Holiday Season

The holiday season tip-toes toward you-- reddish leafy nights and trick or treaters in costumes with candy bags-- fog creeps across children's shoes and demonic cackles and ghostly boos by screen doors and before you have time to give candy away, Thanksgiving stands before you: fat basted turkeys, football games and eggnog-- families stroll the walkway, passed pockets of snowdrift that surround the sunken black toothed pumpkin named Bob but, inside the warmly lit living-room you eat, linger, and dream-- strung out on the couch thoughtless and satiated and when you leave, Christmas advertisements fly like Kamikaze's and Christmas classics inundate the airwaves; to the attic you bound with your pilgrim hats and turkey mats and down, one stepping your boxes of red, green and white ornaments and lights into living-rooms and windows, soon the sweet scent of pine and the crinkle of wrapping paper fill the air and the joy is immense and fleeting as the countdown begins, the Times Square ball, marking the passage of time and it drops. You wake in the fatigued hangover of the new year and the holidays have slipped away. You will then spiral along in the cold dark abyss of winter, waiting profoundly for spring. Good night.

Christmas memories

I wish I had the kind of memory that could reach back in time to when I was 8 years old and remember all the way back to last year, 2015. I don't. I remember bits and pieces, feelings I had, events and images.

One year, probably 1983- 84 when I was going through a horrible adjustment period in my new Randolph life. I had no friends. The other kids didn't seem to like me. I kept to myself. One day I happened to see a book on the spinning book rack at Fernandes Supermarket called, No one Here Gets out Alive. It's fiery orange yellow cover and threatening title grabbed my eye. I bought it with my paper route money. I loved it. It spoke to me. Morrison's loner mentality struck a chord. He made writing poetry cool. I was a closet writer at the time but not poetry. It made me want to be a writer, a poet, a song writer and cool crazy mother fucker. So I started dabbling in drugs. I always wore my hair somewhat long and now I really let it grow. I started sneaking booze from my dad's bar and cigarettes from my mom's carton. My parents observed my change. They knew I was listening to The Doors and totally immersed in a Jim Morrison lifestyle. They weren't happy about it but there really wasn't anything they could do except try and talk to me or just wait it out. The Christmas of 1984 there was only one thing I wanted: An American Prayer. It was a spoken word album combining Morrison's poetry with original music by the band, released posthumously. I knew I wasn't going to get it for Christmas and that I'd have to save my paper route money to get it. Well, after the presents were all revealed, colored wrapping paper torn in balls all over the floor beside the big blinking Christmas tree, my mom pulled the old, "what's that behind the bar" routine. When they brought it over to me I knew it was a record by its size and shape obviously. I held it like a golden egg, somewhat in disbelief. Then I opened it and saw the capital A-- at which point my mom smiled and said to my dad, "I'm not sure if this was a good idea." Eventually this phase of my life would fizzle out and by 1985, though still a fan of Morrison and the Doors, the infatuation was long gone. By 1985, I would meet new friends who would become friends for life. But, I'll always remember that gift and how difficult a decision it must have been for both of them yet they wanted to bring a little enjoyment into my troubled life.
 

A Note to the apprentice.

A note to any apprentice who's on the verge of taking his test. If you have not been in an electrical school environment within the passed year and a half, I highly suggest a refresher course. I failed my test badly, both parts. I hadn't opened the code book or calculated any formulas-- not even simple ohms law equations since 2010, my final year at Leo Martin. In 2016, my paperwork approved by PSI, I figured what the hell, let's get this thing done. But like I said, I got my ass kicked with a 56%. I realized I was in over my head and I had to take a refresher course and mid September I signed up for the Leo Martin course. Right away he started hitting on questions and answers, many of which I saw on the test, scored right or wrong. I relearned how to use the ampacity tables, load calculations, grounding and yes ohms law. So the week after the last class I made my appointment in Fall River (closest immediate date), went in, shaking like a leaf. It was still hard, very hard actually and at one point I thought I might fail again. However, I had the knowledge to navigate some of the trickier questions this time and I knew now that PSI worded their questions sometimes to trick you or make you think you have a quick easy answer. Two examples come to mind. The question is about hallway receptacles. Most apprentices know that you need one every ten feet. But on test day when you're already jumpy, they ask, in a hallway, what is the amount of feet before you need a receptacle. You look down at the answers and there is ten feet, right there first answer and you automatically jump at it because you didn't really read the question. Before is the key word. You look further down and there is 9 feet, the correct answer. Another one involves switches and again most apprentices know that every six stairs where there is a platform, a switch must be installed. So you get the question, how many stairs must you exceed before you have to install a switch. Bam. There it is, first answer A. 6 stairs. But again, exceeds is the operative word. You exceed 5 stairs before you must install a switch. Anyway, the test is filled with little PSI tricks. If you want to just try and get it your first time by all means but if you fail, trust me, take a refresher course. It was the best $750.00 I've ever spent. On my exams these were the test properties, if you will.

Part 1
general knowledge 8
services 11
grounding and bonding 7
wiring methods and devices 18
motors 4
transformers 1
low-voltage distribution 2
special occupancies and equipment 5
overcurrent protection 6
lighting 2
alarm systems 6


Part 2
circuit calculations 5
electrical schematics and plans 5
materials and components 6
trouble shooting and testing 6
massachusetts amendments 6
licensing laws and regulations 2

So now the question asks. Do I want to go for my Masters? I mean at this point in my career I don't plan on starting up a business. By most accounts, its not going to give me a huge pay raise just having it. If I did go for it, it would most likely be just for the prestige of having a masters license. It's really just a business certificate anyway. I don't know. I really just want to be a writer. Good luck kids. Study,study, study!

Here's the motivation:

Me still making $18.75 an hour

Me now making $27.00 an hour

Somehow, I guess it was fitting that afternoon after I passed my test. I left the building and fell right smack into a children's Christmas Day Parade that was marching right down Main Street passed the test center and all sorts of celebration from the crowd and parade sort of capped the excitement in my brain.

Fall River, a minute after I emerged from the test center.

aggravation

so aggravating when I start these posts, get on a roll and then something comes up and I have to stop, and get back to them later but at which point the muse or passion for it cools off.

Funny how my 90's music experiment became a summary of my life in that period, without the benefit of my journals, just on memory. Seems like my long term memory is still strong and clear but my short term weak as a fig. As far as the 90's music thing goes, I hope to reach 1999 and close it out. And touch upon a few more things I may have left out. Well, what can ya do? Suck it up and have breakfast at Tiffany's.

Me and Luke at Screamfest October 2016. Posing with statues.

Paige texted me this picture. Funny

The writer John Gardner died, two miles from his house after a motorcycle accident. I've been reading one of his books called On Becoming a Novelist and in it he describes, in a writer guilty kind of way how he and a buddy came across an accident where a young pregnant woman involved was bleeding to death. And though he did everything he could, and his buddy too, in his mind, as the writer, he was taking notes on how she bled, reacted, emotion and all the humaness surrounding this woman's death. I wonder what sort of lasting details or impressions went through his mind as his bike lost control and he crashed to his death....

Duxbury Bogs

As far back as my early 30’s, the landscape somehow awed me. In the morning or afternoon, sun or grey, rain or snow my gaze was always drawn to it whether I was a passenger or the driver. The landscape I’m talking about is on a stretch of Route 3A in Duxbury, near mile marker 21. It sits right along the highway, so close that if you pulled into the breakdown lane you could possibly jump into the water. It is a body of water, a pond with dead trees growing out from beneath it, straight and bare, never changing over the years, maybe. Something about it was dream-like, haunting, shriveled but magical. Whether I was fatigued or hung-over or distracted I would always turn my neck out the window to watch it travel by like I were a passing ghost. I mean, it’s a common thing, like any marker you would encounter I suppose— an old hanging tree, a field with a barn set back, a billboard. You remember them over the years, use them to gauge distance and time. However I always thought, “man, I love this scene. I would love to take a picture of it.” But then it’s gone and you are on your way to work, or the beach or the ferry.

I started working on a job sight in Duxbury back in April, today being November 23. It just so happened that I would pass this scene every morning to work. I kept thinking about the picture I wanted to take. There was no way I was going to pull over into the breakdown lane, hop the guard rail and fire away— too dangerous and time consuming. I kept making mental notes though as if I were planning to track it. Mile marker 21 off Route 3 South and beneath the overpass roads of Elm and East Street. I would turn my phone GPS on to see if the pond came up on it and if so was there a name. I google Earthed the area and saw more ponds, bigger ones around it and lots of cranberry bogs. I saw no streets around the pond, small trails I made out in the picture but nothing concrete.

Well finally, last night, I decided that if I got out of work early, I would try and find this landscape of my imagination. I brought my camera. We got out of work at noon. As I pulled out and on to the highway towards home I still wasn’t convinced I would actually do it and it wasn’t until I approached Exit 11 that I said fuck it— I’ll look around. I won’t commit. I took a circuitous path along local streets navigating towards where I hoped the area would be. My GPS showed nothing— just a blank open space. I came to East Street overpass and just before it was a dirt road with a big metal gate keeping out any would be adventurer. This had to be it. I turned off and parked by the gate. Obviously I wasn’t meant to go in but I sat there and pondered what to do. Fuck it. I got my camera, my jacket and proceeded on foot. It was a wonderful path through pine trees and cranberry bogs and I could hear the highway whizzing with cars. But no pond. I walked a good half mile before I realized it was probably the other way and I turned back, sat in my car and ate my lunch. I walked to the overpass and could see the pond, just as I thought, north. Then I decided to try and drive around a little, the way I came and find a rode that branched off towards the other direction where it might be. I pulled out and as I drove off, I spied out of the corner of my eye what looked to be a parking lot— a scenic view turn off. I turned around, parked and was greeted by a sign that read Duxbury Bogs and there were others walking their dogs along a trail that headed towards my objective. Man was I pumped. It took me all the way to my goal albeit a little different view than I was accustomed too seeing from the highway as here it was set more far off closer to the highway. I was thrilled anyway. I took some pictures and happily called it a day.

The first trail just through the gate

Trees on hill

Cranberry bog and trees

Rounding a corner

View through trees

Cranberries

My view objective

This is the photo that most resembles the roadside image. It is called Golden Reservoir.

Bubbles caught beneath a thin layer of ice

Everything I learned in life, I learned on Facebook.

Cool. I learned how to embed music on here

lost camcorder footage 99 hawaii

When Dano and Rich came to visit us in Hawaii in 1999, Dano had found a handheld camcorder on a bench outside the pizza bar we were eating in. He filmed some stuff, just a little and had forgotten about it until a couple of years later and gave me the tape. In 2006, I transferred the film from the camcorder to AVI file on computer. We were still playing tennis in 99 maybe not so much as years passed. Me and Rich had a huge rivalry, often trading victories until I developed my spin shot. Neither one could beat me for years. I even started playing tennis wearing my roller-blades but when I realized it was probably pissing people off, I stopped wearing them. By 99 they had figured it out and I was beatable again. God... has it been almost years? Seems like everytime I think of the past it's always twenty years ago.

FB

I had deactivated my Facebook account back in September so I was shocked to find out tonight it was still open. So I deactivated it again and well, hopefully it sticks. Weird....

Phone sweep

Just cleaning up my phone and came across these strange images from work I had captured.

Trump

What a long fucking day... that began with me waking up, turning on the computer and seeing, on Yahoo that Trump was our new president! Whoa, I couldn't believe it. And wouldn't you know it, on that same head page was the story (or non-story, in my eyes) of Tom Brady/Bill Bellicheck's last minute public support of Trump but whatever. It was like, I went to bed, the outcome was a forgone conclusion like a sporting event, a Superbowl or World Series that you knew your team had no chance to win. And by God, they won! Anyway, I voted for Trump (surprisingly Robin voted Hillary, last minute). Listen. I've never been about politics. I don't follow it, don't care for it and have very few opinions on their agendas. All I can say and I won't get into the endless back and forth rhetoric that I have to listen to from everyone else, is that I have always liked the way Trump thinks, his no nonsense approach to life, his motivation to make things better and I truly believe that he believes in the old ideas about America-- that it should be great again. I watched his show The Apprentice from the beginning and loved listening to his board room assessment of the game. I loved his old interviews on Howard Stern when he came across as just one of the guys. I've been tired for so long of the politicians. Manipulators, liars and to some degree murderers. Hillary isn't the first nor last to be involved in mixed up Benghazi type stuff... whatever, it happens. It's what politicians do. I felt we needed a change, some swagger, some hope. The last great American president was Reagan, the actor. Maybe it was time for a non politician to take the steed.

And just a few things that were important to me that Trump seems to be tackling and hopefully he will: build the fucking wall. Send the illegals home and make them come to this country the proper way. And enough free shit to illegals and terrorists and deadbeats. Get what you earn, earn what you get. Go after Isis, destroy those fucking maniacs. Check all Muslims or whatever it is he wants to do and keep this country safe. Get rid of Obama Care (without getting too much into it, part of that is that it gives 200.00 dollars worth of food stamps to heroin junkies who then turn around and sell them to Asian convenient stores for half the cost). And if you all don't like it, you got 4 years to get baked and piss and moan about how Trump is a racist, rapist and Putin bro mance uncouth fool. Hillary would be more of the same bullshit; Trump represents change... I hope.

It was nice to be on the side of the winning team too; the last time my vote seemed to count was when Bush Jr won. And no thanks to Massachusetts either or Braintree for that matter in 2016. Of course Mass backed Hillary, what 61% to 42% or something like that. I forget. Braintree too-- such smug Democrats. They even voted against the pot thing, 54% against, 45% for and in the prseidential race, voted for Hillary 52% to 42% (just checked on those numbers).

So on that note, I was at the gas station tonight after work (in Braintree), filling up the truck, listening to sports radio through my open window. A black man tapped me on the shoulder and pointed at my Trump/Pence bumper sticker, smiled and said, "nice sticker. We did it."

Had to vent somewhere. Most of my friends are Dems and voted Hillary. I see myself more as an Independent and make up my mind as things go in the race. However I remember one time watching The Apprentice and Trump was really laying in to one of the players, really just reprimanding them about fair play but at same time looking for strategy and I remember telling Robin, "I love this guy. He should run for president. He'd have my vote." True story.

selfie at work

tis the season... of cold and darkness dawning....

A tale of tunes-- the 90's. (in progress)

A little buzzed tonight. I wanted to create a sort of 90's collection of tunes that sort of, well, renewed my faith in music, after suffering through the pompousness and plasticity of the 80's. I started thinking about the idea but then it sort of stuck. As I thought about all the music then and as it related to my life, the list started to grow and expand so much that I needed more time to filter through the decade. My original idea was to just post maybe five videos of songs with some personal attachment to them, five tunes that defined what I was listening to and who I was but the list just kept expanding. I guess I kind of want to do a music journal of the 90's, by far the best moments of my single life.

Some tunes I distinctly remember hearing for the first times; others just came off the radio like machine gun fire-- I didn't know where the bullets were coming from but wow... pop, pop, pop, game on. Of this musical surge that began in 1991 but did not go mainstream until 1992 (at this point I was still listening to classic rock, the only exceptions really were REM and U2 two bands from the 80's that I loved. I would only warm up to Metallica years later), the first song I remember hearing was Jesus built my hot rod by Ministry https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXCh9OhDiCI  . I was living in Hawaii with Rich at the time, cruising around Oahu in his beat up Toyota and listening to the local rock station. It came on the radio as I was cruising down Kamehameha Highway, where huge waves crashed on the near shore and the tune just struck a vein. Sure there were the Guns 'N' Roses, Metallicas and Slayers and all the thrash bands-- and I admit I was a little snobbish back then. Classic rock was king and if you couldn't follow The Doors or Led Zeppelin or Neil Young then just give it up, I thought. But there was something fresh and exciting and hellbent in this song. Kill or be killed. Look out I'm coming. I was hooked. It was the first song of the dawning 90's generation that grabbed my shoulder and made me take notice.


Sometime after I returned from Hawaii, in the summer, I was working with my friend Slabs. He had a side gig, "man with truck" and he did a lot of landscaping and trash removal. One day we were cutting into pieces a fallen huge tree for removal and listening to the radio-- most likely the radio station was WBCN or WAAF, when this beautiful little song called, Under the bridge https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwlogyj7nFE and it came on and sucked me in right away. Even though the Chili Peppers had been around since about 1987, they were more of an underground sound. Now they were breaking through the charts and taking the music scene by storm.


Then almost overnight, a slew of music bombarded the airwaves like a gun fire-- pop, pop, pop. A new era of music was upon us. Nirvana lead the way. Pearl Jam. Temple of the Dog. Alice N Chains. Soundgarden. Screaming Trees. Grunge was born. It opened doors to more great artists, not necessarily grunge. Smashing Pumpkins. Jane's Addiction (another band that was jamming away in Indie obscurity alongside the Chili Peppers). Stone Temple Pilots. Blind Melon. Spin Doctors.Counting Crows.


There was a time when you couldn't go into a single club anywhere in or around Boston and not hear Nirvana. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTWKbfoikeg or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vabnZ9-ex7o. I've written about this before-- the night in Hollywood when I was at the Whisky on a random night and the headlining band was Courtney Love's band, Hole. She was married to Kurt Cobain at the time and it was February 1992. Well she's on stage, screaming, stumbling and lassoing the microphone and smoking cigarettes and drinking God knows what. I had no idea who she was, only that she was a drunken mess idiot. I had just started hearing about this new band Nirvana, enough that I remembered the name when Courtney started bagging on them and calling them sell outs. Sadly, Cobain died before I ever got a chance to see them perform.


Pearl Jam: Jeremy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MS91knuzoOA&list=PL42B5188E402C40DD&index=3

Temple of the Dog: Hunger Strike
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUb450Alpps

Alice N Chains: Would
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nco_kh8xJDs

Soundgarden: Jesus Christ pose
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14r7y6rM6zA

Smashing Pumpkins: Cherub Rock
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-KE9lvU810&list=RDq-KE9lvU810

Screaming Trees: I nearly lost you
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PE5f561Y1x4

Jane's Addiction: Jane says
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43iW8oB20Ps

Stone Temple Pilots: Interstate love song
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OtI0V5uS80

Obviously No rain was the tune that brought Blind Melon to the party https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qVPNONdF58. In my opinion, musically, they were the most underrated band of this era. They made three albums before Shannon Hoon went and killed himself on drugs but they were strong albums. The No rain video with the little girl in the bee costume-- I think her bee costume got just as much attention for awhile especially at Halloween. I remember first hearing the song around the time I worked at Maxi's Deli on Cobb's Corner. I was the dishwasher. It was my first full time job since I had returned home from a month long stay in Winnetka California with Dano (again that part of the story relates to the aforementioned Jolene so I will leave that alone for now). I got paid under the table-- it was either 6 or 8 buck's an hour which was pretty good for a dishwasher then. I liked the people-- the waitresses. The owner's daughter worked there as a waitress. Somewhat portly and with a mane of fiery red hair, the daughter had a crush on me and flirted and made references to us hooking up some night. Of course there was no way I was going down that road. But there was another waitress, older than me, nerdy looking with glasses, thin hipped and buxom chest. I had a crush on her. However, she had a long time boyfriend and was loyal, telling me one night after work (we went out one night drinking) that if he weren't in the picture we would hook up. Alas. I was in a good place in my life at the time. I finally felt good about myself again, my confidence growing. I began toying with the idea that it might be time to stop all the tomfoolery in my life and go back to school and to one day get a real job. Of course I had no trade skills. Dano was about to get his journeyman license. Rich was a few years removed from the army and was an EMT. Todd was a carpenter. Me? I had no special job skills. Since high school I had always wanted to be a writer, whatever that meant. I had the realization in California with Dano as I looked through the classifieds that there wasn't exactly a market with jobs geared for people who want to be writers. So I would enroll in New England School of Photography for the spring of 94.


The Spin Doctors came to me in early 1993. A little prehistory here: After my road trip and Hawaii, I got a real job working in Needham for a microfilm company. It was extremely boring-- long days taking pictures of documents to be stored on micro film; other days prepping the documents and pulling out staples and separating documents to be photographed. The name of the company was ITI. I met some cool people and I also got Slabs and Bart jobs there (I think my brother too but not sure on that). I met a girl there, a hot funny woman but alas married. So I was in the process of saving my money for a solo trip to Greece or Europe. I was leaning towards Greece, at that time I had a fascination with Greek Mythology. When I met Jolene I had about seven to eight hundred dollars saved which for me, in 1993 was a good chunk of change and still saving. So long story short and a story for another time, me and Jolene hooked up. In a whirlwind, she left her husband, moved out and we got an apartment in Stoughton. I stupidly spent every cent of my savings on a couch, drapes, carpet and other household stuff then quietly folded up my Greece brochures and packed them away. So after about a month or so, a couple of loud party guys moved into the apartment below us and they were constantly drinking, cranking tunes and slamming doors. At this point, I thought I was in love with Jolene and just wanted to live a quiet couples paradise. No parties. No excitement, nothing. I just wanted to lay in bed with Jolene all day. The first time I heard Two princes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsdy_rct6uo was at that apartment blaring from the stereo below. They played it over and over until I started to hate it. Jolene was always super friendly and flirtatious and talked with the guys downstairs quite a bit. I started getting paranoid. That stupid song began to morph into a symbol of my paranoia and discomfort as well as my growing belief that Jolene was either sleeping around or at least thinking about it and that lead me down a deep path of depression. Anyway, the song survived and later after I had finally let go of her I realized that it really was a great song, a nice album really and then wouldn't you know it, the following year I ran into my old neighbors from Stoughton at a local bar in Holbrook and we shot the shit, shared a few drinks and they turned out to be really cool guys.



The years 1992 through 1995 were the big years of my musical discoveries. These discoveries went hand in hand with my own personal changes and growth. On the one hand the whole musical landscape was changing; on the other hand, I was changing too. In 1991, I was bored, frustrated, unhappy, scared and confused. By 1992, after my first road trip (and lifelong dream) I had finally gained my confidence and was able to look outside myself. In 1993, I started working at a microfilm company in Needham, as I've stated here already. It was a job, a reliable job that paid reasonably well at the time. It was boring as hell but at least the people were cool and the boss would let us listen to our Walkman cassette tape players. Besides I had recently decided that I was going to travel to Greece, alone most likely, as Rich was dating Paula again and living with her on Nelsen Drive in Randolph. I had done some research through the Go Greece book and had pamphlets I was looking at. In High School, I had loved reading classic Greek literature and mythology. I continued that affair in my first year at Umass Boston, signing up for a Greek literature course.

So I'm leading up to the Jolene story so I might as well get it out of the way. I'm pretty sure I haven't told this story anywhere on this blog. I do have my old journals from that time but I haven't transcribed them yet. Anyway, here goes.

So... she was hired by ITI one day and thrown alongside the rest of us to pull staples. She was gorgeous-- from day one she captivated me-- a perfectly proportioned body, long wavy reddish brown hair, beautiful face and wonderful hands. Of course on that hand was a wedding ring and I knew she was off limits. We gravitated toward each other right away. We made each other laugh always. We liked a lot of the same movies and bands. She loved her Boston sports. I guess the one flaw, looking back that I overlooked was that she was a yapper and could talk tough and her voice could escalate easily. Her voice had potential to annoy others and at times reached that potential.

One day she asked if I wanted to hang out after work. Maybe I would show her some of my poems she asked. I said sure. I didn't know what to make of it so I just went along with it as if she were just another guy at work. We ended up in my room, at my parents. Slabs had stopped by to say hi (he worked at ITI too) and he hung out with us for a little bit. We took some black and white photographs. I was using the dark room in the basement then developing pictures and experimenting with double layered negatives (my brother, when he was going to Blue Hills was a graphics art student and he was doing some photography. He bought an enlarger and other equipment from the school at a cheap price. Then Rob, a friend of his built a small room in the basement that would become our dark room.). Me and Jolene looked at my picture book. We may have had a couple of drinks, I forget. After Slabs left she asked if I could take some pictures of her. She lay on my bed, seductively looking at the camera eye. I snapped off a few. The next thing I remember, we were both half sitting half laying on my bed when she came at me and kissed me. And we kissed and kissed. What the fuck just happened?

We continued to hook up, keeping it off the work gossip circuit. I told Rich and Dano, seeking advice maybe. I didn't know what to do. I really liked her and damn it I was so attracted to her. Rich may have told me to just go with it and have fun. At least that's probably what he would have said. I'm smiling at this thought. But Dano probably would have said something like, "Dude, she's married. Leave her alone." After a week or two, it didn't matter as she announced she left her husband. She rented a room in Quincy to be near me.

So as usual, I fell head over heals in love. Blindsided really. She wanted us to get an apartment together. I signed right on. Fuck yes. We could be together all the time, have sex, eat pizza and watch old Cheers reruns all day long. Greece? No way. So I took my 7 or 8 hundred dollars I had saved for my trip and blew it on stuff for our new apartment in Stoughton. And another flaw, I realized now, was that we were never true friends, more like drinking buddies, sex buddies-- there was no real connection, no soul to soul dialogue. No emotional intensity. Just infatuation.

Jolene in front of Belcher Park

Jolene and I outside our apartment in 1993.

I had sold my car before I went to Hawaii and had never bothered to get another one. So if I had to, I would borrow Jolene's car or I just got rides with guys from work. As if to foreshadow coming events, I was at work one Saturday while Jolene was at home sick. I borrowed the company car at lunch and drove to see her, show her some love and then drove back. Of course when the boss found out I took the car without permission I was fired. By the time I was deep into Stoughton life, I had done a short stint working at Papa Gino's and D'Angelos. Jolene had quit ITI and was now a waitress at Friendly's in Randolph and soon after, I joined her at Friendly's as a grill cook.

I used to fantasize about fucking her in the back room. She's wearing that green stained Friendly's shirt and ice cream covered apron and I would take her clothes off and go down on her.... Of course unbeknown to me at this time, she was beginning to set her sights on other guys.

I think we lived in Stoughton for three months before she broke up with me and I moved back to my parents. Who knows why she broke up with me? She said she wasn't sure if her marriage was over. However I was having my suspicions that she was cheating on me with other men, which would be confirmed a year later when I ran into one of her old waitress friends who witnessed it. She still wanted to be friends. I tried but it was very difficult because I was still madly in love. Sometimes she would lead me on, dropping little hints that maybe we should be together. Other times she would call me crying. I couldn't focus. I couldn't bury my feelings. I was sick with this love (infatuation). I really couldn't take it. And because she kept springing into my life, I couldn't get her out of mind. I was in a serious way.

I started entertaining the idea of jumping to California where Dano had recently moved to. He had a nice apartment in Winnetka in the San Fernando Valley. He had a good job working as an elevator technician and still a little less than a year away from getting his journeyman electrical license. I talked to him over the phone and gave him my thoughts. He welcomed me with open arms if I chose to come.

When I told Jolene I had just bought a one way ticket to California, she burst into tears. She came by my parents late at night, the night before I was to leave and we talked and she cried and we hugged and said goodbye. My heart was crushed, absolutely flattened. During this period I was immersed in Bob Dylan, mostly the CD, Blood on the Tracks. https://youtu.be/d1IKZ6DwraU

So then.... I landed in San Diego and took the Greyhound to LA where a freshly bearded Dano picked me up in his red pick-up truck (I'm fighting the urge to tell the whole Winnetka story but I will stick to the current plan-- another time though). So just like that I had left. I was going to start my life over in California. There was no more Jolene to drag my heart around. I was going to get a job. I was even looking at nearby colleges. Meanwhile, I had heard through the grapevine that Jolene had checked herself into a rehab. So as I began to pound the pavement looking for jobs, the pain and heart break continued to burn in me, perhaps even worsened. I began to doubt everything. I began to wait for a phone call that never came. I grew more depressed. I regretted my hasty retreat to California. I thought by moving so far away that I'd at least get over Jolene. As an escape, I went to the movies one day to see the new hyped up movie, Jurassic Park. Later when I got home, the red light was blinking on the answering machine. It never blinked. I pressed the button. It was her. "I love you. Miss you," she said. That day was the happiest I had felt in months.

One of Dano's friends threw a 4th of July party. 1993, Huntington Beach Ca.

I was drinking a lot more than usual. One day I took the bus to Venice Beach and found a seat in a bar and drank and played the juke box, the same song over and over, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vITDe7DKDFo and just let the sadness of my life absorb deeper and deeper. I tried hitting on a cashier at the supermarket. She didn't say no. She didn't say yes. I briefly entertained the idea about going back after her shift.

One night I was trashed and driving the jeep. The jeep. Funny. Jamie Shea had bought that jeep when he was in California and gave it to Dano when he left. It was a mail jeep, spray painted glossy black and had no reverse. However the stereo system in it cranked and sounded great and many a day I'd be driving down Ventura Boulevard cranking https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hKSYgOGtos or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrwjiO1MCVs. Every time I pulled into a store parking lot, I had to push it backwards enough so I could turn it and drive away. Anyway, I had an attitude, a drunk one, that I didn't give a fuck about anything anymore and I drove and swerved that jeep up to a bluff that overlooked the valley and fumed and dared someone to stop me...and eventually I ran out of gas on Saticoy Street at 2 am. I can not remember how I got it home. I think I ended up walking to a gas station.

The Jeep 1993

I turned over my life in thought, over and over. I concluded that California was not the place for me to be. I needed to go home, face my demons and go back to school. Get a degree. Something to help me out in the future. I also knew that facing Jolene again was going to be the hardest thing to do. I left the door open for her return but deep down I knew we were done. So, I found a one way ticket to Boston for sale in the paper and somehow talked the guy into giving me the ticket and I'd send him the money when I got home, which I did, pronto. Dano was disappointed maybe a little hurt. I talked a big game how I was going to make it work and settle down there and help pay the bills etc.. I don't think he really knew the depths of my confusion. Still I felt like a dick.

As we began the touch down into Logan, I hoped, no expected Jolene to be there waiting maybe even with flowers, smiling lunging for a kiss. As I gathered my bags and walked through the airport, no one was there to greet me. It sort of shook me out of my fantasy and reminded me why I was there all over again.I would continually have to remind myself why I was back in Randolph at my parents.

Soon after I returned home, Rich went to California. It was now 1994. He moved in with Dano, for seven months, maybe, before eventually returning home to Paula's. They lived through an earthquake. They were still living on Lull Street in Winnetka (where I had been). They were woken up to the world shaking and collapsing around them, terrified. I remember driving to the deli under a snowfall, listening to the morning radio in my new used car I had just bought and hearing the news as it broke over the air. I immediately thought of them. I knew it was close. They were right in the epicenter. It's funny now but Dano told me Rich woke up out of a sound sleep and ran screaming into the street completely naked.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994_Northridge_earthquake

As 1993 drew to a close, I was licking my wounds but I was focused. Everything I had gained before Jolene was lost and I was now starting fresh. I was still stinging from Jolene and I would be for a long time but I would use it as motivation to better myself. I made a promise to myself too: no women and no girlfriends. If I hooked up with a girl once in while, that was fine. But I was putting up a wall. They just caused me too much grief and distraction. I enrolled in New England School of Photography for the 1994 spring semester. I worked Monday through Friday at Maxies Deli. I began to work out on a small weight bench I put in the basement dark room and listened to Howard Stern (when his morning show was rebroadcast at night on WBCN). I ate good and lost the weight I had put on during my days with Anne.

Me and Gail Stoltz, Paula's house October 93. I always thought she was beautiful
 but she always had too many dramas or men in her life for me to be interested in her
romantically.

Paula's porch on Nelsen Drive, Randolph. This was my new home base, hangout spot. Rich was dating Paula, his long time on and off again girlfriend. While Dano was still in California, Rich and I expanded our inner circle and opened up to Paula's friend Todd and his friend Rick. Numerous others would drift in and out of this new circle over the years. This circle would eventually fade with time-- marriages, children and middle-age. But in 1994, it was a source of great laughter and creativity. I was writing a lot, detailed journals and skits and started rewriting my "road journal" then untitled. I was transcribing them from my actual journals to my mother's new word processor. I started a "reading night" right there on Paula's porch. Myself, Rich, Dano (soon to be home from California in the spring of 94), Todd, Rick and Paula-- once a week we met on the porch and we took turns reading out loud, their own stories, journals or observations while some would read a section from a published book that really hit the mark. And we would discuss each reading-- what we liked, what we didn't like or what the writing meant to them. We were thinking up a lot of funny skits and filming them with my camcorder. We were listening to music and smoking cigarettes or pot, chilling on the porch singing along with new songs, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NXnxTNIWkc and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfNmyxV2Ncw. More than once I had told my friends, if I ever published a novel, I would dedicate it to "Paula's Porch" in the front of the book.


So I was in school again. I had taken a photography class at Umass Boston, back in 90 or 91 but this was a school dedicated to photography and intense for sure.

My NESOP Id

To pay for school, I was working at Papa Gino's in Braintree at night, mostly as a grill cook but sometimes delivering pizza. I remember one time I was working a day shift and Jolene came in with some of her friends and she was typical loud laughter and I did my best to remain hidden behind the pizza racks. Anyway, school was expensive and my parents didn't have the money to take another chance that I may actually finish school. Besides, the money they did have was going into the pockets of a contractor who was building a huge addition off our house, mostly my mothers idea. I used to drive into Boston and park near the Fenway, along a stretch of road beside the Forsythe Dental School because I knew I could park for free. From there I would walk to the school alongside the Fenway Garden Society, a pictaresque little park and also home to some homeless folks. There was a small river that runs through there, coming off the Charles. I would cut left down Boylston Street and into Kenmore Square where NESOP was located. Often times there were two men standing across the street, playing air guitar, for change of course, the same two men, strumming their fingers away on invisible guitars. It was the funniest thing.

Spring came and the winter thaw melted the ice and muddied the ground. School was wearing me down financially and I couldn't sustain it much longer on a Papa Gino's salary. I'm not even talking about the money it cost to go there, it was all the money I needed for stock and supplies. Photo paper, the kind you used in a darkroom was expensive and Nick, my teacher was constantly having us burn through it-- waste it really, to see the kind of negative or positive effects certain filters or exposures would have or not on an image. Film, lots of 35 millimeter black and white. Camera lenses. By the time the semester gratuitously ended, I sighed with relief and wondered if I'd be able to afford the next semester in the fall.

School's out. I had little to do now. Sometime over the winter or spring I had reconnected with an old friend, Jean McCormack and her husband Johnny Mofford (they would marry in 94 I believe or 95). Rich had returned from California and Dano would be on his way, taking care of a warrant he had mistakenly received in Winnetka. Todd and Rick were always around-- these two had the biggest marijuana appetites I had ever seen. I was in great shape and more confident in myself than I could ever remember. All these factors seemed to point in one direction-- fun, adventure and parties. If we weren't hanging at Paula's porch we were at Jean and Johnny's house or a random bar or club partying our asses off.

God what crazy days lay ahead for the summer. Bar hopping. Day trips on Johnny's boat. Now Jean didn't work. She didn't have to because Johnny owned and ran a lucrative concrete foundation business so she had a lot of free time and got bored easily. Rich didn't have job yet. I only had my part time gig so it left a lot of room open. For awhile, the four of us were inseparable. Jean offered to pay me and Rich to hang out out with her instead of getting a job. So I quit Papa Ginos and the game was on. Jean gave me a hundred dollar bill from Johnny's wallet and off I went to the liquor store...

Johnny, me and Dano at Jean's

Dano, Rich, Johnny and me on a typical night drinking.

...that night we were drunk and somehow someone dared us to streak to the top of the street, cross North Main Street and touch the front door of D'Angelo's. And we did. Me, Rich, Dano and Johnny. Of course it was like one o'clock in the morning and there was hardly anyone on the road. Still... Jean took pictures of us returning to the driveway, naked. We never did see the pictures and God knows what she ever did with them but most likely somewhere in the attic of her past, they are there collecting dust. I was so trashed, on a whim, I took off my pants and underwear with only my long t-shirt covering my cock and ass and walked home from Jean's, basically from D'Angelo's to Cartwright funeral home. Shockingly, the cops pulled over beside us to inquire about our late night activities, I presume and began talking to Rich and Dano but I kept on walking and nothing ever came of it.

It was about this time that a growing sense of invincibility was forming in my subconscious-- that I could drink as much as I wanted to, that I could go and do whatever I wanted. If I was in any danger, whether I was in a bad crowd or drinking and driving or in a drug den, I felt untouchable. If I did something stupid or hurtful or embarrassing, I'd wake up in the morning and shrug it off to too much alcohol. Nothing was my fault. I hooked up with girls in bars left and right. Waitresses. A topless dancer once who took me home that night and in the morning introduced me to her son and husband who shyly remained hidden in their bedroom. Despite all the women, they were mostly one-night hookups, never getting beyond make out sessions because typically I was too hammered for anything else. I woke with random phone numbers in my pocket that I rolled up and threw in the trash. One night I was in a bar with Todd beside me and this hot girl approached me and asked if I was hiding a bald spot under my bandana, to which I was not and upon showing her my thick mane she began making out with me. Once I walked into a Metallica concert at Great Woods, met a girl just passed the first vendors and we began making out and we turned and left the concert for more booze and kissing back in the parking lot.

Anne and Jolene had negative effects on my life and future perceptions of women. Even though I was ready for the split with Anne, deep down I still cared for her maybe loved her too. So when the split happened and a week later she was already dating another guy, that hurt like a bag of bricks dropped on my heart. I built a wall after Jolene and no one was getting through, damn it. Of course they had little if any bearing on this new sense of invincibility. Maybe it was just my age. Maybe it was the alcohol. I don't really know, even now, twenty years later. At one point, I was so bad by 1995, Rich told me that he and Dano didn't like being around me anymore. I was just blind to everything and didn't care and kept on rolling.

When Jamie got married that summer, it was a mad drunkfest of his friends and his wife's friends-- Portuguese women who knew little if any English. This was a brief time in his life that I think he was most happy until 1996 I believe when he divorced and moved to Arizona where his life became complicated by Crystal Meth and smuggling drugs and Mexicans for cartels.

I'm flirting with a Brazilian girl here or just about to.

Jamie mock kissing Rich as Dano laughs his ass off

Jamie, buzzed and happy... a time before federal prison.

Kev, Rich, Dano, Jamie, Donna and Paul; in the background Rick (in hat),
Mal and Dawn

Rich giving it to Jamie. HaHa. Kev and Dano look on, laughing.

Jamie surprising Paul with another drunk mock kiss.

Steve, Dawn and me.

The Stooges era. This was our bar. It was our Cheers. It was a bar in Quincy off Hancock Street beside the old Blockbuster Video store (both places now long gone). Glen Hoey worked there. I think he ran the place. A lot of his friends were our friends. Jamie and Glen went way back. It was a fun place to hang out. A typical Thursday or Saturday night. Drinking whiskey and diet Coke at my parents, watching Cheers or Seinfeld, just putting on a first layer of buzz and then Dano and Rich would come by, pick me up and off to Stooges we went. Kevin Trull would be there. Dave Babineau aka Slabs. Rick Emerson. Bob Frangioso. Jamie. Girls we knew from High School. Cheryl Hamilton worked there as a bartender (I remember showing her my first version of my Woodstock paper). There would be dart tournaments in the back. There were board games for us to use: Scrabble or Jenga and more times than not we buried our heads in playing dirty word Scrabble. It was a good place to meet girls. Many a night I'd leave with a girl and end up making out with her to the wee hours of the morning. I hooked up with a woman for a few weeks who was a waitress at the Irish bar across the street. Glen got the owners of Stooges to sponsor a men's softball team and Jean and Johnny were able to get us shirts and in return we made her the "coach." Rich and Dano, myself, Kevin, Slabs, Jimmy Highland, Johnny were among a handful who played for the team. However as good as we were on the friendly confines of a hungover Sunday morning ball field just playing with the guys, this team sucked compared to the wily veterans who had been playing on teams for years. We ended the season with one win, maybe two. But we knew how to celebrate either way. Beck's infectious song Loser became our anthem, as we drunkenly sung it after a lopsided loss https://youtu.be/YgSPaXgAdzE. Once after a game we went to the Varsity Club in Quincy and as we walked in, every TV in the place was set to the news as OJ Simpson and Al Cowlings led police on a freeway chase in his infamous white Bronco.



I met Valerie in late summer 1994, one night at the Rathskeller, a favorite bar of mine in Kenmore Square, long gone now. Upstairs they had pool and Foosball tables and in the basement they catered rock shows-- lots of local talent. I met Valerie on floor level. She was just standing with a beer, beside her taller Brazilian friend, Danielle. The music was loud, atmosphere dark and I approached her when I saw her kind of looking at me. Her hair stood out, long dark ringlets rumbling down passed her shoulders. It was a hard conversation. Her English was not that good. She was from Sao Paolo Brazil and had been here for a few months but was taking an English speaking class at a school of Commonwealth Avenue. She lived in Brighton in an apartment with Danielle and another woman. Anyway, she gave me her number that night and it was one of the few times I did not throw the number away. A couple of days later, I would go to her apartment in Brighton and soon after, I had a girlfriend. I really liker her too. She was a virgin when we met. I spent a lot of time at her apartment. She taught me some Portuguese and I helped with her English. Once I fell asleep on her couch waiting for her to get home when I had a dream and in the dream I spoke fluent Portuguese and understood it as clear as English, in fact the whole dream was in Portuguese-- it was the strangest thing.

Me and Valerie in her apartment 94

Val  and me at Paula's Halloween costume party. She was some Brazilian character and I as Ace Ventura.

Same night: Dano, Paula and Rich as the Hansen Brothers from the movie, Slap Shot.

It was a brief romance though. She broke up with me some time after Thanksgiving. I don't remember why. I must have said something that angered her. I wish I could remember. I know it was something trivial, to me (not to her) and couldn't believe she let it break us up. Not long after we split, she moved back to Brazil and I never heard from her again.

So that December, we took our infamous sleigh ride on acid. It was me, Rich, Dano, Paul, Todd and Rick. It was cold and snowy, as it should have been. The sleigh ride was a trail through a section of Blue Hills near the Ponkapoag cabins. We were to meet a guy at a barnyard across from the gate that blocked the road. We all dropped our acid and it started kicking in around the time we got there, in the cold quiet dark. We had no idea where we were meeting this guy, all doors were locked and the wind whipped at our ears as time and space became magnified by our chemistry change-- and suddenly in our acid haze, we were in the middle of a creepy movie, being setup by a mad killer who would show up and hack us to death, all the while laughing our socks off at the crazy idea of it and I remember we were sneaking around trying to find an unlocked door, any sign of life but nothing, the wind blew and fueled our madness. Then it began to snow. Eventually he came, opened up the barn, readied the horses and sleigh, unlocked the gate across the road and set off on a highlight Christmas sleigh ride... as we all took turns hanging off the back of it and I think at one point, Wabrek fell off. I still have this memory, looking into the falling snow and darkness as the sleighbells and laughter rang out, clatter of horses and Christmas music (someone brought a small radio, long before IPods and blue tooth technology) Later that night, me Rich and Dano went to my parents house, settled into the big room upstairs (at one point my room, then Dawns and then Dave's who would eventually years from now die in this room) and we watched It's a Wonderful Life.

Of course, in 1994, Woodstock.  http://stacktrick.blogspot.com/2014/11/woodstock-94-journal-in-progree.html


That summer, me, Dano and Rich took a ride on Jean and Johnny's boat somewhere out passed Cape Cod. I don't remember where exactly but we left the Cape Cod Canal far in our wake. Once we left the canal and headed out to sea we were met with large waves that rocked the boat fiercely. Johnny steered the boat, a big old confident smile on his face. I stood near him holding on as water and wind splashed my face. Eventually as we neared the shore (my guess is we were up at the elbow of the peninsula. I should ask Jean and Johnny, if they even remember) the waves died down, we anchored the boat and rowed into the shore on a rubber raft. As we stood around, I decided to take off and explore a little bit. I came to a section where the land split and high tide was racing through the canal type formation. I heard calls for help but saw no one. I looked across the canal and maybe 400 yards off were two or three vehicles parked facing out toward the ocean. I thought nothing of the screams. Probably drunken laughter. Something kept me going forward. It was strange. I'd been gone about 15 minutes and I felt I ought to turn back but something pushed me forward. As I got to the edge of the land I saw beneath me, struggling to stay afloat and caught in the tide heading out to sea, were two children, a boy and a girl. I don't remember how old they were but my guess is between 9 and 10. "Help!" she called. Immediately I jumped in and swam to them. They were a little panicky and nervous. I told them to hold on to me and I began to swim against the current to the other side. I tried to talk and make jokes so they would not be scared. They brother and sister. The current was so strong plus with the addition of their two bodies, I wasn't moving well at all. I decided to pitch and catch them out of the danger zone. I took the girl, the heavier one and would toss her forward while the boy held on to me. Without her weight dragging me down I was able to move better. I would toss her as far as I could, swim to her, rest a second and toss her again and in this slow but efficient manner I was able to get them safely across to the other side. They thanked me and went running up the hill toward the vehicles where she said her parents were with friends. I can only imagine what may have happened had I not come across them. Anyway, this story, is fictionalized in a story I'm writing that's in limbo right now called, Gone. In the novel, the main character takes the walk and finds a girl drowning. He saves her from certain death. A couple of years later, when his brother is killed in an accident, he is reminded of this event. He sadly realizes that perhaps his act of saving this girl ruptured the life and death pattern and so to balance the cycle out, death would claim his brother. 

I began going to poetry readings around 1990-91. As my friends began to take reading and writing seriously, I was able to get them to come join me, by 94-95. One night there was a poetry slam at the CanTab in Cambridge. It was a big place, big enough to accommodate bands for sure and it was a bar. Myself, Dano Rich and Jamie sometimes but this particular night, sort of illustrates what Rich and Dano were saying about me. I got pretty lit and by the end of the night when everyone wanted to go home, I wanted to stay, dammit, I would find my own way home I told them. They walked off towards the train stairwell. For a moment I thought, "I'm just going to steal this cab and return it tomorrow." The cab was parked on the side of the street and the driver was absent. I jumped into the front seat and reached for the ignition. No keys. I looked around the dashboard the seats and ashtray but there were no keys. Angrily, I hopped back out and caught up to the others. I was heading for trouble that's for sure.

Not one of my favorite pictures and only a handful have ever seen it. Despite the fact I look like a heroin junkie (I've never tried heroin). My weight was 168 pounds, 185 being my normal weight. Back then my diet was mostly cigarettes, coffee and alcohol.

So back to the music scene, my original story idea, by 1994, more bands and more music, not necessarily grunge but great rock besides, alternative they called it. Personally, never put much stock in Alternative or Grunge. To me it was all just rock and roll. It was more of a media phrase. By 1994 we discovered Beck, Offspring and Green Day while laying around my parents living-room, sprawled out on the couch, hungover and sweaty from the summer heat, carefree do-nothing days, watching MTV, planning the night's parties or drinking venues. The first time I saw the video from Offspring,
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJV6cVGCYBY
it inspired me to try a new look. The beads. For the next two years I would experiment with the beads look, sometimes going full head, other times a single strand.

The summer of 1994 was Green Day's coming out party https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42BBdzzgPNM. That September, they came to Boston and that morning visited WBCN where they played a couple of songs in studio. Later that night they were to perform a free concert at the Hatch Shell. I met Todd and Rich at the Rathskellar in Kenmore Square where we put down a few beers until it got close to the concert start. Despite our many trips into Boston to discover new bars, "The Rat" was our bar of choice. In the basement, bands played; the street level was a regular bar while the upstairs had pool tables and a foosball table and good cheap beer. Lots of college kids and musicians hung out there and I felt at home. So we walked through the city streets to the Hatch Shell where it was packed with hot drunken kids with attitudes. Down in the front of the stage, kids body surfed and slam danced. We stayed back, listened and drank our booze from our red solo cups. Green Day banged it out and then during the third song of the night (according to reports it was about 7 songs in but it felt like three), the police, the city or someone pulled the plug. Apparently the kids up front were getting wildly out of control that officials feared for safety. Of course that just made matters worse and it turned into a mob scene, an angry one. As we walked away into the Boston night, waves of screaming kids ran by looking for trouble-- kids who somehow wronged them and they were bent on revenge. It was like Boston meets Frankenstein. Our night ended happily enough as we wound up at a party in a college dorm room.

http://www.celebrateboston.com/crime/green-day-riot.htm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqe53T-jSpg

And of course, Beck. The song loser was so catchy it was hard not to go out to a bar and not hear over the house speakers or the radio that summer.

That summer in 94, we all ended up going to Hampton Beach 4th of July weekend. My sister and her friend, at the time Dawn R had rented a hotel room off the beach so me and Rich and Dano planned on visiting them. Rich was sort of dating my sister and I was sort of seeing Dawn R, well at least when the four of us got together, we were couples. My friend from California and her long time boyfriend, Rich were visiting us that weekend and so our party was growing bigger. I forget if Anna was still living in California then or had made the leap to Chicago but anyway, she and Rich had arrived before I met up with them and she was already hammered, driving-- swerving around Randolph like a mad woman and soon relieved of driving duty.

The next day we started out in two vehicles with Anna and Rich following behind us and by the time we reached the beach road, it was a mob scene, traffic not moving, people hanging out on porches along the street drinking beer, waving flags and enjoying the moment. Memory is a little hazy but I remember episodes of this weekend. For example, we all had a nice big dinner and drinks at some fancy restaurant and afterwards, we spilled out to the beach-- myself, Dano and Rich had brought backpacks of fireworks and almost immediately, Dano sets up shop in the sand and started shooting off bottle-rockets over the water when all of a sudden, a policeman on horseback appeared behind him and who took his fireworks. We were in hysterics, me and Rich, the idea was that we were going to have a firework fight.... The following day, I lit off a firework in the parking lot of the hotel Dawn and Dawn were staying in and the manager kicked them out.... Rich's ex, Paula showed up one night, pissed at my sister for hooking up with Rich and I think they even had words.... hot sweaty blow job in the bathroom....

In 94, I moved out of my parents house at 70 Allen, all the way next door to 72 Allen Street. Chris Riccotelli, who owned the house beside my parents and lived in the apartment upstairs was looking to rent out the downstairs-- it was pretty big-- three bedrooms, kitchen and bath and a dining-room where we set up a dart board and a living-room where we had the sofas and TV. I don't remember how it came about but me, Kevin and Wes signed on as roommates and the party was on... and on and on.... usually a place to hang out and smoke pot or both before a night out whether it was to the bar, a party or a concert and it was often the last place we ended up. My dad, when he got drunk on weekends would sometimes come over and hang for a bit and then, thinking it was his house or that he was just the "man" would start barking at my friends to leave-- he told me to leave once too. By this time, I was working for Scott part time, carrying around his Freon bottle and tool box from service call to service call. I also started a job right down the street from my apartment at Teed Drive Industrial Park-- I was hired as a driver for a microfilm company and I would hop off in company van and drop off and pick up boxes of paperwork or microfilm while listening to Howard Stern on WBCN or listening to Hootie and the Blowfish, Counting Crows and Blues Traveler. 

Hootie and the Blowfish: Let her Cry
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1aVHLL5egRY&list=PLN8SZLYOQBOBGMAWE8rKvBm_y2x3T_L66

Counting Crows: Mr. Jones
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oqAU5VxFWs&index=5&list=PLN8SZLYOQBOBGMAWE8rKvBm_y2x3T_L66


Blues Traveler: Run around
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ousaiByU1ko


start here 95 harvard square cabnada,



http://stacktrick.blogspot.com/2015/10/quebec-journal-in-progress.html

http://stacktrick.blogspot.com/2015/10/the-harvard-square-incident.html







https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zzyfcys1aLM&index=8&list=PLN8SZLYOQBOBGMAWE8rKvBm_y2x3T_L66
WALLFLOWERS

matchbox tewnty radiohead blink 182 sublime

the radio station https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uxJ-KZNT-M

  anne and jolene would have a very negative effect on my life towards women and that would play out from 1994 thru 96... twice burned.well guess im trying to figure out how i came to be