The Vessel of sadness

The last time I was in New York City was during May, 2019 (which seems like a million years ago). The Vessel, a climbing structure that's a prominent feature (i.e., tourist attraction) at the Hudson Yards, a still-in-the-works West Side real-estate development made up of a combo of commercial and residential properties, opened in March 2019. So I could have strolled over to "experience" it. But I didn't. I've walked the High Line park, which is in the same neck of the woods and is wonderful, but the Vessel just didn't appeal to me. 

The Vessel is a combo of a jungle gym and shoots and ladders (with an emphasis on the ladders). It's 16 stories high, with all sorts of interconnected staircases and landings. Definitely a workout. If you sign up for the first hour it's in operation, there's no charge. Other than that, it's $10 a ticket. Or was. Because of the latest suicide - there've been four since the Vessel opened - the attraction has closed.

Three of the four suicides were young folks in their early twenties. This latest one was even more horrific: a 14 year-old boy there with his family. 

It's difficult to imagine the depth of the pain and sorrow for this family. Difficult enough to lose a child under any circumstances. But to suicide...

I have a friendly acquaintance who lost her son this way. A young man in his late twenties, he was by all accounts a kind, loving, accomplished, attractive, and loved young man. But he suffered from profound depression that he found unlivable. He just couldn't see any other way out of the pain. I had never met him, but when I wrote the check to the mental health support organization listed in his obituary, I was crying. 

The Vessel had also closed in January for a few months while Hudson Yards management put:

...new safety measures in place, including increased security, a buddy system and signs about mental health resources. (Source: CNN)

The buddy system prohibits anyone from entering solo. If you're on your own, you have to join another singleton or a group. Which wasn't enough to save this boy. Such sadness. Such unfathomable pain. 

Now, the Vessel's future as the Instagrammable centerpiece of the largest development in Manhattan since Rockefeller Center is in limbo. Can it be saved?

Aside: does everything have to be Instagrammable??? 

Anyway, the firm that designed the Vessel is trying to come up with a physical solution that's "feasible in terms of engineering and installation." The railings are at present waist-high, so they could be raised. But while that might thwart an impulse suicide, it won't necessarily deter the determined. NYU's Bobst Library installed eight-foot high plexiglass barriers in its atrium after two students jumped to their deaths. Another student managed to get over that barrier. NYU solved the problem with aluminum panels that enclose the space and let in light - a brilliant solution that looks like it was part of the original design. And which has done the trick. There've been no suicides at Bobst since the panels went in in 2012. 

Bridges - the Golden Gate, the George Washington - now have or are installing safety nets to minimize suicides.

For the Vessel, some see another problem that defies a simple physical fix. 

The central point of architecture and design is that the constructed environment influences how we feel and act. And the Vessel -- surrounded on all sides by concrete, glass skyscrapers and crass commercialism -- has a more fundamental issue, according to Jacob Alspector, a distinguished lecturer at the Spitzer School of Architecture at The City College of New York.

"The Vessel is like some MC Escher nightmare," he said, referring to the famed graphic artist known for his staircases to nowhere. "It's kind of relentless. It's very gaudy, it's very cold. It's thrilling ... It's not the most friendly and life-affirming and inclusive kind of space or structure. It's kind of empty. What's the point of it? Just to walk up and walk down?"

He added: "People who feel alienated with the world may not be supported very well by an experience like that."

In case you're wondering whether those who are suicidal will just find another place to jump, or another method to kill themselves altogether, if their first choice isn't available: At least one study suggests that if suicides by jumping are prevented, there's "no associated increase in suicide by other means." In other words, people are finding another way to cope with their crisis. 

It seems inevitable that the Vessel will have to find a physical solution. When they reopened in May, the $10 entry fee was new, with the proceeds used to hire staff "to watch for distress" and top put up signs. They need to do better.

Jacob Alspector doesn't think that just putting in a higher barrier isn't going to work for the Vessel. He points to the Guggenheim Museum, which has a low barrier - and has never had a suicide in its over 80 years of existence.

"I think it's because the space is so beautiful, so magical, so affirming, so wonderful," said Alspector, the architect and professor. "I don't know that I've heard anyone describe the Vessel as beautiful."

He recognizes that, for the Vessel, the redesign problem is "tough," but they need to go with "something that's humane, life-affirming."

I know next to nothing about architecture, but I'm with Jacob Alspector.

The world is brutish enough without tourist attractions that are death traps.

I haven't been to the Guggenheim in years. Make that decades. But next time I'm in New York, I think I'll head over. Not that there's any reason I need to avoid the Vessel. Thankfully, I don't suffer from anything beyond minor, occasional situational depression, and I'm not the suicide type. But I don't really want to spend anytime in a place that's been a locus for suicides, that's unfriendly and not life-affirming. The very thought's depressing...

So I'll just keep myself away from the Vessel of sadness. 

So, who came up with the extreme (9"x5") pocketbook rule for Fenway?

Last Wednesday, I went out to Fenway Park for the Billy Joel concert - my first trip to America's Most Beloved Ballpark since September, 2019. In a few weeks, I have tickets to a Red Sox game, but this was my first time at Fenway in nearly two years.

My sister Trish had gotten the tickets, and she'd forwarded me the email stating that there's a new pocketbook policy in place. Fenway also tweeted out a bag size warning. This year, if you're bringing a bag into Fenway, the max size is 9"x5"x2". Which is about enough to fit in a phone, ID, comb, credit card, your keys, and a tampon (which, luckily, I no longer need to carry).

When I go to Fenway, I typically carry a small backpack, or a smallish Longchamps purse (14"x10") which can hold my wallet, phone, (sun)glasses, lip balm, a comb, and some Kleenex. Plus a shirt or fleece if I really stuff it in there. If it's been rainy/drizzling, I carry a fold-up nylon tote bag that contains a roll of paper towels.

But 9"x5"x2"???

What were they thinking? Who came up with this flipping rule? Surely no woman - or no woman who has attended a ballgame accompanied by children - had anything to do with this travesty of fan appreciation.

Think of the typical family of four, coming to Fenway for their annual game.

They've already spent $400 on tickets. And $50 to park. They're planning on dropping another $200+ on hotdogs, sodas (extra for the souvenir cup), Crackerjacks, Sportsbars, maybe a beer or two, and a little something for the kids to remember the excursion by, if the soda cup or the mini-plastic helmet holding the soft-serve won't cut it.

And now Mom is being stopped at the ticket gate and told that she needs to walk a half mile out of her way to check her bag.

So on top of waiting in the waiting to get in line, waiting in the hotdog line, waiting in the rest room line, waiting in the souvenir stand line, the family will have an end-of-game wait in the bag retrieval line. 

I'm going to go fully secondary sex characteristics here, but here's why Mom needs a bag that's larger than 9"x5"x 2".

As an aside, since we're always planning for every emergency that could possibly come up, most women carry plenty of things in their pocketbooks. Years ago, while on the subway, someone came over to me and said "You like the sort of person who carries stamps with you." Indeed, I was, and I happily gave her the stamp - for free, I might add - that she wanted to buy from me. Another instance: I was queuing up at the City Hall wedding annex in NYC for the wedding of a beloved young friend. I realized that, contrary to my normal policy, I didn't have any Kleenex in my pocketbook. Oh, no! What was I thinking. I knew I was going to cry! Anyway, I stopped a couple also heading in and asked the woman for some Kleenex. She, of course, had some. I didn't realize until we met up indoors with the happy couple that she was the mother of the bride of the marriage ceremony I was attending. 

Bottom line: most women carry a lot of stuff in their pocketbooks. So those pocketbooks are going to be bigger than 9" x5" x2".

Combs, brushes, hand sanitizer, a small pad, a couple of pens, bandages, a scarf. A small umbrella. 

A lot can go into a bag. 

Women who have kids in tow carry even more. So a Mom coming to a ballgame with kids is going to have stuff with her

Consider what might be in Fenway Ballgame Mom's bag, which, in truth, is likely to be a tote bag.

The usual stuff - wallet, phone, keys (perhaps held in a small purse), but also:

Hoodies/fleeces/rainjackets for the kids. Because you never know what can happen, weather-wise, over the course of a nine-inning ballgame. Sunscreen. If it's a night game, the non-sunglasses for everyone in the family who wears prescription sunglasses, because once the sun sets of Fenway...Bottles of water because, sure, you're going to buy sodas for your kids, but everyone will need to hydrate, and it's a lot cheaper to get your water bottle at 7/11 rather than spring for the outlandish price at the ballpark. A couple of bags of M&M's because, sure, you're going to buy snacks for your kids, but if you can save a bit by bringing a few things in...

Where does all this stuff go?

Sure, early on in the season you're wearing a down jacket with plenty of pockets to store things in. By June, you're pretty safe to leave your parka at home. But you still need something for the kids to put on late in the game when Mom starts feeling a bit chilly. 

Oh, you can have the kids carry their own hoody/fleece/rainjacket, but let's think this one through for a minute.

Mom may have been apprised by Dad (who most likely bought the tickets and got the policy email), so she knows all about the pocketbook fatwa. And she's clever enough to know that she can carry the hoodies/fleeces/rainjackets in a foldup nylon tote bag and give them to the kids to carry when they get nearer to the park. She can then squinch up her foldup nylon tote bag and stuff it in her pants pocket, because Dad was smart enough to inform her of the pocketbook policy, so she knew enough to wear pants with pockets in them.

Anyway, surveys - if there are any - no doubt indicate that at least fifty percent of the time, at least one kid will balk at the idea of having to carry their own hoody/fleece/rainjacket. 

Statistically speaking, about 57% of the time, when Mom informs the kids that until they get past the ticket taker, they'll need to hold their own hoody/fleece/rainjacket - a carry distance of about 10 yards -the kid will balk. This will lead to the following fun-at-Fenway scenario: Mom gives kid the 'don't go there' look and/or the 'don't go there' arm grab. Half the time, Mom will also use her words, and, statistically speaking, the most commonly used words are "We can go home right now if you want," followed by "Your father paid a lot of money for these tickets and you're going to behave yourself."

Fortunately, this will work for most kids. Sure, they may give Mom the 'I hate you' look, or pull a sullen puss, but they'll take the hoody/fleece/jacket. Or - and I hate to say it, but it'll most likely be a girl - the kid will hand the jacket to Dad, who will shrug and give Mom, who is glaring, his patented (or should be patented) 'Don't make a big deal out of it look.' The kid - and I hate to say it, but it' most likely be a girl - takes Dad's other hand and gives Mom a smug look. 

Unfortunately, some admittedly small percentage of kids will willfully or unintentionally drop the hoody/fleece/rainjacket. Fortunately - and again, fortune can smile at Fenway - most of the time a fellow ballgame goer will pick up the item and hand it to the kid and/or the Mom. Mom will ask how that item-drop happened and the kid is most likely to shrug (68% of the time), or answer "I dunno" (32% of the time).

Unfortunately, sometimes no one notices the dropped item, and Mom doesn't realized the item's been dropped until the family has moved through security and the ticket takers, and it's too late to try to go back to wherever the kid willfully or unintentionally dropped it. 

As the game progresses, one of two things will happen: the missing hoody/fleece/rainjacket won't matter, because no one but Mom is feeling the chill or the raindrops anyway. Or, the kid will start whining up a storm that they're cold or wet, and they need to head down below the stands to buy a $60 sweatshirt or a $10 rain poncho. Despite how easy it is to give in, this strategy fails to work in a remarkably hefty 90% of families. What does work is, a) family leaves; or b) kid ends up wearing Dad's hoody/fleece/rainjacket because, you know, if may not exactly be his fault, but it's sure as hell is not Mom's fault. There's a high statistical likelihood that there'll be some mention that "Your grandmother gave you that hoody/fleece/rainjacket."

This assumes that Dad has made sure to tell Mom that she couldn't bring a big bag into the ballpark. If he hadn't, the miserableness has been compounded by having to go check the big bag.

I just don't see how this ridiculous puny bag policy is going to last. 

At Yankee Stadium, you can bring in a 16"x16"x8" bag. A veritable suitcase. 

What's Fenway security afraid of? Booze? Weaponry? They've been bag searching for years? Wasn't that enough? Do they think that larger bags are more likely to contain covid? 

Ridiculous!

By the way, the concert was great. Billy Joel is a real pro, and for an old geezer - he's my age - he still has plenty of kick left in him.

Anyway, there was some light rain during the first part, but it tapered off.  Glad I had my (needed) rainjacket; didn't need the sunglasses. Carried my ID, phone, lip balm, paper towels for wet seats (needed), and an extra poncho Trish lent me (very useful for leg covering).

The bag policy seemed to be arbitrarily enforced. It looked like it depended on who you encountered at the security check in. It looked as if some women were forced to leave large bags behind; others seemed to be just waved through. We even saw one woman with a super-large, bulging tote bag that she was dragging on a luggage cart. Medical supplies? Diaper bag? Both are allowed. Whatever.

Whether they enforce it of not, it's still a stupid policy.

Let's go, Electrobats!

I've never driven a hybrid, let alone a full EV (electric vehicle), but the automotive world seems to be going in that direction, so I suppose at some point I will. It'll be interesting to see how this all works out - especially for urban dwellers who park wherever they can find a spot on the street. How will they run a cord into their apartment? Or will every street parking space, every garage space, be equipped to juice? Maybe the EVs will have solar panels on their roofs, or spoilers that capture wind power. Maybe they'll come up with a way to charge vehicle batteries really fast. You'll drive into a service station - which, come to think of it, was what we called gas stations back in the day - and instead of fill 'er up, it'll e charge 'er up.

And while they're coming up with better ways to charge EVs, they'll also be coming up with better ways to alert pedestrians that they're coming. We're used to the warning noise of the internal combustion engine. We'll need to know whether something's coming when we step off the curb without looking!

Anyway, the latest "news" about EVs that I read is interesting because it's really not news at all. Other than being news to me. Which was that, when the auto industry started out, a lot of the cars were electric. 

In 1897, the bestselling car in the US was an electric vehicle: the Pope Manufacturing Company’s Columbia Motor Carriage. Electric models were outselling steam- and petrol-powered ones. By 1900, sales of steam vehicles had taken a narrow lead: that year, 1,681 steam vehicles, 1,575 electric vehicles and 936 petrol-powered vehicles were sold. Only with the launch of the Olds Motor Works’ Curved Dash Oldsmobile in 1903 did petrol-powered vehicles take the lead for the first time. (Source: The Guardian)

Oh, those Merry Oldsmobiles!

Then there was the Electrobat, "an electric taxicab that briefly flourished in the late 1890s." Electrobat began as a cab service in New York, and was working out the kinks, like how short the battery life was and how long it took to recharge. Sound familiar? Their solution was a bit unwieldy. It was swapping out the battery every few hours. While the Electrobat tried to figure things out, NYC financier William Whitney decided to invest in scale operations. So he "teamed up with Pope, maker of the bestselling Columbia electric vehicle."

They formed a new venture called the Electric Vehicle Company, and embarked on an ambitious expansion plan. EVC raised capital to build thousands of electric cabs and opened offices in Boston, Chicago, New Jersey and Newport. In 1899 it was briefly the largest automobile manufacturer in the US.

And it's a shame that the Electrobat's flourish was so brief. For one, if the Electrobat/EVC had succeeded, we might not be facing the same degree of environmental destruction that's been wrought by our super-reliance on fossil fuels. Plus we'd perhaps have a great name for cars, for surely the EVC that was begat by Electrobat would have come up with the name Batmobile.

Alas, EVC got caught up in mismanagement and even a swindle.

The industry journal the Horseless Age, a strong advocate of petrol-powered vehicles, attacked the firm as a would-be monopolist and said electric vehicles were doomed to fail. When news emerged that EVC had obtained a loan fraudulently, its share price plunged from $30 to $0.75, forcing the firm to start closing its regional offices. The Horseless Age savoured its collapse and cheered its failure to “force” electric vehicles on a “credulous world”.

Looks like the fossil fuel industry hasn't changed its stripes any. Sure, having horseless carriages had one good result: city streets were no longer clogged with ghastly amounts of horse manure. But:

The switch from horses to cars was not the neat and timely technological solution that it might seem, because cars changed the world in all kinds of unanticipated ways – from the geography of cities to the geopolitics of oil – and created many problems of their own.

That switch to "petrol-powered" turned out to be a case of unintended consequences, consequences that we're mightily struggling with today. 

Electric vehicles managed to hang on for a while after the collapse of EVC. (So long, Electrobat.) But they did so because they were positioned as cars for women.

This association arose because they were suitable for short, local trips, did not require hand cranking to start or gear shifting to operate, and were extremely reliable by virtue of their simple design. As an advertisement for Babcock Electric vehicles put it in 1910, “She who drives a Babcock Electric has nothing to fear”. The implication was that women, unable to cope with the complexities of driving and maintaining petrol vehicles, should buy electric vehicles instead. Men, by contrast, were assumed to be more capable mechanics, for whom greater complexity and lower reliability were prices worth paying for powerful, manly petrol vehicles with superior performance and range.

Even Henry Ford's wife drove an EV. And at one point, For joined forces with Thomas Edison to develop an electric car. 

But the car was repeatedly delayed, as Edison tried and failed to develop an alternative to the heavy, bulky lead-acid batteries used to power electric cars. Eventually, the entire project was quietly abandoned.

I wonder if it's still the case that men prefer the noise-making F150 to a gently purring Prius?

If so, let's get the same type of marketers who were able to shift Marlboro cigarettes from a "ladies' brand" to a John Wayne, macho-man best seller. 

It can't happen soon enough. Cars and trucks account for 17% of overall global carbon dioxide emissions. 

Let's go, Electrobats of the future!

Even in landlocked, Tennessee, looks like you have to look out for icebergs

Much as I worship at the altar of Dolly Parton, it's highly unlikely that I'll ever get to Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, home of Dollywood, her Appalachian-themed amusement park. Thus, I will miss out on all of the delights that Pigeon Forge has to offer. (In case you're wondering, no, they don't forge pigeons there. The town was named for an iron forge located there along the banks of the Pigeon River.)

One of the delights I'll be missing out on is the Titanic Museum Attraction. This RMS Titanic is a half-sized replica of the actual ship, and once you're aboard, you get to "experience" first-hand - or is it second-hand - just what it was like being on the real thing.  Well, maybe not just like being on the real

thing, as you know that you're going to survive. But the experience comes with a number of goodies:

• Receive a Boarding Pass of an actual Titanic passenger/crew member
• View $4.5 million + of Titanic artifacts
• Walk the $1 Million exact replica of Titanic’s Grand Staircase
• Touch an iceberg and feel 28-degree water
• Shovel “coal” in Titanic’s Boiler Room
• Learn how to send an SOS distress signal
• Experience the Sloping Decks of the ship’s stern as she descended
• Sit in an actual size lifeboat and hear true passenger stories
• Visit Tot-Titanic – an interactive area for young guests 8 and under
• Discover your passenger’s fate in the Titanic Memorial Room

Museums didn't used to be quite so experiential. When I was a kid, the big deal was to go to Old Sturbridge Village, where authentic early 19th century buildings were hauled in to create a faux yet real (real yet faux?) town. There, the village smithy would hand every kid who listened to his spiel a nail that he'd just made, and you got to sit in a one-room classroom hoping that you weren't the kid they made wear the dunce cap. 

But nothing like shoveling coal, or "coal" even, let alone discovering my passenger's fate. I'm sure they're quite judicious about who gets handed the metaphorical Ace of Spades. Most people, especially those touring with kiddos, probably don't want to learn that a family member has gone down with the ship. Unless that family member is a teenaged boy, who'd more than likely be delighted to learn that he hadn't made it into a lifeboat. 

In real life, I'm pretty sure that I wouldn't have survived the sinking of the Titanic.

No, I would have been an Irish immigrant in steerage, with pretty good odds on meeting a watery death, probably without ever even having the chance to hear the ship's orchestra playing "Nearer My God, to Thee."

Anyway, the Pigeon Forge Titanic has other wonders to offer.

There's a tribute to Jewish passengers and crew. 

"Did you know there was a kosher kitchen and kosher chef on Titanic?" No, I did not, as I don't think this was covered in any of the Titanic movies I've seen: Titanic (1953); A Night to Remember (1958); The Unsinkable Molly Brown (1964); and Titanic (1997). No time, I guess, what with having to deal with the subplot of John Jacob Astor and his bride being on board. 

And then there's this bit of hokum:

Personally, I'd just as soon discover that my passenger fate was death rather than listen to any cutesy aye-aye story telling with First Class Maid Jodi.

Pigeon Forge is not, by the way, the country's only Titanic Museum Attraction. You will not be surprised to learn that there's a companion piece in Branson, Missouri.

There's also a Titanic Museum in Cobh, Ireland, which promises a Titanic experience.

I have actually been to this museum. But that was years ago, and all I remember was that there were a bunch of exhibits in what was the former White Star Line offices. It was interesting enough. After all, Cobh (then Queenstown) was the last port of call for the Titanic before heading out on its ill-fated cross-Atlantic voyage. Cobh was where they picked up the Irish immigrants. I don't know where my great-grandparents emigrated from. The majority of Irish immigrants shipped out of Cobh, but others left from Belfast, Galway, and Liverpool. 

Today, the Irish Titanic experience has a lot in common with the Pigeon Forge one. 

• Upon check-in you will receive your boarding card. Your boarding card will have the details of one of the 123 passengers who came to the White Star Line Ticket Office on Thursday April 11th 1912...
• During your visit, you will experience life aboard Titanic and learn a little about the conditions on board for third and first class passengers...
• When disaster strikes, you will experience the chill of the sinking, through a unique cinematographic experience...
• Did you survive? The final element of the experience is located in the story room, where you will learn the fate of you as a passenger and all the other Queenstown passengers.

Did I survive? As I noted early, probably not.

Fortunately, the three guests who were injured at Pigeon Forge Titanic did survive the recent collapse of the Attraction's iceberg wall, which was probably a lot more realistic and nearer-my-God-to-thee-ish than the experience of slip-sliding away on the Sloping Deck or the chill of (non-)sinking.

Those harmed were taken to the hospital with unspecified injuries, Mary Kellogg Joslyn and John Joslyn wrote on the attraction’s Facebook page.

“Needless to say, we never would have expected an incident like this to occur as the safety of our guests and crew members are always top of mind,” the owners said.

The ship-shaped museum closed after the collapse but reopened for those with tickets on Tuesday, according to a post. The owners said the affected area has been blocked off, and they estimate it will take at least four weeks for the iceberg wall to be rebuilt. (Source: Huffington Post)

The Pigeon Forge PD reports "that the collapse appears to be accidental."

But those Titanic passengers sure have a story to tell. "We were on vacation in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, when an iceberg fell on us..."

Great news! My student loan forgiveness application was approved!

Because I am old, and went to school when school didn't cost nearly as much as it does now, I escaped with very little debt. For college, I borrowed - and, thus, owed - nothing. I may have borrowed a minor amount for the year I spent thinking I was going to get my PhD. Maybe a $1,000 worth of 3% loan. I think my mother paid it back. The only borrowing I know I did was for business school, and I was able to pay that back quickly. Because, well, business school.

More recent grads aren't so lucky. For a lot of reasons I won't go into here, college has gotten more expensive. Many schools lure students in with great packages for the first year. After that first year ends, they figure that a lot of students will have made friends and want to stay. So year two and beyond is going to cost more. Which means loans, many of them from commercial lenders.  

The average student exits college with a diploma and nearly $30K in debt. (For MBA's, the average debt is a bit over $66K. I think my B-school debt was around $4K.)

Anyway, given my advanced age and my lack of debt, I was surprised to get a call from a scammer letting me know that my non-existent loan forgiveness application has been approved. 

Hey, this is Mark calling again. Agent I. D. 3077 I'm not sure if you got the correspondence in the mail. But your forgiveness application for your student loans was approved. Give me a call back as soon as you get this message. My direct line is 7272954557. Again 7272954557 Your forgiveness application was approved meeting your student loans are eligible for partial or total forgiveness. Now, with everything going on, it's a lot harder to pay back these loans. The department of Education knows this. So go ahead and give me a call back again. That's 7272954557. Thank you.

Now, Mark sounded young and pleasant enough, in a young hustling sales guy sort of way. The mental image that popped into my mind was a very good looking black-haired sales guy I worked with a million years ago. Of course, Mark may be young, and he's certainly not pleasant. What he is is a total scam-artist POS, thieving his way through life and, perhaps, trying to pay back his college loans. That or "Mark" doesn't really exist as "Mark" or any other game. Maybe he's just a wannabe actor doing voice-over work who was asked to make a recording for a POS scam factory and thought it was actually a legit gig that would look good on his c.v.

If Mark's a real person who works in this scum-bucket loan scam shop, I hope he ends up in jail. If he's just a voice-over "artist", I hope he finds a new line of work.

Meanwhile, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is after scum-scam outfits like the one who tripped onto my voicemail. But as with all such scum-scams, it's like playing Wack-a-Mole. Close down one shop, another one pops up somewhere else.

What they do is lure unsuspecting small-m marks in with a promise of helping student debtors find forgiveness and lower payments, in return for paying hefty upfront fees.  There are over 40 million folks out there, with trillions of dollars worth of debt, so there's a big audience for this type of scam operation. 

Like any normal, decent person, I hate everything about scammers who prey upon people, catching them when their guard is down, giving false hope while roping folks in with phony promises they can ill afford.

The great news is that, even though I hadn't applied my student loan forgiveness application has been approved. The not so great news is that there are going to be plenty of decent younger folks sucked in to this scam.

Sigh.

As minor dead celebrities go, Bob Ross is right up there.

Maybe WGBH never ran it, or maybe I had better things to do when it was on, but I never saw Bob Ross' Joy of Painting show, which ran for 400+ episodes back in the day. What I do know about it is that Ross was a mediocre painter who developed a technique to teach a lot of Sunday painters to create a lot of mediocre paintings. His specialty, I take it, was stilted, lifeless landscapes, more of which were produced, in turn, by his disciples.

Nothing wrong with that. Take it from a Sunday writer, if Sunday painting gives you pleasure, have at it. Everyone isn't going to be an Henri Matisse or David Hockney. (Everyone isn't going to be an Alice Munro or Toni Morrison, either.) Yet we can all derive enjoyment by noodling around with something that, well, we enjoy.

Bob Ross died 26 years ago, but Bob Ross, Inc., lives on.

Thanks to searingly modern platforms like Twitch and Pluto TV, Ross has become a mainstay of the digital universe — particularly during the pandemic, when the popularity of a new Bob Ross channel skyrocketed as people trapped at home turned to their televisions for therapy.

Ross provides a reductio ad absurdum for a quiet digital-age truth: A sprinkling of coveted intellectual property can allow a shrewd company to punch well above its weight. You can now catch Ross on YouTube or your smart TV, on “Saturday Night Live” or in a popular Marvel sendup. Soon you’ll even see him as the subject of a Netflix documentary produced by the actress Melissa McCarthy that reportedly slams [Bob Ross, Inc. executive Joan] Kowalski for how she and her parents, Walt and Annette — Ross’s former partners — wrested control of the Bob Ross empire from his son. (That one is not licensed.)

As a living figure, Ross, a former Air Force enlistee who became a sideways American hero, was unusual. As a posthumous brand, he is telling — what happens when the stodgiest of entertainment figures is pulled into the 21st-century world of Deadpool GIFs and Gen Z obsessions, of ubiquitous video programming and hopped-up Mountain Dew commercials. (Source: WaPo)

The story is all pretty interesting. A few years ago, Joan Kowalski - looking out on the Bob Ross audience of graying Boomers and pre-Boomers - decided she needed to kick in with the next gen. So she worked out a deal in which a Bob Ross Marathon appeared on Twitch, a digital gaming platform.

Apparently there was something about Ross - his anodyne personality, his gentle way, his calming smile, his groovy white-guy Afro - that appealed to normally hyped-up gamers. Six million of them tuned in. 

And Bob Ross, Inc. decided to cash in. Next thing anyone knew, the Bob Ross brand was on all sorts of consumer products, including Monopoly and waffle-makers. 

Meanwhile, an organic subculture was growing around Ross, with 100,000-strong Instagram fan accounts and bustling subreddits like r/HappyTrees. These weren’t people jollied by the guy with the funny hair. They were men and women who found spiritual meaning in Ross’s fluid style of painting and Zen approach to life, a new religion with mindfulness as its credo and social media as its temple.

There were other venues where folks could worship at the Ross altar: a YouTube channel (with almost 5 million subscribers), and Instagram page (200k+ followers), reruns of his Joy of Painting shows from the 1980's and early 1990's.  

But wait, there's more!

There's even a Mountain Dew ad in which a Bob Ross digitally goosed look-alike endorses The Dew. 

And just in time for the pandemic, Cinedigm, a digital media-streaming company, launched a streaming Bob Ross channel. Turns out, painting along with Bob is a cure for whatever there is about the lockdown that ails you. 

The Kowalski family has certainly cashed in on the fact that they were early promoters and partners of Bob Ross. 

But Bob Ross' son Steve called foul. (This is the topic of the aforementioned Netflix documentary, which - mark your calendars - drops on August 25th.) Steve Ross claimed that some of the Bob Ross assets belonged to him. 

Unfortunately for Steve, a judge found that the Kowalski's own the entire shebang, the entire Bob Ross intellectual and physical property, including all the paintings Bob Ross created on his shows.  The Kowalskis even own Bob Ross' image.

Those paintings - there are over 1,000 of them - aren't (yet) available for sale, but I'm sure that there are plenty of Bob Ross aficionados who'll fork over plenty to get their hands of them, which they can hang next to their Thomas Kincade picture of a well-lit Keebler elf house, signed in Kincade's blood. (I. Am. Such. A. Snob.)

All I can say, as dead celebrities go, Bob Ross may be a minor one, but in terms of cashing in, he's right up there. Make that the Kowalskis are right up there. Unless there's cash in the afterlife, Bob, alas, is never going to see a penny.

Look, up in the sky!

Maybe it's just me, but it does seem to take a particularly aggressively stupid and malign type of a-hole to take to the skies over airports wearing a jet pack.

Yet, there was he - I'm being a sexist here and presuming he was a "he" - was last week, picked up in the sightline of a commercial airline pilot in Los Angeles last week. (Note that this isn't a pic taken by the pilot. It's just a generic guy jetpacking around.)

While the sighting wasn't confirmed:

On Wednesday evening, Los Angeles International Airport air traffic controllers warned pilots to proceed with caution after spotting what they thought was a man in the sky.

A Boeing 747 pilot "reported seeing an object that might have resembled a jetpack," the Federal Aviation Administration told USA TODAY in a statement. The pilot reported the jetpack approximately 15 miles east of the airport and flying at an elevation of about 5,000 feet. (Source: USA Today)

This wasn't the first reported jetpack flyboy for LAX. 

The supposed jet pack sighting follows several others dating back to early 2020. In December 2020, a Southern California pilot captured a video of what appeared to be a person with a jet pack flying off the Palos Verdes Peninsula at around 3,000 feet.

Another sighting was reported in August 2020, after two different commercial airline pilots reported seeing a man in a jet pack hovering near LAX, ABC News reported. (Source: ABC News)

According to the FAA, they've seen an uptick in "unmanned aircraft sightings" over the last couple of years, and now are getting about 100 a month.

I guess this takes into account all sorts of UFOs. And drones. And model airplanes. And I guess they lump in guys in jetpacks with "unmanned aircraft sightings," even though these sightings are more like manned unaircraft. 

Whatever you want to call it, it's unsettling. Right up there with the aggressively stupid and malign type of a-hole who flashes lasers at flights in hopes (?) of blinding a pilot and causing a crash.

Unauthorized operators flying around airplanes, helicopters and airports is illegal and may be subject to fines and criminal charges, including jail time, the FAA Says. The FAA spokesperson said the agency works with the FBI to investigate these sightings.

If these are the real deal - and no sightings have as yet been confirmed - I hope they throw the book at these gems. 

Bad enough we have to worry about some private plane pilot getting too close. Or seagulls getting sucked into the engines. Or pilot or air traffic controller error that puts two planes on a collision course. Now we have to worry about the laser guys, drone operators, and jetpack jerks. Sheesh.

It would be one thing if it was just the jetpack guy who'd die in a close encounter with a plane. That I could happily live with. But I'm guessing that running into one of them could send the fully loaded, passenger'd up plane crashing and burning. 

I'm sure that for those who've always fantasized being a bird, or one of the Jetsons, strapping on a jetpack and taking off is a true thrill. But how about doing it in an area that's not heavily trafficked by actual airplanes, where there are no flight paths?

Seriously, these guys should be grounded.

And I thought that the vaccine refuseniks were behaving like selfish jerks... 

I think that Steiners are owed at least $57M. And you?

A little over a year ago, news broke that senior members of the eBay security team had been harassing a suburban Boston couple. The Steiners - Ina and David - publish a website devoted to the goings and comings of the eCommerce industry. The website, EcommerceBytes, is the Steiners' business, and they run it out of their home. eBay is a frequent focus of their news and commentary. (Pink Slip blogged about this here.)

Somewhere along the line, EcommerceBytes caught the eye of then eBay CEO Devin Wenig. Among the things that Wenig got his shorts in a knot over was:

...an April 10, 2019, article titled “eBay CEO Devin Wenig Earns 152 Times That of Employees.”

Rather than actually do anything about his making 152 times more than the average eBay employee, Devin Wenig trickled his displeasure down to Steve Wymer, then eBay's SVP for communications. Wymer, in turn, passed the issue off to James Baugh, the man formerly in charge of worldwide security.

You'll notice that Wenig, Wymer, and James are all "formers."

Although he claims that he was not aware of the harassment campaign directed at the Steiners, Wenig was more of less the trigger man. His thin skin set off the cascade of nastiness. For his trouble, Wenig got a walk-away package worth $57 million, pretty much underscoring the Steiners' point that Wenig is paid too damned much.

Wymer was also fired for the role he played. He is not facing any criminal repercussions. 

Not that Wenig and Wymer are innocent bystanders in all that happened. In referring to Ina Steiner, Wenig had said, "Take her down." Wymer, for his part, texted Wenig, "We are going to crush this lady."

“I want to see ashes,” he said at one point. “Whatever it takes.” (Source: NY Times)

But neither Wenig nor Wymer was directly implicated in the evil doing. Because, you know, "take her down," "crush," and "ashes," well, that's all metaphorically speaking speech. 

Anyway, since the harassment against the Steiners has been revealed, six eBay employees and one contractor have been criminally charged, including Baugh. Last week, the first of the eBay Seven to be sentenced. Philip Cooke, who had been a senior manager for security ops under Baugh, received 18 months in prison for his handiwork. The others are awaiting sentencing/trial.

Harassment does not quite do it for describing what the Steiners went through. 

Sure, some of the harassing deeds were minor. A bit prankish in nature, amateurishly so: the middle of the night unordered pizza delivery; signing them up for newsletters for "Heather's Irritable Bowel Syndrome News" and the like. 

But some of the newsletters weren't as "amusing" as "Heather's IBS News." Porn newsletters. Bondage. Porn sent to neighbors in the Steiners' name. 

Inevitably, Twitter got in on the act, with attacks from a new anonymous account made against Ina Steiner. 

Some of what the Steiners were subjected to was criminal but somewhat minor league vandalism. Like spraypainting the word "Fidomaster" (apparently another online eBay adversary) on the Steiners' fence. 

But a lot of what the Steiners have had to put up with is just godawful, scary, terrible  beyond belief. 

Someone ordered a fetal pig for them. Fortunately, there was a question about the delivery address, so the Steiners were able to fend that one off. But they did take delivery of a "mask of a bloody pig face, like the one worn by a crazed killer in the “Saw” horror movie series."

Other unwanted deliveries started to arrive:

 One day it was a book for David called “Grief Diaries: Surviving Loss of a Spouse.” Ina said she Googled the return address of another package, and when she discovered the sender was called Carolina Biological Supply Co., she feared they might need to call a hazmat team. A call to the company revealed the package was filled with live spiders and fly larvae; they turned it over to the police.

A few days later, a florist arrived with a sympathy wreath for David. The driver told the Steiners he had come from Central Square in Cambridge and was instructed to leave the $255 wreath by their back door without ringing the bell. (Source: Boston Globe)

Things escalated from there. Black vans with NY plates started cruising by their home. And following them when they left. 

“I can still feel how every hair on the back of my neck stood up,” David said, as the van followed him for several blocks.

The Steiners were being terrorized but, fortunately, eBay' crack harassment team was pretty much The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight. David Steiner was eventually able to get a clear picture of the license plate of one of the stalking vans, and it was traced to an eBay contractor. 

Amidst all this, eBay was reaching out to the Steiners, telling them that they were concerned about the harassment they were dealing with, and would try to help them resolve it. Nice!

Eventually, the FBI stepped in, and the arrests and charges began.

eBay has apologized to the Steiners and, in the wake of a civil lawsuit filed by the Steiners on July 21:

...eBay issued a new statement, again apologizing to the couple and saying the company would “do what is fair and appropriate to try to address what the Steiners went through.”

I would think that what's "fair and appropriate" is, at minimum, the equivalent to the $57 million that eBay gave Wenig. 

Meanwhile, Steve Wymer - who now goes by "Steve W" on Linkedin - is the President & CEO of the Boys and Girls Clubs of Silicon Valley. Perhaps not fully landing on his feet. I'm guessing the new gig isn't quite as lucrative as eBay was for him. But he has landed. 

Then there's Devin Wenig. Ain't no one or no thing gonna take him down. He's still on the board of GM, and was recently added to Salesforce's Global Advisory Board. And he gets to sit around running his charitable trust. That's what a golden parachute can get you!

As for the the eBay Seven, let's see where their career trajectories take them once they've been tried and/or sentenced. 

He slices and dices no more

Our brains are stuffed with all sorts of nonsense. Sure, some of what's in there is useful. Your Social Security number. Your cousin's birthday. How to parallel park. Your preferred towel brand now - maybe, maybe not - on sale at Bed Bath & Beyond. How to compute the tip.

But an awful lot of what's beneath the cranium is pretty darned useless. 

Oh, I suppose it's there for my amusement, but what good is it that I still remember the theme song to the Quick Draw McGraw cartoon? And maybe I'll make a deathbed confession and it will come in handy, but 'til then, it matters not that I can still reel off the Seven Gifts and the Twelve Fruits of the Holy Ghost.

And then there are all the ads of my youth. Spedy Alka-Seltzer, come on down! Choo-choo Charlie flogging Good 'n Plenty. Atsa spicy meatball. Mother, please, I'd rather do it myself. 

None more indelible, perhaps, than the info commercials for all sorts of crap that we didn't know we wanted or needed, but which suddenly we craved. 

Who didn't want a Veg-o-Matic in their house? It slices! It dices! All the things my mother did with the handy little black-handled kitchen utility knife her father (a butcher) gave her when she got married, and which she was still using - even with nips out of the blade - until she died. But my mother's knife wasn't advertised on TV. It would have been a lot cooler to have a Veg-o-Matic.

If we couldn't have a Veg-o-Matic, why not a set of Ginsu Knives. How great were the Ginsu Knives? You could slice the ham so thin, your in-laws would never come back. How. About. That.

Mr. Microphone ads probably couldn't stand the scrutiny of our more woke era, when women just don't put up with the crap they used to. But, in my family at least, we have a call and response around the ad where the car full of kids are out cruising in their convertible, hassling people they slow-drive by, making remarks on their very own Mr. Microphone. 

Call: Hey, good-lookin'.

Response: We'll be back to pick you up later.

IRL they probably wouldn't have been back later, especially given that the girl city in the back seat with the Mr. Microphone guy whacks him in the arm when he calls out to the good-lookin' chick.

I don't know whether these were all products sold by TV (UHF, non-network, cheeseball channels only) pitch master Ron Popeil. But they were sure sold in his spirit.

Anyway, Ron Popeil has died, taking his food dehydrator, bagel cutter, smokeless ashtray, and - of course - the Popeil Pocket Fisherman with him to the Great Beyond. Because, what's a heaven for if you can't evenly slice a bagel. Or spray hair on your bald spot. (Not that I have a bald spot, but, who knows, I may (non)sprout one by the time I push off to the GB.

Popeil and his confreres, including the latter day uber-hawker, Billy May of OxiClean fame, have been widely parodied. 

There, in the far reaches of my noodle stuffed with oodles of useful gunk, is Dan Aykroyd pitching the Bass-O-Matic on SNL. Just looked it up. That was 1976, almost 50 years ago.

Even further back, on The Honeymooners, Ralph Kramden and Ed Norton got involved in a marketing scheme and went on TV - then more of less in its infancy - to make their fortune selling the Chef of the Future, which could slice tomatoes, scale fish, and, yes, it could even CORE A APPLE. 

This Honeymooners episode aired in 1955, so it actually anticipated, and perhaps even inspired, Ron Popeil, who did his first TV ad in 1956. 

With the death of Popeil, should we now be saying that the promise of But wait, there's more is broken?

Nah.

After all, there's still plenty of Yankee Swap-worthy items pitched on TV. Who can forget the Snugli? And I have to say that one of my go-to kitchen gadgets is a small Foreman Grill that a friend gave me for Christmas ages ago. It's so ancient, so first-gen, that there's no off-on switch. You plug it in, it's on. You want it, off: pull the plug. But it's incredibly useful for roasting asparagus, or peppers, or a solo chicken breast. I use it pretty regularly.

Still, it's the ads from the way-back that are really lodged in the recesses of my brain. Where they more or less belong. Until I need to dredge up a memory with no muss, no fuss. 

Any stupid ad, theme song, or catechism answer I'd like to retrieve? Hey, good lookin'. I'll be back to pick you up later. 

Back in the mask again. Sigh!

When the word went out that fully vaccinated folks were free to walk around the cabin of life unmasked, I gladly put my masks away. The three exceptions have been when I've ridden (rarely) on public transportation, when I've taken an Uber, and when I'm volunteering at St. Francis House, the Boston day shelter I've been involved with for eons, where they're required. I gladly wear my mask there, where I'm in a close and crowded environment, and where there's no guarantee that the guests - who are required to wear a mask, too - have been vaccinated.

But for the past few months it's been nice to take my walks maskless, to sit in a restaurant, and to drop into stores without having to don the mask.

As of this week, however, while I can still take my walks without covering mouth and nose, CDC guidance is now recommending masks indoors, even if you're vaccinated.

It was fun while it lasted.

But thanks to the refuseniks, there's been an uptick in covid instances and, while those who've been vaxxed are almost entirely asymptomatic or experiencing very mild symptoms, we can unknowingly carry a viral load with us. So, to be on the safe side, I'm masking in doors. 

In terms of safe side, this is 99% to keep the other guy safe. Not that I want to catch any form of covid, however mild, but the chance of becoming gravely ill with covid post-vaccination is small. Not infinitesimally small, but small enough to not be worrisome. But I don't want to spread covid to someone who's not able to be vaccinated for some reason, or to an innocent kid, or even to a lunkhead who's selfish refusal to get vaccinated puts us all at risk. 

I had figured that by mid-fall, when it was getting darker and colder out, I was going to be back masking in the grocery store, etc. But this is a few months ahead of schedule.

Sigh.

I do have a trip with my sister Trish planned for Vermont next week. Vermont is pretty much a covid-free paradise - the Number 1 state in terms of percent of population fully vaccinated. As of Wednesday, 67.4%. Massachusetts is second, with 63.6% - not that far off from Vermont, but Vermont apparently escaped the flood of non-vaccinated free-riders of the sort who who showed up in Provincetown over the Fourth of July to take advantage of Massachusetts excellent vaccination hygiene and start spreading Delta variant all over the place. 

Thanks, outsiders. Hope you didn't let the door hit your virus-spreading self in the butt on the way out. On second thought, I wouldn't mind if the door crashed right into you. Glad you're gone. Don't come back anytime soon.

On reflection, I'm being a bit too harsh here. Those P'town covid spreaders may, in fact, have been vaccinated but caught asymptomatic/limited symptom covid from a vaccine refuser - and innocently and unwittingly spread it at a crowded tea dance.

So please allow me to redirect my ire to the vaccine refusers. IF YOU'RE FROM HERE, GET VACCINATED. IF YOU'RE NOT FROM HERE, STAY THE HELL OUT. 

Anyway, I'm hoping that Vermont will welcome us. I will pack some masks and my vaccine card, just in case.

Other than the Vermont trip, and a family dinner or two, most of my upcoming events are outdoors. Crowded, but outdoors.

Will I have to wear a mask to next week's Billy Joel concert? To my early September game at Fenway? Yes, they're both outdoors, but when all those thousands of fans start singing along to "Uptown Girl" (Billy Joel) or "Sweet Caroline" (Red Sox game, mid-8th inning), there'll be plumes of germs spreading. I may end up singing through my mask. 

Did I already say "Sigh"? Worth repeating. Sigh.

I also have mid-September tickets to the Woo Sox - my first trip to Worcester's Polar Park. Don't know what they sing there, other than "Take Me Out to the Ball Game"; don't know where things will stand, covid and maskwise, by then. 

I did read that the vaccination rate has picked up among the reluctant, so maybe we'll be okay. A number of Republican "leaders" have apparently decided that it's best not to kill off their voters, and have reluctantly but at last been coming around to urging their constituents to get vaccinated. So there's that bit of good news. (It must have been a tough call for them, since it appears that many of these treacherous, god-awful wankers were content to let the pandemic drag on so they could blame the Biden administration for its continuation.)

Anyway, I am just so sick and tired that we're being held captive by vaccination resisters. Whatever their motivation - political venom, sense of invincibility, conspiracy theorist, procrastination, good old stupidity - I have little sympathy with those who are f'ing things up for the rest of us. I hope that governments, healthcare systems, and private employers all start mandating vaccinations. Let restaurants and theaters start demanding to see vaccine cards. Sure, they'll be easy enough to fake, but it will be something. 

We can beat this back if we get more folks vaccinated. 

In the meantime, I'm back in the mask again, at least when I have to go into a store and pick up a couple of birthday cards. I've got my cloth masks at the ready; I have a good enough supply of blue surgical masks; and I just Amazon'd some N95's. I am so NOT looking forward to those fogged up glasses. 

Sigh. Sigh. Sigh. 

Pulls (rhymes with gulls). There's an app for that!

When I was a kid, apples with a bruise or rot spot on them were called "pulls." Which rhymes with "hulls," "gulls", "trulls." 

I don't know if this term is particular to New England, Massachusetts, Worcester, or my family. Is it Irish (c.f., my father)? Is it German (c.f., my mother)? I don't know whether I've ever heard anyone else use the word, and The Google came up with nada.

Until the other evening, I had a few "pulls" in my fridge, leftovers from a trip to the orchard last fall. Things last a good long while in my fridge, which is quite excellent. So the "pulls" weren't awful-awful. Not great for eating-eating, but okay on a peanut butter sandwich. And perfectly fine for apple sauce, which I made up a batch of, making space in the fruit drawer for more fruit, including some non-"pulls."

This is exactly what my mother would have done if she'd found herself with a bunch of "pulls", back in the day when we didn't waste a lot of food. No one did. Something had to be really over the brink before my mother tossed it out. Garbage - which was wrapped up in newspaper and tied with twine - consisted mostly of eggshells, banana and orange peels, chicken bones, and coffee grounds. Apple cores, too, but there was seldom much left of that apple. (When my father was a kid, when someone was eating an apple, the first kid to call "coresies" got to munch on the core. Yum!)

Oh, I'm sure that occasionally there was a dab of something that "wasn't worth saving", and that my mother threw out, but not much. We ate leftovers until there were no more leftovers. 

Personally, I don't waste a lot of food. Before I got my quite excellent fridge, I used to waste more. Way back in the day, I had a fridge on its last legs that was so tropical-jungle humid that it could turn a perfectly good cucumber into a suppurating mass of gloop within minutes, but my current fridge is a keeper. 

So I'm pretty good about not letting things go to waste. 

I like having leftovers, and consume them with great relish until there is nothing left to consume. Once in a while, there's a piece or two of too-stale bread, or moldy cheese, that needs to go. And try as I do to use up that bunch of basil, parsley, or dill, most of what I throw out is herb-ish.

I might not be much of a food waster, but I've seen numbers floating around like 80 billion tons, 100 billion tons, thrown away in the US each year. An astonishing 40% of the food supply. 

Most of this isn't coming from us individuals throwing away parsley that's gone soupy. It's coming from stores, restaurants, and farms.

But now there are companies stepping up to help steer surplus food into our fridges and pantries before it rots.

At Red Apple Farm’s stand inside the Boston Public Market, hungry passersby can pick up a “surprise bag” of misshapen doughnuts, minidoughnuts, bruised apples, or just leftover food for about one-third of retail cost. (Source: Boston Globe)

Red Apple is selling about 100 bags each month, and they're doing it by using:

...the app Too Good To Go, which sells surplus food from restaurants and other suppliers directly to customers at a fraction of its normal price.

This is a great idea, especially given that food banks won't typically take pre-cooked food, and most won't take canned goods that are past their expiration date - even though, as we all know, those canned goods are perfectly fine for a good long time beyond that sell by/use by date. Some food banks don't have much by way of refrigeration, so can't accept dairy or fresh foods that need to stay cool. 

Then there's OLIO, which lets people nearby know when you're tossing out food - "home-cooked, home-grown," whatever - that's still got some life in it. Today, OLIO, which has been around now for six years:

...serves 4.3 million users globally and has shared 25 million portions of food plus 3 million nonfood items.

(Due to the pandemic, OLIO "pivoted to no-contact pickups.") 

There's also a delivery service, Imperfect Foods, that specializes in 

...saving foods considered unsellable, often because of physical deformities that don’t impact taste or nutritional value.

“We find product that’s too big, too small, too large, has a little blemish, maybe had some weather damage, like a sun-kissed cauliflower or a little yellowing on the kale or some spots on an apple,” said Maddy Rotman, the company’s head of sustainability. “And we make sure that food has a home.”

Imperfect started out with fruits and veggies. Then they added in other important food groups like: 

 Chocolate-covered pretzel bits sourced from the broken-off chunks at the bottom of the pack line in a pretzel processing plant.

Hmmm. That sounds good. So does the Red Apple surprise bag. Maybe I need to head on over to the Boston Public Market and buy myself a goody bag. Hope mine has minidoughnuts...

Let us now praise not-so-famous demolishers.

One of my brothers was a construction engineer. He built big stuff: manufacturing plants, apartment buildings, an aquarium, an American embassy in South America, and - the crowning glory of his career - Camden Yards, the Baltimore Orioles' stadium. 

After he stopped building things, he became a university professor and taught other engineers how to build things.

That's what construction people do: they build things.

And on the other end of the spectrum, there are destruction people, who implode buildings that need to be taken down. We all recently got to see destruction people in action when Controlled Demolition took down the section of Champlain Towers in Surfside, Florida, that was left standing when an entire wing collapsed, taking the lives of nearly 100 people. 

Destruction, or demolition, work is the opposite of construction. While both require a lot of upfront planning, construction takes a long time. Demolition? Poof! 

I will confess that I'm a sucker for watching videos of planned demolition.

And one time, I even got to watch one close up. That was in the early 1980's, when I witnessed, from a distance, the demise of the Manger Hotel in Boston. It's fascinating, that's for sure.

Controlled Demolition has been around for nearly 75 years, and it started small. The founder, Jack Loizeaux, had been trained in forestry, and his first use of explosives was to blow up stumps. Then:

In 1947, he demolished his first structure, a chimney at Aberdeen Proving Ground. It had frustrated the Army's explosives experts

"He said felling a chimney was like taking down a tree. You need a tiny bit of explosives, lots of prayer and God's gravity," said a son, J. Mark Loizeaux, president of the family-owned Controlled Demolition Inc. in Phoenix.

His father said that gravity and knowing where to place explosives were the principles that guided his work.

"Gravity is everywhere. It's free to everyone. It's an awesome power that's available out there if you know how to control it," he told The Sun in a 1995 interview. (Source: Jack Loizeaux's 2000 obituary in the Baltimore Sun)

Great demolition projects from little chimneys grew, and soon the company was traveling around the world, imploding housing projects that were past their use-by dates, defunct hotels (including the Sands in Las Vegas), used up factories, the Seattle Superdome, where pro football, basketball, and baseball had been played... Earlier this year, Controlled Demolition controlled the demolition of the Trump Plaza in Atlantic City. (Thar she blows! Wish I could have seen that one bite the dust.) 

And in a bit that combines Loizeaux family full circle and Rogers family six degrees of separation:

When clearing the site for Oriole Park at Camden Yards, Mr. Loizeaux had to demolish the Southern Seafood Co. building. He learned that it had been a Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. facility, whose design was approved by his father, A. S. Loizeaux, who had been the utility's chief engineer.

I know from my brother Tom that constructing things is very satisfying. At 69, he's still at it. Last year he built a house. Far more satisfying, I'd guess, than making the world safe for enterprise software. Or whatever it is I did during my career.

But I'm guessing there's probably something intensely satisfying about tearing things down, imploding buildings that are no longer needed to make way for the new.

I'm sure that Controlled Demolition approached the Champlain Towers project with mixed emotion. After all, this wasn't the end of an emptied-out hotel. It was the end of a condo building that people had escaped with their lives, but lost everything they owned. And the task had to be executed so that the efforts of those still searching for the remains of those in the not-so-lucky half of the building could safely continue.
At Surfside, Jack Loizeaux son Mark was the man of the hour, and he got the job done on short notice, without the usual long hours of planning that go into a major demolition.

Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava told reporters a demolition would take weeks. Loizeaux and his crew said they could do it in days.

“I think I can do this,” Loizeaux, CEO of Controlled Demolition Inc. of Phoenix, Maryland, recalled telling county and state authorities. “I can bring down the structure with minimal impact.”

Loizeaux appeared to deliver Sunday night — with an implosion that toppled the remaining 12-story structure in a matter of seconds and left what Levine Cava said was “only dust” on the existing rubble pile. (Source: Miami Herald)Once the mission was accomplished - a job Loizeaux said was "probably the most difficult we've been asked to approach" - the searchers were able to get on with their grim tasks of recovering the remains of those lost.

It's easy to heap praise on those who build great things, whose work we get to see and admire (and, of course, criticize). A little more difficult with those who demolish. But their work is important, too.

Let us now praise not-so-famous demolishers.

Did the world REALLY need a 6-foot long hotdog???

I walk through the North End of Boston - maybe once a month. And if I'm walking through the North End, I'm 99.9999% certain to be walking at some point on Salem Street. 

Even with all those walks, somehow, I've never noticed Pauli's. Even though it's been there for a decade.

But I'll be sure to notice it now - now that I've seen the write-up on their 6-foot hotdog. 

Not that I'm anti-hot dog or anything. Although I prefer a sausage sandwich, I'm always content to have a hotdog at Fenway Park. Sure the role is soggy, but if you squirt on enough mustard and relish - admittedly not easy on the relish side, as relish at Fenway comes in those mingy little squeeze packs that are hard to open and even harder to squeeze relish out of - those Fenway Franks are fine. Especially when consumed with a Cracker Jack appetizer and a Sports Bar chaser.

And although they haven't been open since covid hit - at least not when I've been by - I would occasionally stop for a hotdog at the little food stand on the Esplanade along the Charles River.

So I'm generally good for a few hotdogs a year.

My husband was a true hotdog lover.

On the day we found out that Jim's cancer was terminal, he decided that what he really wanted to eat was a hotdog. So we went to Cheers and ordered hotdogs. Why hotdogs? A few years before he died, while they were trying to track down the root cause of his anemia, Jim found out he had celiac disease, and went on a gluten-free diet.

Maybe things have improved since then, but back in the day, while many gluten-free options were just fine, the bread generally left something to be desired. And hotdog rolls were no exception.

Anyway, once Jim got the word, he figured it no longer made a ton of sense to strictly follow a gluten-free diet. And what he wanted most was a hotdog on a glutenous roll. Cheers was one of the only places we knew that had hotdogs on the menu, so off we went. Everybody there may not have known our names - we were regulars during the pre-Cheers TV show days, not after -  but those hotdogs hit the spot.)

But a six-footer?

Nah. Even if it's all gussied up. (Maybe especially because it's all gussied up.) 

There are six varieties: Chicago-style, with dill pickles,

chopped onions, relish, and mustard; a Seattle Dog slathered with cream cheese; a Cleveland dog with fries and coleslaw; and more. (The Pauli Dog is served over a pound of buttery lobster). (Source: Boston Globe)

The Chicago-style isn't all that gussied up, and would be my choice. But a hotdog "slathered with cream cheese"? I know you should never say never. I was appalled by the idea of mayonnaise on French fries until I tried it when I was on a business trip to Amsterdam years/decades ago, and found it was rather delish. Still, cream cheese on a hotdog? I'll say it: Never.

As for a hotdog topped with lobster. Now that is an atrocity. 

But the real atrocity is the price: $599.99, which works out to a hundred bucks a foot. 

Oh, it serves twelve, but that still works out to $50 per person for a hot dog. For that kind of money, you could order a Pauli's Lobsta Sub ($44.99) for everyone and still have some walking around money left over.

For $599.99 you could get a lot of things that could feed a dozen people, including really nice slabs of steak. Sure, you'd have to be willing to cook, but as long as your guests aren't vegetarian/vegan, your guests would probably be delighted to sup on sirloin or ribeye with a few sides. Paleo dieters would be thrilled! And cooking a steak isn't all that difficult a kitchen task. (Okay, it would take me a while to cook twelve steaks in my kitchen, but I'm guessing that anyone who'd consider paying $599.99 for a hotdog probably has access to an outdoor grill.)

I'm not sure Pauli's is actually selling this mega-dog. I did a cursory look at their website and couldn't find it. Maybe it was just a gimmick for National Hotdog Day. Or something.

I will say one thing. As a gimmick, it sure caught my attention. On my next swing through the North End - coming up soon - I'm tempted to stop by Pauli's and buy one of their "normal" sandwiches. My North End sandwich go-to is Bricco, but Pauli's menu looks pretty good. 

Just not the 6-foot long hotdog. Which is really not something that the world needs.