The Long Walk

The front doors of the Massachusetts State House are opened on three occasions, and three occasions only:

1) A visit from a US President or sitting head of state
2) The return of a former Governor to lay in state
3) The Long Walk, the ceremonial departure of a Governor from the State House.


The Long Walk was first taken by Benjamin "Spoons" Butler. Butler, a single-term Governor, was nicknamed "Spoons" for the possibly apocryphal incident when he, as Military Governor of New Orleans and Southern Louisiana, made off with the state house's silver spoon collection - "confiscated" as the booty of a sacked foreign power, and also began the tradition of handing off a bible and key to the incoming Governor.

Well, legend has it that Spoons was so reviled by the end of his solitary term in 1884 that no one would walk out of the State House with him. Thus was born the tradition of a Governor walking down the front steps, alone, to rejoin the Massachusetts as a "mere" citizen.

The tradition of the Long Walk has been rarely tampered with over the years, recently as Mike Dukakis walked down the steps with his wife Kitty, and then when Governor Bill Weld and Lt. Governor Paul Cellucci met each other mid way, Weld going out, Cellucci going in. (Perhaps Gov. Cellucci noticed Gov. Weld needed a bit of steadying as he was descending the stairs: there were ample stories after the event that Weld was feeling no pain as he left...)

This year, the timing of the Walk is altered, as new Governor Deval Patrick is planning an outdoor inauguration on January 4th, rather than the traditional House Chamber ceremony and will be using the front yard of the State House.

So Governor Romney will be making a twilight long walk, leaving tonight at 5pm. I'm giving myself a pass from my rule that I'm always home for dinner with the wife and kids to watch Romney leave. Beside being a total sucker for pomp and circumstance, I've been spending the last month or so bringing closure to my tenure in state government, and this is another way to do that.

The State House is an extraordinary place to work. Unlike many across the country, it's a working State House. All 200 legislators, the five "constitutional officers" (Governor, Lt. Gov, Treaurer, Attorney General, and Auditor) have offices there, and actual work is carried out. Every day brings bustling student groups, with the holiday season seeing a different school band or chorus performing every couple of days. I've spent most of my adult life haunting this building and I've come to love it, and many of the people who work within it.

Now look at this, I've gotten all maudling on you. Well, that tells me it's time to wrap this up. There'll be time enough to get maudlin later (after a few ambered colored liquids this evening, I'm sure...)

So, I leave you with two things:

First, here's my extraordinrily artsy-fartsy picture of the "Hall of Flags" in the State House, where flags from the state's 351 cities and towns are on display,

From Kal's Pix

And, in honor of this passage in my life, I've posted Styx's "Sail Away" over at The Garage. (actually, it hasn't posted yet, but I sent it from YouTube... Hmm... Oh well, there's a lot of other neat crappy music over there to waste time on...

Nothing...

 

Five days until Christmas and the Christmas cards still aren't out... The whole card thing is an epic production because a) Wifeypooh feels the need to send a card to every person she's ever met, and b) we always do a Christmas letter, sort of a bizzaro world reflection of the average yuppie yuppington polemic about how perfect the kids are and how wonderful the lawn came out this year. Our letters are usually punctuated by epic tales of some sort of tragic home-improvement related disaster, or our utter disdain for the kids, or the latest pet death / dismemberment / disappearance. And tales of woe and suffering are only okay for Christmas cards if they're somewhat humerous, and Wifeypooh's a tough editor. So it takes for frickin ever...

So we just finished the damn letter, and the printer has run out of ink. Now, usually I'm a little more organized and I'll have bought back-up ink (because there's nothing worse than running out of ink at 2AM after printing pages 1 and 3 of the Christmas letter.. but this whole darn holiday just seemed to creep up on us this year. Oh, and yeah, I am a tad busy trying to find a job before the new Administration comes in and tells me it's time to get on with my life's work. But don't you let that worry you...)

Anywho, so it's not really a good time for Christmas...

So what's with the picture? Oh, nothing really. Just thinking about how easy it would be to slip on a wet platform, get smooshed by the train, and not have to worry about Christmas letters at all...

Oh, and let's not talk about shopping, mmm'kay?

Thank you, thank you very much...

So Time cops out and names everyone who puts content on the internet (does that include Fark commenters? Comment trolls? That Nigerian guy trying to access his $26.6 Million USD?) as their "Person of the Year".

Couple of things. First off, where does that leave Avitable? Does he get "Hairy Gorilla-like Person" of the Year? And do we all get a big party? This would be my chance to finally meet the fetching Zahra Amir Ebrahimi, who's meant so much to me, traffic-wise, these past couple of weeks.

Although I think she's a little less thrilled about her share of the award than I am.

Oh, by the way... is there any cash involved here? If so, Time, could we keep it on the DL... Don't want to just have to give it over to the wife, you know...

Dear Idiot: Get out of the can!

Dear Possibly Homeless Person in the South Station Bathroom:

Alright, if I'm using the crapper in South Station it's not voluntary. Unless I'm pandhanding for a living, or a Metro streethawker (a distinction without a difference), I have a nice office somewhere in town that houses my nice warm, clean, and familiar restroom in which I can do my business. I'm not risking all sorts of exotic diseases, mugging, and/or romantic advances for the jollies of it.

If I'm going to the crapper in South Station it's mission critical.

So WTF's the idea with camping out in the john? Got into town the other day and determined that it was not wise to risk the Red Line and needed to make an emergency stop in the South Station bathroom. Well, I get there and there's already three people in line for the four stalls, which were all occupied.

So we all wait for a couple of minutes, nonchalantly squirming as issues, well, force themselves.

Finally the first guy in line, an older, non-english speaking man whom I'm betting did not have an office somewhere in town, took to banging on the stall doors to get folks moving.

Well, as you can imagine, this was met with total silence and non-moving from the feet under the stalls. So he kept doing it.

And kept doing it.

At this point I was beginning to get more concerned that this whole affair would end with a shoot-out at the Number 2 Corral, so to speak.

Well, eventually an elderly, and pissed off, gentleman emerged from the stall and old non-english speaking man promptly let a newcomer to the pooper-queue jump the line and get the stall. Which made none of the rest of us entirely pleased.

Eventually two of the stalls got some turnover and I was able to do my business and take off. In the ten-fifteen minutes I was there two of the stalls never turned over. I was tempted to tell the MBTA cops I thought there was a dead dude in one and see what they would do, but that usually means lots of paperwork and frankly who has the time?

So, to the Idiots camped out in the South Station loo: Move your asses! Literally.

Thank you, that will be all.

Kal.


Oh, PS: while looking for an appropriate illustration for this post I stumbled upon this marvelous invention: the portable plastic public bathroom door lock. Greatest... invention... ever....

I am always amazed that a society that can send a man to the moon and return him safely (well, if you believe all that government propaganda put out by the Trilateral Commission in concert with the Zionist Occupational Government and the UN Provisional secret commission to... err... sorry, off topic)

Anywho, between vandalism and shoddy workmanship your average public restroom stall door loses it's door-locking ability about 23 minutes after installation. Even my office can, in a building recently gutted and renovated to the tune of $300 million, has a stall where the door will pop open when someone slams one of the other stall doors. Quite a surprise the first time that happens, let me tell you.

This handy little device allows you to bring your own private little Katy Bar the Door.

Now all I need is a blowtorch and garden sprayer full of rubbing alcohol and I can use any bathroom in Boston!

Catch U L8r

Well, I'm off to the nation's capital to recieve praise and adoration, so I won't be around for a couple of days. Try not to make too much of a mess, and please put my CD's back in their cases, okay?

I'll leave you with this thought: my children make me act sound like a serial killer:

Me: Girl, put your dirty clothes in your laundry basket, not all ovre you floor.

Girl: (while dropping her clothes on the floor) sure.

Me: (getting aggravated) It puts the clothes in the basket...

Girl: Huh? (blissfully walking over mounds of dirty clothes on the floor)

Me: It puts the clothes in the basket, or it gets the hose!

Girl: (discovering dirty laundy under her bed, behind her dresser, in the top of her closet (?!?)) Dad, you are weird.

Me: Put the clothes in the freaking basket!!

Later that evening Jody Foster came over and we played in the basement.

See you all soon.

So Long, Summer

Well, it's over. The last grilling of the summer was last Sunday.

Farewell, ye crunchy cauliflower.

Sayonara, succulent grilled sirloin!

Until next we meet, oh cooking flame. Keep well over the long winter. It's TV dinners and crock-pot monstrosities until next we meet.

Ah yes, now I remember

Exhibit A why I commute on the train.


This is the scene at 7:50 in the morning on Route 128. You see, I had to be a nice guy and offer to drive the lovely Wifeypooh to her conference. She can drive, just not so much on the highway. And particularly during morning rush hour. Which, unfortunately, has turned into morning rush four hours. Which is followed by noon rush hour. Which is followed by evening rush hour.

Basically half of Massachusetts spends four hours a day in their cars. Listening to talk radio. Nasty right-wing talk radio...

Thus: Angry people. That's why we're Massholes. Overdose of talk radio bile due to excessive sitting in rush hour traffic.

And some free relationship counseling: commuting with the wife... not so recommended.

If Everybody Jumped Off a Bridge...

So, Harmonica Man and ah-VIT-a-ble have both posted pictures/videos of their blogging environments, so I feel compelled to contribute my little slice o' the blog-o-sphere.

This is my throne, from which I command Kal's World. The fat furry thing in the lower left is Rosie. He is allegedly a cat. He's small dog sized. And likes to bite. Particularly if you're sitting in the chair blogging (or playing Madden 2004).

This is my other throne. And also the cat's fountain, which doubles as a sink. Note the wallpaper. It's the sky. Aren't we creative...

And in closing, the Geek shelf of the entertainment center, from whence my vocabulary and cultural references are drawn. You will see the tragic lack of 14-disc The Complete Monty Python set. Very necessary. Mothers and Wifeypoohs take notice.

Well, that's enough exhibitionism for one day. What do your blogenvirons look like?

The Most Boring Post Ever...

Okay, so I'm sitting here trying to think of something to write, because, well, you know, this is blog writing time. I'm a super busy type-A worker bee during the work day (oh, puh-leeze), so I've got to confine my blogging to the bookends of the day when work-kids-wife-dishes-laundry all don't hold sway over my time.

So I've got the Beatles on media player, currently playing Abbey Road, which has some cool, different stuff. There's this neat little ditty toward the end of the album,

"Her majesty's a pretty nice girl
but she doesn't have a lot to say
Her majesty's a pretty nice girl
but she changes from day to day
I wanna tell her that I love her a lot
but I gotta get a belly full of wine
Her majesty's a pretty nice girl
someday I'm gonna make her mine
Oh, yeah, some day I'm gonna make her mine"

So, like Paul's stalking the Queen? Let's see. This is 1969. The Queen was born in 1926. She was 43 at the time... She's a MILF, that's what Paul's trying to say, isn't it?

Which leads us to (God! I love the internet, it's like the biggest enabler of ADD ever) people born in 1963. Well, because they're 43 now, silly person. Who's on the list?

Helen Hunt. Okay. She's cute. I could see writing a stalker song about her.

Randy Johnson. Ergh. Blaugh.

Kathy Ireland. Ahh. Kathy Ireland. SI's 1989 Cover girl. (Who's apparently trying to become Martha Stewart, minus the insider trading.)

Oh Kathy, Kathy. I could certainly write a stalker song for Kathy. Kathy and I had some very intimate moments in high school, where we often spent much time together in my bed... Did I say bed? I meant head, where we spent much time together in my head.

My drive to be the famous world traveler you see before you is due in part to my belief that if I was famous I could get invited to cocktail parties where Kathy, and Mary Lou Retton, would be.

Yes, Mary Lou Retton... oh my. She's the other great love of my life. Now she's all married with four kids and is happily married and all, but I don't give up hope that someday she might see the error of her ways and we will be reunited... Well, for me it would be reunited. For her it would be the first time, you know, because she didn't really know about our relationship.

(And Mary Lou's a Republican... So it could happen!)

There, that's another thing to put on my to-do list when I'm elected Governor of this Commonwealth. #1 Retire as a Patriot. #2 - Have Mary Lou Retton up for a quiet, romantic dinner for two fundraising event.

All right. Gotta go get started on my day. Hope you all have a lovely day filled with Internet surfing, free lunch, and adoring children bringing you your slippers when you get home. I know I won't...

(P.S. - I'm moving the non-dumb posts over from the old blog to the new one, so random old months will show up in the archives from time to time (or old posts will get links from new posts, and I'll have to put those old posts over here on the new site, get it? Like that one above about the Pats... See, up there? It's a link. Feel free to go click it... Go now... There you go.. edge that mouse up... Hover over the link... click... click... CLICK DAMN YOU!!!)

I'm Going to Hell...

So, the hard drive got so farked up that I couldn't even defrag it, so it was time to clean out the "slave" drive I'd cannibalized and had mounted for back-up purposes and move some stuff over there so the kids could actually play a game without the damn computer freezing up.

So as I'm slogging through all the crap to see what I can toss, I came upon a folder of screencaps from the computer's DVD player.

Which is where I stumbled upon a bunch of screen captures from In the Cut, the 2003 movie in which Meg Ryan goes au natural. Oh, wait, I should restate that so I get a crapload of search engine hits: MEG RYAN GETS NAKED. NUDE. NO CLOTHES. BUCK NEKKID.

Here's one picture we can show on a family blog.



In the Cut features Ryan as a writing teacher stuck in some sort of imbroglio with Mark Ruffalo, who plays a detective. They get it on. Jennifer Jason Leigh is involved somehow. Frankly, I can't remember the plot at all, if there was one beyond Ms. Ryan getting all de-clothed.

Naturally I made about a bazzilion screencaps of certain scenes, which, as I mentioned, I have recently found after forgetting about them.

Couple of thoughts come to mind which perusing the pics:

1) Mark Ruffalo: I hope you burn in hell. Okay, in one two year period you got naked with Meg Ryan, and made out with Kirsten Dunst (Eternal Sunshine...) and Jennifer Garner (13 going on 30). You suck. I hope you die of some tropical rotting disease.

Could I at least smell your finger?

(ok, that was very, very wrong. I apologize...)

2) Okay, okay. Meg's like 42 in this movie. Don't care. It's Meg Ryan! And in case you google search-bots missed it, she's NAKED. It's kind of like when Tom Seaver pitched 16 games to close out his career with the Red Sox in 1986. Tom freakin' Seaver: first ballot hall of famer, best National League pitcher since, hell, Koufax? And we got to see him. Sure, there were pitchers with better stuff in 1986, but the "touch with greatness" of having Seaver was worth it. Sure, in 2003 there were other actress you'd argue would look better naked, but it's MEG RYAN!

(My life's ambition is to work as an orderly in Meg Ryan's nursing home and woo and conquer Ms. Ryan when she's 80.... That would be sooooo cool. Then I'd call my brother and say: "Oh yeah, I just had Meg Ryan"... Problem is, the bastard would've just got done shagging 65 year-old Alicia Silverstone... Jerk...)

3) The question: what to do with these pictures? The question you have to ask yourself is, what will your kids do when they find them... Because they will. No matter what kind of protection and armed vaults and all sorts of crap I put on them, The Boy will find them someday.

So you've got to figure out, what would The Boy do with them? First possibility: he would, well, do what teenage boys do when they find nekkid pictures (of MEG RYAN!!), and I'd never know about it (but the Kleenix in the downstairs bathroom would disappear at an astounding pace...). This approximates what happened when I found my Dad's stash.

Second possiblilty: he could narc me out to Wifeypooh. That would be bad. Not necessarily the possession of filthy, dirty, NAKED PICTURES OF MEG RYAN (just want to make sure we're clear what we're talking about here), but the fact that I would let my poor, innocent little 15 year old get access to them. (When, in point of fact, if he is like any 15 year old, he'll already have had access to more naughty stuff than I ever dreamt of...).

So... How much do I trust the kid?

Yeah. I thought so. Pardon me while I go delete everything and reformat the disk...

The Eight Year Old Mind...

I had the following conversation with The Boy while getting him to school this morning:

The Boy: Dad, why could farting near a flame blow up your butt?

I have no idea where he came up with this. Must’ve been mentioned in Captain Underpants or something…

Kal: Well, because farts are made up of gas that’ll burn. Like people have furnaces that burn natural gas, farts are basically a type of natural gas.

TB: Oh, so if we ever ran out of heat we could just fart into the furnace?

Kal: Well, no. Our furnace burns oil, you’d have to have a furnace that burns natural gas. Oil is a liquid, natural gas is a gas.

TB: Oh, so could it burn liquid farts?

Kal: Well (I’m starting to sound like Reagan in my old age), not really. Liquid farts are poop, and poop doesn’t burn… (He’s got the soul of an engineer, but I don’t quite think he’s ready for talks of composting toilets and palletized waste and methane extraction)

TB: Yeah, so if I did a half-fart, half-poop on a candle, it would probably put it out, right?

Kal (wondering how we’re going to get out of this): Sure, that’s right.

TB: Like that time I was eating dinner and I farted and it sounded like a poop and I went to the bathroom and checked and…

Kal (interrupting) Yeah, something like that…

TB: Dad, what do you call a half-fart, half-poop?

Kal: Ummm… Well, I don’t know if it has a name? Maybe a Part? Part poop, part fart? Foop?

TB: Yeah, Foop. That’s what it is. Thanks Dad. (waves goodbye)

I can just imagine the call from the teacher when he breaks that one out with his friends….

In the begining...

The post that started it all, back in April of 2003... Ahh, the memories. This post actually went out under my real name, until I wised up and realized that millions would become ardent followers and potential stalkers of my wanderings, necessitating the creation of a nom du blog...

Northeastern called again the other day, ostensibly to make sure I was still getting the alumni magazine, but of course to ask me for money. While I am very grateful to NU for giving me -- er, strike that -- providing me the opportunity to earn a serviceable, if not spectacular, education, it cheeses me off to no end that they are constantly looking for money from me, after I just finished paying $250 a month for my 1/3rd share of college. (okay, I didn't finish paying it off, I rolled it into my mortgage, which thanks to these Great Depression Redux interest rates I raised the extra 20K for about $75 a month). And what the heck do they do with my $10? They build more freakin' buildings like the four-story health club -- that's right, health FREAKIN club -- on Huntington Avenue.

Now, not to sound like my dad, who walked ten miles to school each morning in the snow, uphill, both ways, in July, but when I went to Northeastern (cue music) we ate in a flippin cafeteria. With LINOLEUM. Probably ASBESTOS LADEN linoleum. And if the asbestos laden linoleum didn't kill you, the smoke coming out of the "game room", featuring one archaic Pole Position, a geriatric Asteroids, and perhaps Dig-freakin-Dug, that old whore of a game, would croak you. Like I want to make these kids' college years any more cushy. Screw that.

Anywho, I usually promise to throw them $10 per year, and then have to beg and plead with my wife, who wisely controls the finances, to let me send them a check after about 15 reminder letters from them, the cost of shipping and handling thus exceeding the $10 I eventually, grudgingly, send.

For some reason I was in a bit of an odd mood when the latest pimply faced workstudy student called looking for dough -- it was a guy, which perhaps doomed the effort to failure, as usually the voice of a youngish co-ed fresh from the leafy suburbs of Connecticut will elicit my interest enough to trade Professor McShane stories, after which I will usually promise the half-sawbuck, sort of the equivalent of the money on the dresser the morning after, I guess.

So I tell Mr. Sophomore that yes, indeed, I still get the beautiful alumni magazine. Which I read for the articles, really. Or, rather, would, if the articles were interesting. Which, is, not so much the case. Yes, I say, I get the magazine, which is rather puzzling as I graduated from Boston College.

Stunned silence.

Then, "Uh, you sure?"

Okay, perhaps he was asking if I was sure that I was receiving the Northeastern alumni magazine, not that I was sure I graduated from Boston College. I can understand him perhaps thinking I was addled enough to mistake the BC magazine for the NU magazine, as NU is quickly turning into a leafy green campus with expensive buildings, and the alumni magazine so rarely catches that real essence of Northeastern life, Punters Pub and classes at the Y (complimentary flak jacket included).

I am hoping that Northeastern has not taken to accepting students who would believe that I perhaps was not sure WHERE I HAD ATTENDED COLLEGE. I would have understood had he told me, "hey, you shitting me buddy?", or perhaps "oh yeah, you're the deadbeat who talks to the girls for thirty minutes and then promises ten bucks". But, please, am I aware of where I went to college? What the hell kind of question is that?

So, I said: Yup. BC, class of '93. Brilliant ad lib on my part, as due to Northeastern's patented water-torture-for-five-years I graduated NU in '94, but would've finished a normal school in 1993.

More stunned silence.

"Uh, could you hold?" So he put me on hold for 30 seconds, came back on, apologized and hung up.

So, no $10 bucks for Northeastern this year. Unfortunately, I may also lose my free subscription to the Alumni mag.

Jeez, I wonder if they'd print this story as an article? I'd read that.