway, the tall guys lost, and with them went any of their directs who were perceived as at all political. My two closest friends at the company were also fired, and we still laugh about the ridiculous way in which it all came down. And about the fabulous going away party we threw for ourselves – with the tab picked up by one of the tall guys who hadn’t yet been fired. Yet again, losing that job turned out to be a good thing.

But when I lost my jobs, I was never in economic jeopardy, or in fear that I’d never work again.

On the other side of the layoff equation, I was, on a number of occasions, the one figuring out who to get rid of. Talk about gut churning days and sleepless nights. Even when it’s pretty easy to figure out who needs to go – and as a manager I was certainly guilty of sandbagging: not getting rid of problem employees who deserved to get fired when they deserved to get fired, because I knew there was a looming layoff – as a manager, it’s really hard to make the choices.

You have to balance skillsets with potential, short term vs. long term needs, and all the other business-y type considerations. Plus you very likely know about the personal circumstances of your team members: whose wife is pregnant, who’s providing financial support for aging parents, whose kid has problems. And you almost never know how people are going to react to the news that they’ve lost their job.

But what I feared were tears, bitterness, disappointment, anger, acting out. I never feared for my life.

Although there was that one time when I was peripheral to a firing decision, and we did discuss the possibility of violence.

A colleague had hired an administrative assistant who was completely unstable. Her resume raised all sorts of red flags that I won’t get into. I had interviewed her as a favor to my colleague, and had recommended against hiring her.

She turned out to be a disaster on just about every front. She was incapable of getting any work done and, on top of that, had become romantically involved with the head of a small company that we were in discussions over partnering with. To make matters worse, the potential partnership went south, and the potential partner had become an arch rival.

She would get into screaming matches with her manager. He was admittedly a difficult character, but this was just beyond. She would seek me and another colleague out in the ladies room to cry on our shoulders and go into a rage about her boss.

At one point, after I coached both this woman and her manager on a couple of things that might make their relationship better, I asked her how things were going.

Her answer?

She reached up to the top of my office door and dragged her long and sharp nails from top to bottom, while telling me ‘fine.’

This was at a very small company, with little by way of HR: the nice woman who was the office manager was our de facto HR department.

We were in no way equipped to handle the problems that this woman presented.

Anyway, her manager decided she needed to go. Somehow, I got sucked into the planning for her release, and I remember expressing concern that she might do something violent.

She ended up going pretty quietly, but I’m pretty sure that the very nice office manager who was our de facto HR department did alert security. And I remember looking out at the parking lot to make sure she’d actually left. And hoping that she wouldn’t come back armed.

Memory is a funny thing. I can picture her perfectly: she looked like Alice in Wonderland. And I very clearly recall a number of the details on her resume. But I can’t for the life of me remember her name; which is why I couldn’t google to find out what had become of her.

As I write this, the full details of the Aurora workplace murder spree aren’t yet known.

But firing someone can be perilous. Especially if the person being fired has mental health issues (which would come as no surprise in the Aurora situation). And especially when the person has easy access to a gun.

Midnight trip to the ER? Thanks, Fitbit.

Late Sunday night, having just watched John Oliver, returned from his 3 month hiatus and on a tear about Brexit, I decided to check and see how many steps I’d gotten in that day.

I knew I’d gone beyond the 10,000 I like to get, but I wanted to see how close I was to 11.5K steps. That’s 5 miles, the level I really like  to reach.

When I first started using my Fitbit, I stuck with the 10K a day religiously. One might say obsessively. I went well past a year during which neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night could keep this Fitbitter from the swift completion of my self-appointed rounds.

Then I missed a day. I had a good excuse: I’d just flown into Dublin during a freak snowstorm, and was staying out of town in a place that was heavy on gloom of night and light on sidewalks. So I decided that 9,683 steps was good enough.

After that, I missed an occasional (admittedly very occasional) day when I didn’t reach my step goal.

And that was fine.

More recently, I’ve decided that as long as I hit 70,000 steps during the course of a week I’m good with whatever I achieve during the day. Which means if I have a 14,000 step day, there’s no problem with having a 6,000 step day. I’m even better if I make it to 80,500 steps (that 5 mile a day average.

But once an addict…

Anyway, when I made my 11:30 p.m. check on my steps, I saw that I was only 380 steps short of 11.5K. Easy peasy. I could do that one with my eyes closed.

Upstairs (living room and kitchen) is easier walking than downstairs (bedroom, office, den), so I went upstairs. In my stocking feet, which is not the most advisable way to get steps in.

Did I mention I could get those 380 steps with my eyes closed?

I decided I could do them in the dark. There was enough light coming in through the living room blinds to see my way around the table, around the couch. And in the kitchen, there’s no blinds to impede the snowy winter night light from coming in. All there is to impede the light is the scaffolding that was set up for the gut reno going on next door.

Anyway, phone in hand to check on how I was doing with those 380 steps, I walked into the kitchen. And walked into the open door of the dishwasher, which I had opened an hour or so earlier to get a bit of air drying on the dishes that had just gone through their cycle.

Well, one thing quickly led to another, and there I was, on my knees, head rammed into the handle on the even, glasses in pieces on the floor, and blood gushing from the eyebrow area.

Oh.

After picking my shocked self up and grabbing some paper towels (Bounty, the quicker picker upper) to staunch the flow, i managed to get myself to the bathroom where I examined the gash.

Looked to me like I was going to need stitches. Seemed to me that it isn’t smart not to get things stitched up as soon as you can.

So, a few minutes before midnight, I found myself walking in the snow down Charles Street, heading for Mass General Hospital.

Now this was the sort of late-night walk I’d made with my husband a couple of times during the final stages of his illness, when we’d called the oncology center with a question and been told to come on in.

As Sunday was the fifth anniversary of Jim’s death, it was an eerie feeling to be out in the snow heading for MGH.

When I got to the ER, they asked me what happened. So I explained all about the Fitbit. And the dishwasher door. And my husband’s anniversary. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before, I told them.

The ER folks could not have been nicer or more efficient during the intake.

It was an average night – I asked – not particularly busy, but not dead, either.

Within a few minutes of turning up on MGH’s doorstep, I was ushered into the farther reaches of the ER. There was a quick wait to see a nurse, then a few minutes to see a physician.

It turned out the the resident had gotten her MD and a PhD from UMass Medical in Worcester, so we got to talk Worcester while she worked.

There was plenty of downtime. Wait for the lidocaine that was going to numb the area round my eye. Wait for the attending physician to stick his head in and decided whether I needed a CT scan on my head. Wait for the resident to see to a couple of patients in more dire need. Wait to get stitched up. Wait for the bacitracin, the discharge papers.

But I was fine. The ER was pretty  quiet. My room had a door, not just a curtain. I had the latest New Yorker with me. And there’s always Twitter.

I arrived at the ER about midnight. I was out a little after 3 a.m.a

The snow was pretty steady, but it wasn’t that cold or windy. I was going to walk home, but there was a lone cabby there, and I asked whether he was okay with a short fare. He was. And I made it worth his while. (300% tip.)

With the big gauze bandage covering my stitched up wounds – there were two lacerations – and a bit of a black eye peeking out from behind the bandage, I look like I was in a barroom brawl. Or a prize fight.

But, no.

Just a crazy old lady fall.

I’ll live. And I’ll live without addiction to getting those steps in. Having used my Fitbit from over two years, I have a pretty good idea of what’s 4 miles a day, what’s 5. I’m now sworn off obsessive checking. I’ve decided I’m addicted to taking a daily walk – it really does make me feel good – but I’m no longer going to make myself crazy about steps. Or so I’m telling myself.

I did promise my sister Trish I would stop obsessing about Fitbit – a birthday gift from Trish a couple of years back. She told me that, if I ended up killing myself getting some “needed” steps in, she’d feel guilty about having given me the g.d. Fitbit. So I really am truly off. (Don’t want Trish to feel guilty…)

So I’m really going to stop being so obsessive. And no more near-midnight, stocking-footed pacing in my pitch-dark kitchen.

The J. Peterman Owner's Manual

Why, just the other day, I was wondering out loud whether the J. Peterman catalog still existed. You know J. Peterman. The duster that looks totally stud-sexy on exactly 0.01 percent of the guys who put it on. The short-short story write-ups that accompany every item for sale, those little literary slice-of-someone-else’s life bits designed to convince us that buying some whatever or the other makes us look like we’re wealthy, cool, and jet-setty. All those pricey and precious items tapping into our pathetic desires to be someone else and live somewhere else. And sometime other, while we're at it.

I never bought anything from the catalog, but I will confess that I used to pore over it, wondering whether, if I bought that cotton shirt I'd look like Jackie O and Lee Radziwill buzzing around the Riviera in a speedboat, circa 1969. (Answer: NO. Of course.)

I hadn't seen the catalog in years. And then, there it was in the basket where folks pitch their recycle. The person it was addressed to gets every catalog known to woman, and receives an average of a dozen packages a week. Apparently, she wasn't interested in what the reincarnation of J. Peterman has to offer.

But I was.

The duster, you will be relieved to know, is still there (for $379). And it's there, by god, because "they don't make Duesenbergs anymore." (Well, they do make scale models that cost even more than the duster, but there's no comparison. Between the scale model and the Gary Cooper Duesenberg that was supposed to fetch $10M at auction last summer; between the scale model and the duster; and between the duster and the Gary Cooper Duesenberg. Got that?

Forget the duster. For a lot less ($59) you can get yourself a striped fisherman's jersey that Picasso might have worn when he was "reinventing the art of ceramics." Or - unmentioned - treating women like crap.

Then there's the calf-length shirtwaist dress, in navy or multi-color striped print. Sigh.

Instead of fretting over what you should be wearing, J. Peterman has a few suggestions for what to do with time not spent fretting, Because you went ahead and got that dress:

Read two more pages of Zafon, [Editorial aside: who? I supposed Lee Radziwill would know who.] Confirm the Nantucket house for two weeks in August. Dash off a few lines to aunt Charlotte. Memorize Sonnet 116. Open the Barolo. Gather an armful of peonies from their reckless party along the stone wall.

Now I'm all for gathering peonies from their reckless party. Not to mention opening the Barolo. But much as I lust after this dress - only $138 - I'm pretty sure it's not going to make me look like I'm all of a sudden 3 inches taller and 30 pounds lighter.  Which is exactly the fleeting little fantasy that pops into mind when you look at any of the clothing items in the catalog. And if I'm experiencing this fleeting little fantasy, I'm pretty sure that the other women reading the copy are, too. 

And speaking of Jackie and Lee, there's a nifty shirt - the Swan Pond - that asks you to:

...remember the scene. High noon at La Cote Basque, circa 1960. Red leather banquettes. Bright seacoast murals and bouquets.....Babe Paley...Gloria Guinness. C.Z. Guest. Slim Keith. Jackie and Lee.

Although in 1960, the only restaurant I'd been in besides Friendly's was the Fox Lounge, where my family had our annual dining-out experience - steak sandwiches and salads - I did eat a number of times at La Cote. Not that I would have recognized anyone on the list other than Jackie, but we did see, on occasion, sort of famous people, including half the cast of the soap opera All My Children. 

And so it goes...wide leg pants - how contra - that will make you look leggier and lankier, like they did for Harlow. The dress that you wear to "cross the lobby of the St. Regis and disappear into an elevator." Now as it happens, I stayed a few times, while on business, at the St. Regis, and it's not all that fabulous. The most interesting thing there is the Maxfield Parrish artwork in the King Cole Bar. And speaking of disappearing into an elevator. One time at the St. Regis, I got off the elevator, put my key in the door, stepped into my room just as a naked man (who was not my husband) was stepping out of the shower. 

For the fellows, there's a Swedish Military Shirt, just like the ones Torbjorn and Nils, Swedish volunteers, wore in 1940 in South Finland, when they were helping the Finns fend off the Red Army. And when in their downtime they "often talked about spending next summer at their uncle's marina in Goteborg...crewing the family schooner."

And so it goes. Clothing to invoke the East Village, Malta, Sardinia, the Seychelles. 10 Downing Street. Clothing that coulda/woulda/shoulda been worn by Jean Paul Sartre and Tyrone Power.  Gertrude Stein and Jack Kerouac. (What, no Kate Hepburn? That would be way too easy. But Gertrude Stein? Come on. I want to look like Gertrude Stein, said no one ever.)

Overall, it's J. Peterman as Walter Mitty, as Zelig. 

Which is not to say I don't lust after a lot of the clothing in here, even though I know that IRL I would look ridiculous in it.

I saw on Wikipedia that the eponymous J. Peterman, discoverer and popularizer of the duster, graduated from Holy Cross College in Worcester, Massachusetts. Where I can pretty much guarantee that his aesthetic was not forged.

Presidents’ Day? Just not THIS president

Last year, Pink Slip observed this holiday with a post entitled Let’s Make Presidents’ Day Great Again. That’s my story and I’m pretty much sticking to it, although I do have a couple of updates.

One of my wishes last year was that Paul Ryan exit the scene. He was, of course, third on my list after DJT and Pence, but at least I got one out of three.

This year, I’ll add Mitch McConnell AND Susan Collins to my get out of town list, but that won’t happen until 2020 at the earliest.

And hopefully the lot of them will be gone in one fell swoop. (Or is it full sweep?)

The other update is that, while Trump -  the George Washington antithesis in that he cannot tell the truth – averaged a paltry five lies per day in his first year in office, he managed to triple his output in 2018. Fifteen lies per day on average.

I’m sure that 2019 will be another banner year.

Truly, it’s hard to celebrate a holiday that honors presidents while Trump remains in the office, dishonoring it daily.

And there’s something else, something personal, putting a damper on my jumping for joy today.

Yesterday was the fifth anniversary of the death of my husband, Jim Diggins.

I have a great life.

I have a wonderful family and friends. A lovely home. Interesting work, both paid and volunteer. My health is good. All the “stuff” I could ever want or need (other than a bench for outside my door so I can sit to take my boots off; the stool inside the door just ain’t cutting it).

But something’s missing.

Jim and I used to travel pretty frequently, and I’m still getting around.

Since his death, I’ve made three trips to Ireland, and a few visits to NYC – our two favorites. I’ve been to Dallas a couple of times, to Tucson three times, and once to Chicago. I’ve been to Scotland. This fall I’m going to Iceland.

Jim and I used to take a lot of walks together, and I’m still out there most days.

Since Jim’s death, I’ve gotten a Fitbit and am now averaging 5 miles a day, which is higher than we averaged (other than on weekends, when we’d typically take at least one ‘power walk’, and when we were on vacation).

Jim and I used to go out to eat a lot. To hang around a lot doing nothing. To laugh a lot. To have fun.

I still do all of the above.

Life goes on, and the life I have going on is a damned good one.

But something’s missing. And that’s Diggy.

Five years…Seems like just yesterday. Seems like a million years ago.

Sigh…

Casino not so royale

Everett is a decidedly unglamorous working class town a bit north of Boston, perhaps best known as the home for a plentitude of oil and gas tanks. (And best known in our family as the town where my sister Trish first lived when she moved to Boston after college.)

But come June, Everett will be home to the Encore Boston Harbor casino.

I haven’t followed the politics about Encore, but there have been plenty. Steve Wynn…Steve Wynn sexual misconduct…Gaming license…Public protest…

If I’ve thought about Encore at all, it’s been along the lines of ‘who’d want to go to a fancy resort in Everett, Massachusetts?’

Of course, it’s not as if Encore is exactly incorporating the Everett connection in their branding. Here’s what they have to say on their web site:

A New Day Dawns In Boston.

Welcome to Encore Boston Harbor, a full-service resort offering the best in upscale hospitality, dining, shopping, gaming and more, opening in June 2019. Featuring an exceptional mix of luxury accommodations and exclusive attractions, Encore Boston Harbor has been designed to seamlessly blend with the city’s rich cultural heritage and breathtaking natural beauty.

I have to say, when I read that “rich cultural heritage and breathtaking natural beauty,” I did have a WTF moment when I thought they were talking about Everett.

And even if they’re talking about Boston, and not Everett, I’ll grant you “rich cultural heritage.” But “breathtaking natural beauty”?

It’s pretty along the Charles River, and we are on the ocean. So there’s that. And we have four seasons. But our natural beauty is not exactly breathtaking.

What’s most beautiful about Boston are the things that are unnatural – the mixture of old and new, the Golden Dome of the State House, the Hatch Shell on the Esplanade, the Boston Public Garden, the Zakim Bridge. And while it’s all quite lovely, I don’t think anyone would characterize it as breathtaking. Maybe in comparison to Everett, but that’s about it.

Anyway, I have my doubts about a casino being of long run benefit to the community it’s in, but in the short term there are construction jobs. And then there are casino jobs. And Encore Boston Harbor is hiring, looking to bring on over 5,000 “associates” by opening day.

Here’s some of what they’re looking for:

A Butler

“A Butler proactively seeks new ways to impress our VIP guests, creates solutions to problems, and reacts to requests, comments, or challenges efficiently and according to company standards. A Butler is well-organized and conducts him/herself with integrity and accountability at all times.”

Sounds kind of like a concierge to me. But maybe butler sounds more East Coast, upscale elite. More Boston – or Everett – Brahmin.

The Encore is located on the Mystic River, and they’re anticipating that some guests will come by boat. Sort of like Peggy Guggenheim’s guests arriving at here Venice palazzo by speedboats. Only in Everett, Massachusetts, and without all the ridiculously impressive art work that Peggy Guggenheim managed to collect over the years. So the Encore is looking for Dock Master.

“The Encore Boston Harbor Dock Master will be responsible for overseeing the day-to-day operations of the Encore Boston Harbor maritime facility comprised of the Water Transportation Dock and the Transient Dock, handling boat reservations, assisting guests on and off the boats, and inspecting, cleaning and preparing boats,” according to the listing.

They also want to have a Barber on premise. And a Makeup Artist. I’m guessing that there are any number of barbers in Everett just a jump away from Encore, but maybe not so many makeup artists, other than around prom time.

I’m guessing that the Encore’s Sommelier will be the first sommelier in the history of Everett.

“The Encore Boston Harbor Sommelier will be responsible for driving the guest experience through execution of all aspects of Wine Service,” the job opening says. “The Sommelier will work as a supplemental piece of the service team understanding when and where it is necessary to step in and assist.”

“Understanding when and where it is necessary to step in and assist” sure sounds like a pretty open-ended job description, doesn’t it? And why the sommelier? Are they going to help if someone falls off the dock and into the Mystic. Or accuses a fellow gambler of card counting?  Get me the sommelier, stat.

Maybe one area where the sommelier will pitch in is helping out the K-9 Officer, who will help out with special event security, and who:

“will be responsible for the handling, upkeep, maintenance, deployment and care of either a K-9 explosive detector dog or bedbug detector dog.”

Explosives vs. bedbugs, huh. What a choice.

Anyway, I guess I’m happy that Encore will be hiring a ton of people, for however long it lasts. Work is work, and a job’s a job. And casinos do hire a lot of people without advanced degrees, which should be helpful in a blue collar city like Everett. And who wouldn’t want to work in view of the breathtaking natural beauty of the Everett gas tanks?

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Source for Job Info: Boston Globe.

Man repeller? Happy Valentine’s Day to you, too.

Well, it’s Valentine’s Day, so it’s time for those without a sweetheart – those without a sweetheart who would actually like to have a sweetheart – to think about the steps they can take to make sure that, come next February 14th, they’re heading out for a champagne dinner and a little box that holds a Jane Seymour heart necklace from Kay’s (where, as head’s up consumers, we know that every kiss begins with). Rather than sitting there staring at the bouquet of red tulips you bought for yourself at the supermarket.

Anyway, if you’re a young woman looking to up your man game, the Daily Mail – and what organization is better positioned to do so – has some advice on “How to avoid turning your home in a MANrepeller.”

I would have thought that the advice from an interior therapist – and, yes, there is such a thing: Jennifer Anniston used one after she split with Justin Theroux – would be along the lines of “don’t use pink as your primary decorating color; avoid ruffles; no cloying little angel statues; limit the number of stuffed animals. Maybe there’d be more updated, edgy suggestions: don’t leave a tampon floating in the toilet (sorry), no Brides magazines in sight (at least not until and unless you’ve progressed beyond the Jane Seymour heart necklace from Kay).

But, no.

One MANrepeller is apparently having any art work that contains images of women – especially strong, iconic women. Especially single women.

Not that I worry about having a Man-repelling home, but I have very little art work that depicts humans. I do have plenty of photos of strong and iconic (to me!) women, however.  And some of them are single.

But the interior therapist who analyzed the journalist’s flat for the Daily Mail piece warns that having too many pictures of women gives off this vibe:

“I’m fine on my own. I don’t need anybody else. I am perfectly comfortable as I am. Don’t mess with me”.’

Hmmm. I would think that, for the right guy, finding a woman who’s fine on her own would be an attracter, not a repeller. Maybe the ‘don’t mess with me’ vibe is what’s no good. But what do I know?

Clutter is another must avoid, which makes sense. Too much clutter might suggest hoarder tendencies, or other mental health issues. Or maybe just that you’re a slob.

Then there’s having a cactus. “Too spiky.” And get rid of those novels with “depressing titles.” (Death in Venice? To Kill a Mockingbird? As I Lay Dying?)

And whatever the titles of your books, don’t keep them in your bedroom.

Huh? The bedroom is exactly where you want to have books.

The bookcase in my bedroom holds four shelves of books I haven’t read yet. But will someday. Perhaps when I’m snowed in.

There are also books piled (in very neat piles, I must say) on my cedar chest. Good thing I only have to open that cedar chest a couple of times a year, when I do my summer/winter clothing switch. These are books I’ve acquired in the past year. Or books that I’ve started and haven’t quite gotten around to finishing, but haven’t ruled out revisiting entirely.

Then there’s the comfy arm chair and hassock. I always wanted a comfy arm chair and hassock in my bedroom. I pictured myself sitting in my comfy arm chair, feet on my hassock, and reading a book. Instead, the comfy arm chair and hassock have become the repository for the books I’m going to read when I finish reading the books that are on the bed.

But according to the interior therapist:

‘We need to make this room a boudoir to welcome a man into. A space where he feels comfortable and confident. And not squashed out by anything else.’

Personally, I wouldn’t be attracted in the least to a man who didn’t feel comfortable and confident when there were books around. But maybe that’s just me.

Happy Valentine’s Day to all, especially to the single ladies who are getting into bed tonight with a good book. (Bonus points if it’s a novel with a depressing title.)

They’re mad as hell and they’re not going to take it anymore

Since the cavemen began pegging rocks at wildebeests two million years ago, man’s attempts to keep domination over the animal kingdom have been going strong. And mostly those attempts have been successful. But not always, of course.

When we invade their turf, rattlesnakes bite hikers. Mountain lions kill runners. Alligators snap those who get too close to the water’s edge.

And now, it seems, some animals are starting to fight back, coming after land we thought that we owned. Animals are flexing their rights and demonstrating that there’s an animal kingdom out there.

They’re mad as hell and they’re not going to take it any more.  

Global warming is harming the polar bears’ habitats. So in remote arctic areas in Russia, the polar bear express is coming to town. Forget the very hungry caterpillar. We’re talking very hungry polar bears, and they’re invading towns in Novaya Zemlya. I even saw a picture of one of them in the corridor or an apartment building.

“There’s never been such a mass invasion of polar bears,” said Zhigansha Musin, the head of the local administration. “They have literally been chasing people.”

Alexander Minayev, the region’s deputy head, added: “People are scared, and afraid to leave their homes. Parents are unwilling to let their children go to school or nursery.” A state of emergency has been declared in the region. (Source: The Guardian)

Not to discount the emergency this presents to the locals, but if we need any more evidence that the warming of our planet is a state of emergency for polar bears and humans, I don’t know what would be.

In one warmer clime, the problem is hippos. Pablo Escobar’s hippos, to be exact.

It seems that Colombia’s late and not especially lamented drug lord had, among his other crimes, smuggled in four hippos for his private zoo. The people of Colombia had bigger issues with Escobar than the animals he kept in his zoo. “He's said to be responsible for some 7,000 deaths.” But this is not to discount the problems that the hippos are starting to cause.

After Escobar (with whom, I just learned, I share a birthday; swell!) was taken down in the early 1990s:

…the government relocated most of the animals but not the hippos who were basically allowed to roam free.

"People forgot the hippos," said biologist David Echeverri, who works with CORNARE, the environmental agency in charge of tracking and managing the hippos in the region. He estimates there are about 50 or more of them now. (Source: CBS News)

The hippos have no predators, and while they mostly roam around the former Escobar estate (now a theme park, of all things), some of them have been swaggering around town, getting a bit too close to comfort for the locals. So far, no deaths, but these are dangerous animals which in Africa “cause more human deaths than any other large animal.”

Then there’s the news from Belfast, Northern Ireland.

In February 2019, a group of enterprising chimpanzees managed to get out of their enclosure at Belfast Zoo (Northern Ireland) by propping a tree branch against the wall to enable their improvised escape. (Source: Digital Journal)

The chimps did no harm. In fact, having checked out the outside world:

…all of the chimpanzees returned home, apparently not caring much for human habitats.

Maybe so, but I’m guessing that this may have been a reconnaissance mission. We may have an Irish Planet of the Apes sitch on our hands at some point.

Overall, it looks to me like the animals are on the move. And who can blame them? We destroyed their habitats, dragged them off to strange places, and put them in cages. No wonder they’re mad as hell.

Polar bears and hippos and chimps, oh my. The animal kingdom is just not going to take it anymore.

Get in line. No, not this line. THAT one.)

I have Global Entry/TSA PreCheck. I don’t fly that often, but having this is absolutely worth it. I don’t understand why anyone who flies more than once a year wouldn’t spring for it. It doesn’t cost all that much, so it doesn’t make me feel like some rich-bitch who gets to cruise by the hoi-polloi. If you can afford to fly, you can pretty much afford some sort of TSA preclearance program (which works out to $17-20 a year).

I generally pay the fee to upgrade to a bit more legroom, too. Again, I don’t fly that often and it’s worth it not to have my knees in my chin.

But ways to jump the queue aren’t limited to fast-lane-ing your way through airport security.

This past Christmas, even the line to sit on Santa’s lap at a local mall was split in two. Squalling kiddy pre-check.

At AMC, which has a near movie-theater-in-Boston monopoly, you can avoid the lines for the ticket kiosks and refreshments if you’re a Premiere Member. According to the article I saw, this costs $24 per month. I don’t know what this entitles you to – presumably something more than the ability to jump the queue; it must include seeing movies for free or at a sharply discounted rate – but, given that I don’t pay much more than $24 a year to see movies in a theater, becoming a Premiere AMC-er would be lost on me.

But before Massachusetts fully automated tolls on the turnpike, bridges and tunnels – and when I still owned a car – I did have Fast Lane. For the cost of a transponder, I could avoid the snarls at the Route 128 interchange and breeze right through. The Fast Lane pass was plenty affordable. It was mostly the inconvenience involved in procuring one that was the true cost.

Some folks are decrying preferential line treatment as one more example of the bifurcation of the economy between the haves and the have-less. Rich getting richer, and rubbing the faces of the poor in it..

But, perhaps because I am at heart something of a rich-like bitch-like, I don’t see it that way. If you’re flying, if you’re going to the movies, you’re not abjectly poor to begin with. If someone’s willing to pay a bit more to avoid waiting in line, why not. Admittedly, driving on the Mass Pike is a bit different. People with lesser means have to commute like most everyone else. Still, even there the cost of the Fast Lane pass wasn’t all that great.

Overall, when you pay to get to the head of the line faster, philosophically speaking, it’s not all that much different than the differential flight classes that have probably existed since shortly after Lucky Lindy made that nonstop Transatlantic flight.

I can resent those flying first class as much as I want, but if you can afford to, why not? Thanks for having been married to a frequent flyer savant, I’ve flown business and first a number of times. And guess what? It’s better. The seats are more comfortable. The food is edible. And fewer folks are sharing the toilets. What’s not to like?

When I’m in steerage, I don’t start cursing billionaires. But I do pay the extra $30 or $40 bucks to ensure a tad bit more comfort. And from the looks of most of those traveling, they could afford to pay for this sort of modest upgrade as well. Their choice not to.

There are, of course, differences. There are a finite number of first class seats, and a finite number of leg-roomier seats in steerage. So everyone can’t actually have at them. But there doesn’t seem to be a cap on Premiere membership or Fast Lane. And if everyone has potential access to the faster line, couldn’t we eventually get to the point where if most everyone buys into preferred status, it may actually be faster to not have it.

Anyway, some aspects of the “what, me wait?” culture are a bit more troubling.

Somewhere along the line, I read that some gig economy workers are selling their willingness to stand in line on behalf of someone else willing to pay. Kind of like buying your way out of serving in the Civil War by hiring some just-of-the-boat Irishman to fill in for you. Only in reverse. And not quite as bad. Still, while all praise the hustle of those gig workers, it’s hard not to view those paying them to stand in line for them as somewhat a-holey.

What’s next? Paying someone to stand in line for you at a heavily attended wake?

Last spring, I went to the wake for a friend’s husband, a man with a large extended family, and well-established in his community. When I got to the funeral parlor about 15 minutes before the wake was set to start, there was already a line well out the door. The wait was about 45 minutes. If only I’d hired a Task Rabbit to stand in line for me…

Seriously, folks, where does it end? Not at Fenway Park, apparently.

This spring for example, Red Sox fans who are members of TSA’s Precheck program (which costs $85 for a five-year membership) will be allowed to enter Fenway Park through a dedicated and faster gate: Gate E.

They’ll show their “known traveler number” on a mobile device or printout, along with the game ticket, and zip right in. (Source: Boston Globe)

Well, come April when I’m there for my first game of the season, I’ll be (pre)checking this one out. Since the lines at Fenway are for the security check – empty your pockets, have some college kid poke around in your pocketbook, pass through the screening device, get wanded – this actually makes sense. Sort of.

After all, if Homeland Security has deemed me safe enough to fly on a plane, surely I’m no sort of danger when it comes to watching a ballgame.

So, fine.

We’ll see how this season goes.

But I can’t believe for a New York (Yankees) minute that the Red Sox won’t figure out some way to monetize this, and that if you’re willing to pay a few more bucks on the face value of a ticket – and what’s a few bucks more, when the face value is so damned high to begin with – there’ll be a special speed line to get you into the park.

Now if only Red Sox management could figure out a better way to get people out of the park once the game ends.

At least there are no stone martens in downtown Boston

I have been happily car-free now for more than a decade, and I suspect I’ll make it to the other side without having had another car again.

Don’t get me wrong. I like to drive. I just don’t want or need the expense and hassle of car ownership. And it’s mostly the hassle. Even if someone gave me a car, paid for parking, and took care of insurance, I’m not sure I’d want to own one again.

Easy enough when you live in a city with reasonably good public transportation, and live pretty close to that reasonably good public transpo. When I first went car-free, I relied on Zipcar, which has cars less than two minutes from my front door. And then one day when I was returning my Zipcar, a fellow returnee asked me whether I’d ever heard of Uber.

Well, no, I hadn’t. But she started raving about it, so I took a look.

Now I pretty much Uber anywhere I can’t walk to or get to via the T or commuter rail, or when I really, really, really want door-to-door. I do occasionally Zipcar, especially when I want to pick something up. Like a Christmas tree. But mostly I Uber.

Even when I indulge in an occasional expensive Uber from my sister’s in Salem - which every once in a while I do because I just don’t feel like waiting for the train or walking home from the train station – it’s still a lot cheaper than owning a car.

Then there are the psychic costs of car ownership. Like hunting for a parking space. Or having to shovel out your car if you don’t have indoor parking. Or getting rats in your engine, something that I hadn’t thought about in a while, but which did happen to me that once.

If you live in a city, you will at some point or another have to contend with rats. I have – blessedly – never had an indoor rat (just an occasional mouse) in my house. My husband had a rat back in the day before we lived together, and that was quite enough for me. (And, of course, when I waitressed at the Union Oyster House nearly 50 years ago, it was a firing offense if, when there were patrons in the house, you screamed when a rat crossed you path.) But even if rats are “just” an outdoor, you do see them out and about.

Newbury Street is Boston’s nicest shopping street, but if you’re walking along Newbury at dusk, there’s some likelihood that you’ll see a scurrying rat somewhere along your stroll.

I sometimes see one take a dive into a storm drain on Charles Street. Occasionally I happen upon a flattened carcass. And at night I sometimes hear them rooting around in trash out back of my place. (No matter how many times I post signs asking people in my building to put garbage-y trash – as opposed to recycle, which the rats don’t care about – out on the morning of trash pickup, several still persist in putting theirs out the night before. And let me tell you, rats do enjoy going after banana peels and avocados.)

But my worst near-encounter with rats was when got in my engine.

There are two parking places out in back of my condo building. I don’t own either of them, but at one point one of the owners who does let me use his for a while.

It was still street parking, but it was yours, and you didn’t have to roam around for 45 minutes looking for a tight spot that might take you 45 minutes to get into, and which you almost always had to vacate at 7 a.m. the next morning to make way for the streetsweepers. So I was delighted to park out back.

One of the few car things I know how to do is change the windshield wiper fluid. So one fine day, I popped the hood and, gallon jug of blue fluid in hand, went to fill’ er up.

What was that chicken bone doing on the engine? Those pieces of pineapple? That gnawed hunk of fruitcake?

My first thought, oddly enough, was that someone had set up some kind of Santeria voodoo altar in my car.

Then I saw those telltale, lozenge-shaped pellets. Crap! Rat scat!

Yes, indeed, some of the locals, not content to scavenge my neighbors garbage bags, wanted to bring their take out in, to the warmth of a dining car. My car.

Well, yuck.

That was it for my parking out back. I’d switched to street parking on the sections of blocks where people didn’t put their trash out, or where they used lidded containers.

I mentioned the rat-fest to my next door neighbor, and he told me that they’d had rats in their car, but I wasn’t to tell his wife.

A colleague told me that some friends of hers who lived on the Boston waterfront had also had rodents under their hood.

So it’s a problem, if not a widespread one. I suspect that most folks I know have never had a rat-in-the-engine problem.

But there are other situations where animals go looking for mobile homes. Years ago, my husband’s Uncle Bill, who lived in a small town in Western Mass, had a woodchuck that took up residence in his car. And in Central Europe, there’s a plague of stone martens. Unlike urban rats looking for a place to dine in comfort – or Uncle Bill’s woodchuck, who for whatever reason just wanted in (probably just to aggravate Bill, which is how he took it - the automotive mission of the stone marten is:

…gnawing on rubber. Specifically, it likes to crawl into car-engine cavities and chew on the wiring.

As a result, in Germany, car insurance that covers Marderbisse (marten bites) is a must. According to gdv, an insurers’ group, martens were the fourth-leading cause of non-collision auto damage in Germany in 2017. They chewed through €72m ($79m) worth of cables, up from €66m the year before and €28m in 2005.Source: The Economist)

Marderbisse, huh?

Must not happen much around here. Even with all those ads for Farmers Insurance, which boast that ‘we know a thing or two because we’ve seen a thing or two”, and roll out every possible quirky and weird thing that can happen to your car, I’ve never heard of Marderbisse. But fourth-leading cause of non-collision damage would put it right up there, I’m guessing with, bears breaking in looking for food, thieves breaking in looking for electronics, and vandals pegging stones.

Cars aren’t the only places that stone martens like:

In 2016 one hopped onto an electric transformer at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Switzerland, short-circuiting it and briefly knocking out the particle accelerator. Earlier that year the LHC lost power when a cable was chewed through by an animal which, though rather charred, appears to have been a marten.

The LHC was one of the places my husband had on his bucket list. He never got there, but I’m quasi on the hook to strew a couple of grains of his ashes there some day, even though I have absolutely no interest in being around a particular accelerator. But maybe some day.

It’s not clear why martens like chewing on electrical insulation. There’s speculation that insulation made in East Asia is attractive because it can contain fish oil. Or that it’s young, stupid martens (as opposed to older, wiser martens) who like a good chaw – enough so that they’re willing to risk death by electrocution.

But marten motivation is likely to remain a mystery. At least my rats were just looking for a warm place to enjoy dinner and didn’t do any damage, beyond the unnerving “can’t unsee” sight of rat crap in your car.

One more reason to be happily car-free…