pt at large

Boston Marathon Bomber: Last Stand In My Home Town?

Friday, April 26, 2012

 

 

Watertown, MA
Friday, April 19, 2013
3:00 PM

2:33 AM.  Who the hell is calling at this hour?

"This is Detective Connors of the Watertown Police Department. There is an active incident in Watertown right now. Chief Deveaux is asking all East Watertown residents to remain in their houses. If you see or hear anything suspicious please call 617-972-6500."

Now it's personal. One of the Boston Marathon bombers is apparently holed up in a house a mile and half from my home in Watertown. Near one of my favorite restaurants. Near the place I get my car washed. Right off Arsenal Street, one of the busiest thoroughfares in Watertown.

Governor Deval Patrick asked people who live in the entire city of Boston, as well as the nearby communities of Watertown, Waltham, Newton, Belmont, Cambridge, to “shelter in place” — stay inside and not open their doors to anyone, except police with proper identification. That’s over a million people.

Now it's personal. I set my home alarm. For the first time in my life I do not feel secure in my own home. An act of terror rocked the finish line of the Boston Marathon on Monday, April 15, Patriots' Day. Improbably, the younger of the two bombers identified by the FBI may be making his last stand in an area I drive by everyday. At this moment, he could be on foot in the shadows, like a cornered rat, looking for another refuge. In the semi consciousness of sleep, I register every noise. If I cannot automatically classify it, I wheel out of bed and peek through the shade. I am on edge.

Late last night, the two bombers highjacked an SUV at a 7-Eleven, shot and killed an MIT police officer as he sat in his car,  and led police on a bloody shootout as the SUV raced down a local streets. Hundreds of rounds were fired. One of the bombers, the older brother, was killed in the chase. His younger brother is in hiding in Watertown, my hometown for over 40 years. I recognize every landmark in the background as CNN engages in nonstop coverage. My hometown is a giant televised crime scene. This is surreal.

Hundreds if not thousands of state, local, and federal law enforcement agents of every stripe are forming a thick collar around that neighborhood a mile away. The street outside my door, normally buzzing with UPS trucks, neighbors driving or walking to and fro, and teenagers heading for Victory Field, is empty. Businesses, schools, the public transportation system of buses and subways – closed.  A “Shelter in place” advisory to all. Unprecedented.

Now it's personal. Since about 2:45 PM on Monday, I realized the Boston Marathon would never be the same. As of 2:33 AM, my tiny, under the radar, unassuming, adopted hometown is in the shadow of that horrible act.

Terror used to be abstract. It happened somewhere else. New York City on September 11, Oklahoma City in 1995, and now Boston. The scene of Patriot’s Day carnage will not disappear. We will still fill Fenway Park and the TD Garden and Gillette Stadium and cheer for our hometown teams. Yes, and run in the marathon.

After Monday, it will be more than a city crazy about its sports teams and traditions. It will be an act of defiance.

About to Spring

Watertown, MA
April 11, 2013

One of these days, it’s gonna happen. You’ll walk outside and the whole world will have turned green. And yellow, red, purple, violet, and just about every color in the Crayola box.

At the moment, Spring is in that awkward pre-teen stage. The cheery songs of the early arriving robins fall on deaf ears of dormant shrubs and trees. The predominant color scheme is drab. Brown leaves lie in windblown piles against fences and house foundations. Ribbons of road sand, dumped by the ton from those huge yellow trucks, line the edges of every street in my neighborhood.

The storm troops of spring - snow drops, crocuses, daffodils, hyacinths and their cousins have pushed up and somehow survived temperatures down to the thirties since the official opening of Spring in March. They’re pretty perky. They know what you and I know. Spring is just around the corner.

Some day in the next two weeks, Nature’s hormones will kick in big time. Spring, the kind with exploding forsythia, day lilies, daffodils and tulips, will emerge with the awkward grace of a teenager, with tons of energy and vitality to burn.  

In the meantime, the flora in my little neighborhood is marking time.

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

My iPhone: A Lesson In Humility

My iPhone5 is smarter than I am. Exponentially. The first time it rang, I didn’t know how to answer the call. The salesman in the Verizon store smiled, flicked his finger over an icon and said, “Put it up to your ear and talk.”

It knows how to get directions from where I am to where I want to go. It knows where to find the nearest pizza shop, Thai restaurant, gas station and where the nearest theater playing “The Sessions” is located. There’s a ton more it can do. All I have to do is figure it out.  Considering the fact that iPhone-istas say that there’s enough horsepower in an iPhone to have sent the first rocket to the moon, that seems to be a steep learning curve.

Until last week I was the master of my own universe. I could program my DVR, navigate the clicker to play video, DVD, or even old VHS tapes. I could program my microwave to cook whatever I deposited onto the carousel. I could whip out my little two-year-old clamshell LG flip phone, send texts, take a photo now and then, set alarms, and effortlessly make and receive phone calls, which was what I thought was the primary purpose of a cell phone.

Driving along in my car last week, my little phone rang – I pressed the button on the steering wheel to answer. Nothing. Frantic digging around in pockets ensued. I headed to my dealership.  Surely they could make my phone work again.


“The Bluetooth function in your phone has died,” the service tech explained after punching in some numbers on the console and trying to revive my poor little artifact. In the next few seconds, he whipped out his iPhone, fiddled with the console and BAM, his iPhone showed up on my digital console.

“You need one of these,” he grinned.

My friend Christopher, one of many who’ve been lobbying for me to get an iPhone, was thrilled to take me to the Verizon store. An hour after perusing the merchandise, my snappy new iPhone was in my pocket. It chirps, bongs and plays a cool little piano riff, depending on whether I’m receiving a text message, email, or phone call.

Responding to a text is comical. A caveman using a chisel on a smooth piece of bedrock could hammer out a short message faster and more accurately than I. My forefinger is useless at homing in on the letter I want to use. For every correct letter I manage there are two or three I delete. I regularly throw my hands up in utter frustration. This is progress?

Then Christopher tells me about Siri.

When I miraculously learn how to find her, she coos in a soft voice, “How can I help you?” 

He points out the microphone icon, and says,  “Tell her whether you want to send an email or text message to someone in your address book, and tell her whatever punctuation you want and where you want it.”

Siri and I have a moment.

Dear Siri comma I feel like a dope using this phone period It takes me more time to use the keyboard to write a text message than it took Gutenberg to invent the printing press period The only App I can use with utter confidence is the Clock period. Forget the camera period. The shutter button is so sensitive it takes me several tries to make a decent photo that includes a person’s head period And what about the keyboard question mark Can’t you make a larger one so I can hit the right letter every single time question mark I could mail a letter and get a response faster than how it’s going now period. I am aware that the so-called interfaces on the phone are said to be intuitive period Hah explanation mark All men may have been created equal but that does not include equal distribution of intuition period Trust me on this period I couldn’t find my way out of a digital paper bag exclamation point And another thing period Can’t you give a guy more time to compose a message before you say quote ready to send your message  unquote question mark Other than that comma this device comma notice I said device comma nobody calls them phones any more comma might over time comma and we are talking geological time frames here comma still prove to be the cool device that people rave about in commercials during the Super Bowl period By the way comma you have any idea where I could score a good seat for next year’s game question mark smiley face

Photo taken, after several miserable attempts to get the whole phone in the frame, by me with my trigger finger happy iPhone.

Lungs: A Relationship, A Baby, and Global Warming

Lungs, a play by Duncan Macmillan, directed by Bridget Kathleen O’Leary
The Black Box Theater
The New Repertory Theatre in residence at the Arsenal Center for the Arts
Watertown, MA
February 17-March 10, 2013
March 5, 2013

No matter what the New Rep Theatre attempts in their Black Box Theater at the Arsenal Center for the Arts in Watertown, it’s likely to be entertaining, challenging, off -the-wall, unfocused, non main-stream, creative, meandering – often all within the same play. Lungs, a play by British playwright Duncan Macmillan is a case in point.

Within a long stretch of 90 minutes, Macmillan takes on global warming, overpopulation fueled by both irresponsible and planned parenthood, the burden of bringing a child into a world teeming with social and ecological ills, the toll on a relationship of raising a child, and the entire cycle of one specific relationship.

Advertised as a comedy, it feels more like a psychodrama with some really funny lines. The play blasts out of the gate with M (Nael Nacer) floating the idea of making a baby with W his live in girlfriend (Liz Hayes).

W, who happens to be writing a PhD about global warming, is wired like a human pinball machine. Wildly conflicted about the prospect, she goes into hyperdrive, rattling off non-sequiturs, one-liners citing alarming ecological statistics and mugs ferociously.

Nacer as M, offers gravity, calm reassurance, reasoned arguments while managing to check his own ambiguity about becoming a father. (Note: if couples went through this kind of dialogue before deciding to have a child, there would be about one billion fewer people on the planet.)

Hayes is really good as a stream of consciousness woman who scatters facts and figures like a blunderbuss about the fragile state of the planet  and piles her ambivalent feelings about motherhood on top like so many jimmies.

Nacer, as M, can’t say much without setting W off on a tear about small scale personal responsibility of bringing a child into the world and the larger picture of a planet teetering on the brink with diminishing resources and an uncertain future for the generation about to be born.

The scenario is not far-fetched but the random way Macmillan throws in statistics about carbon footprints, a world awash in waste, in the midst of whether the couple should bring a baby into the world feels like driving a square peg into a round hole, more of an erudite filler than an axis upon which to build a hefty element of the play’s theme, which resonates with the angst and conflicting beliefs a man and woman bring to a modern relationship.

Their riffs about the kinds of people popping out platoons of children before they’re of voting age are delightfully non-PC thoughts that liberals might harbor but these two say then feel guilty about. Interspersed with these riffs are their ideas on whether smart people procreate or whether good people create babies knowing they’re adding stress to the planet’s fragile reserves.

The tiny Black Box Theater’s 12’x12’ square stage, surrounded with audience on both sides and center, with its honey oak finish becomes their world. Subtle changes in lighting and illumination of a design suggesting tree roots behind translucent drapery behind the set is all the actors need to portray work, home, a park, a nightclub, even a taxi on the way to the hospital when W’s contractions increase.

Through dialogue and subtle gestures, Nacer and Hayes follow playwright Macmillan’s story line to perfection as the playwright cleverly charts this couple’s relationship from its inception to its demise and beyond.

We hear about the divide between M and W’s parents, the ups and downs of M’s career, W’s commitment to the planet, the breathing exercises used in childbirth, the fading romance, M's infidelity, their separate paths, children (“They grow up, start buying their own clothes, leave home and hate you,” W says.) and a touching scene from their final years. Nacer and Hayes are at their best as they portray, in a matter of seconds, the changing intersections of their lives.

Nacer’s M is steady, gutty and layered. Hayes is great at acting as a very smart neurotic time bomb in nearly every scene but during ninety minutes the role gets stuck in the same mold. A judicious trimming of dialogue would help. Perhaps director Bridget Kathleen O’Leary could have suggested some throttling back or signs of growth that would have given W more dimension.

"Lungs" breathes life into two very complicated, very modern characters.

Photos by Andrew Brilliant/ Brilliant Pictures

Hub City Diner: From Jukebox to Jambalaya, 1950's Rise Again

Hub City Diner
1412 S College Road
Lafayette, LA 70503
February 8, 2013

People in Lafayette love to eat. They have their pick between upscale, boutique, roadhouse, quirky, and a (blessedly) few chain restaurants. Then there are establishments where you’re greeted with a statue of a pelican doing its best Elvis impersonation and a huge Rockola Jukebox chock full of the hit parade from the 1950s. Welcome to the Hub City Diner.

You're barraged by a riot of colors that were oh so fresh in the 1950s and now have a decidedly and proudly retro appeal. Vinyl and Formica rule.

Booths with shiny sparkly red and beige vinyl banquettes and gray Formica tabletops line the wall, are matched with smaller aqua and black banquettes against a center partition. In snappy contrast, aqua steel tube chairs and Formica tabletops fill the center, all atop the shiny black and white tile floor. Cart the whole room into the Smithsonian and you’d have a defining period piece.

 

The food is All-American with enough Cajun twists to remind you that you’re in southwest Louisiana. It’s tasty, inexpensive, and served with a smile. Families and couples wander in as one of the Mardi Gras parades ends a few streets away. (Pink flamingos, which flourished on suburban lawns in the 50s, are a familiar sight during Mardi Gras but are probably regular fixtures at the Hub City Diner.)

Since we’re headed to The Blue Moon Saloon for a night of dancing to Horace Trahan and the Ossun Express, I load up on fried catfish served on shrimp étoufée and a bed of rice –that’ll keep me going for a few hours.

Next time I’m in Lafayette, I’m headed here for breakfast. I’m a sucker for home made biscuits, which get raves from the clientele.

Oh, then there’s the dancing part. As we’re finishing dinner, in walks the former owner, a broad Panama hat on his head and his silver haired wife, in a sparkly black and white top and black skirt, on his arm. He begins reeling off stories to anyone who’ll listen, including a boastful comment about how the hotel they’d just come from opened the dance floor for them to have a twirl.

My dining companion gives me a look. A Patsy Cline ballad drops into the Rockola play slot. By the time Patsy’s finished, our dancing style is getting applause from the former owner’s wife and occupants of the table next to it. Not to be outdone, Mr. Former Owner takes his wife for a turn, more applause. If there were a vote, we’d have won on style and connection. Just sayin’.

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

Brother Sun: Three Stars, One Stage

Brother Sun

Circle of Friends Concert Series
First Universalist Society Meetinghouse
262 Chestnut St, Franklin, MA


January 19, 2013

Think of the most gorgeous sunset you’ve ever seen and translate it into three-part harmony. Brother Sun is earth, wind and fire on a folk stage. With a collection of guitars and an electric piano in view, it comes as a surprise when the three men approach the mics and launch the set with a breathtaking flight of a cappella singing with the gospel tinged  “What Must Be Done.” Close your eyes. The sweet, richly textured harmonies sound for all the world like the Grammy award-winning African American female a cappella ensemble Sweet Honey In The Rock – with balls. 

Each of these men can hold a stage as a solo artist. Together, they’re transformed into a magnificent force of folk alchemy that has been dazzling audiences for two years.

Joe Jencks makes eye contact with Pat Wictor, and Greg Greenway who penned “What Must Be Done,” and grins. Something special is going on. The full house audience, mostly graying veterans of the folk movement who wore flowers in their hair during the sixties and seventies, softly sings the choruses. “This is some of the best singing we’ve ever done,” Greenway says to his two comrades as the applause fades. No kidding. The rest of the night is filled with more of it.

True confession: I’ve disdained folk music for a while and had to be coaxed to come to this show. Brother Sun is beckoning me back to the fold. 

They certainly look like folk singers. Pat Wictor, with his long reddish locks, goatee and mustache to match, is from New York. Joe Jencks, with luxurious tight ringlets of russet curls cascading down his mountain man broad shoulders, hails from Chicago. Bostonian Greg Greenway, dressed in black, could double for a college professor out with friends on Saturday night. Greenway is in rare form. His erudite, goofy patter cracks up Wictor, Jencks, and the rest of us.

Photo:Neale Eckstein

What makes these guys so good together is that they’re so different. If there was ever a comedy country folk circuit, Greenway could make a fortune. Joe Jencks’ deep, commanding voice is the gravity of Brother Sun. Wictor’s deft picking, guitar fills, and harmonies offer balance and counterpoint. Holding his guitar in his lap like a slide, he’s the sly music engine of Brother Sun.

“In the wee hours after a day of driving this song just fell out of the sky,” Greenway says as he leans into a delicately evocative “Highway 4 AM”. Joe’s baritone, swelling from his great barrel chest, is perfect for the working fisherman’s song “Saint Christopher” that follows it.

 Pat Wictor’s slide guitar style and throaty delivery are an effective change of pace for his bluesy composition, “Pushing Stones.” Wictor also takes the lead on a cover of Mose Allison’s “Everybody’s Cryin’ Mercy,” and he makes it count. 

Jencks says, “My father died on June 21, 1991, I am now older than my father when he died. I was driving around Rockport late one night and this song ‘Sad’ fell right into my head,” Once again, the audience softly sings the choruses to the gentle ballad. From the first song until this one, an invisible but palpable aura infuses this darkened room. It takes musicians confident in their own styles and material to share a stage together - and for these three gifted singer/songwriters to realize that their lush harmonizing on each other's songs packs a stronger wallop than if they'd been sung solo.

Greenway sings “Jericho Road,” in honor of Martin Luther King. It’s an emotional rendering, but all tonight's songs have an emotional charge. “Martin Luther King, Jr. talked about ‘the crooked road’ of love and he challenged us to keep connected,” Greenway says as he introduces the song.

Then comes a Pete Seeger moment with “The House That Jack Built”. No folk concert can be complete without a labor union song extolling the dignity of labor and brutality of the companies that tried to crush them. Vintage folk.

Brother Sun’s rich repertoire tonight is filled with originals and a couple of covers spanning blues, folk, and American roots music. Just when you’ve settled into their groove, Greenway floors us with the impish send-up “Fox News” sung as a cappella doo-wop, with split register notes that could have come off the streets of Brooklyn. Judging by the audience's response to the decidedly partisan lyrics, there aren’t many Republicans in the house.

Three of a kind is not much of a hand in poker but put these three singer/songwriters together and you’ve got a Full House.

SET ONE
“What Must Be Done”
“Come With Me”

“Well Well Well”

"Highway 4 AM”

“Saint Christopher”
“Pushing Stones”
“Trouble”
“Sad”

“Shine”
 Here's a little youtube to give you a teeny idea of their style

SET TWO
“Jericho Road”
“The House That Jack Built”
“These Hands”
“Everybody’s Cryin’ Mercy”
“Lady of The Harbor”
“Fox News”
“Go Tell Mary”
"Love Is The Water”
“All I Want Is A Garden”

Encore
“In The Name Of Love”

 

Brother Sun: Three Stars, One Stage

Full review of the concert to appear shortly.

Brother Sun

Circle of Friends Concert Series
First Universalist Society Meetinghouse
262 Chestnut St, Franklin, MA


January 19, 2013

The Circle of Friends Coffeehouse was founded in 1990. Presently housed in the First Universalist Society Meetinghouse in Franklin, MA, it books concerts from September through May. “They always book the best,” says Pamela Rivers, former Peach Productions owner who’s seen enough talent to know quality when she hears it.

The concert hall has an intimate feel despite the fact is can hold a sizeable audience. A first timer like me was stunned by the exquisite quality of the sound system, hailed by some as the finest listening room in the country. The coffeehouse is renowned for two things: music and food. If you have a sweet tooth, arrive early. You'll be flabbergasted by the gourmet array of desserts spread across several tables in the foyer. Don't dawdle. By the end of intermission, they will have been consumed.

Brother Sun - Pat Wictor, Joe Jencks and Greg Greenway - performed at the Circle of Friends Coffeehouse on Jannuary 19, 2013.

El Patron Rides High: Tres Punto Bueno

Tres Punto Bueno
A Chilean Rodeo in Concon, a coastal city within sight of the Valparaiso skyline
January 5 and 6, 2013

When Chilean cowboys hear the announcer utter those words, they smile. Not a big show-your-teeth smile. That’s not their style. When Ricardo Ceriani heard “tres punto bueno” (three good points) boom from the loud speaker over the judges’ box, he and his riding partner, young Pio Ledezma Rojo, known as Pollito (Po-yee-toe) since he was a tot, sat higher in the saddle, ramrod straight, and cantered off the competition arena, their colorful mantas flowing in the breeze. The highest score in a round is cuatro punto bueno. I’ve been to several Chilean rodeos (this one in 2011). I never saw one of those awarded.

In the steer roping part of an American rodeo, there’s the rider and steer to be roped and tied. Two moving parts.

Chilean rodeos are complicated, choreographed equestrian events. To win, horsemen need skill, nerves of steel, patience, lightning fast reflexes, a well trained horse under them, and a good shot of luck.

Two riders act in tandem and ride around a semi-circular earthen packed arena called a medialuna with the goal of pinning a calf against cushions at either end of the arena. The timing of pinning the calf against the cushions, the coordination of the skilled horsemen and their highly trained Chilean horses is crucial. One split second of indecision spells a low score or worse, a score of “un punto malo,” (or “dos punto malo” for larger infractions the strict rules of engagement between horsemen and calf), a deficit very difficult to overcome in succeeding rounds.


Ricardo and Pollito: Tres Punto Bueno; points awarded for where the calf is pinned against the padded area.

Ricardo built his own medialuna behind the farmhouse in which he and Susaan live from November to May every year. At 8 AM several mornings a week, you can hear the snorting of horses and their muffled hoofbeats as horsemen and horses trot from the stable to the practice area. Farm caretaker Juanito Perez escorts the calf Ricardo owns into the medialuna.

One hour of intense practice ensues. Horsemen shout, clods of soft brown earth, churned by shod hooves, cartwheel into the air and arc back to earth, as riders wheel horses into the best position to pin the calf at each end of the arena. The ground shakes under my feet as the trio of horses and one uncooperative calf pound past me. From one pass to the next, there’s no predicting what the calf will do. Perfect. Managing unpredictability with speed, discipline, and coordination is where a punto bueno becomes possible.

Ricardo practices at his medialuna in Nogales; Ricardo and Pollito relax a moment before their turn to compete.

An hour later the horses are lathered up, washed down, brushed, and returned to their stable. Ricardo resumes his life as El Patron, overseeing the daily operation of Chilefarms in Nogales.

By Saturday morning, he’ll be ready to load his horses into his truck and head for the rodeo. If he does well Saturday, he competes again Sunday. Being well prepared and winning are two different things. Win or lose, Ricardo will be prepared. In the 12 years he’s been competing, his opponents know to expect a man who comes to win, has the grace to lose with dignity, offers no excuses, and is easily the funniest and most popular “huaso” (cowboy) in the rodeo.
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Scenes from a rodeo in Concon 2012

On the road to Concon; cowboys wait their turn to compete.

Dozens of calves will be used in the rodeo but only a few prizes will be awarded

The rodeo in Concon is always well attended.

Ricardo wearing a striped manta he won at a rodeo; pinning a calf against the cushioned area takes skill.


Concon, a coastal city a few miles from Valparaiso; the "Queens" of the rodeo.

Photos (except for photo in the middle of the story) by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.