Month: September 2014

Hola, Clampadres. It’s the last day of our first round of the Tournament of Awful, Ungodly Intersections. Make sure you get your votes in before we advance to the next round!

Poplar & Washington vs Centennial & Emerson

Poplar and Washington is kind of a sleeper entry into this contest. “It’s not THAT bad,” you say to yourself, but it kinda is that bad. All the time. Sure, taking a right isn’t automatically summoning death, but just try to take a left onto Poplar any time that isn’t the dead of night. People who don’t quite understand how a fucking rotary works (THOSE PEOPLE MAKE ME SICK) come flinging out of Grant Circle at ten thousand miles per second and almost t-bone you when you had a clear shot a millisecond ago. And try to take a left from Poplar onto Washington. On second thought, don’t. You’ll never make it. You will grow old and die waiting.

Centennial & Emerson/Commonwealth is one of my personal most hated intersections, mostly because my kid goes to Pathways so I go through this intersection four times a day. People FLY THE FUCK down Commonwealth now that it’s been repaved. It’s goddamn unbelievably dangerous.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObJV_PITRjA?rel=0&w=560&h=315]

LITERALLY THIS IS THE SOUND OF TRAFFIC WHEN YOU’RE JUST TRYING TO GET THROUGH THE FUCKING INTERSECTION. Listen, fuckwads, slow the shit down. You do have control over your acceloratrix. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve almost been taken out by some high school kid doing 90 late for homeroom.

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Sayward/Bass/Brightside vs Norman/Magnolia/Shore Dr.

Oh my fucking god, Sayward and Bass Ave. It sucks sooooo baaaad. While sometimes you can scoot through with barely any pause at all, you just fucking try it on a Saturday with nice weather. I have been backed up to Captain Joe’s before, no fucking lie. “Hey, let’s make the exit of pretty much all of East Gloucester ONE FUCKING ROAD,” some asshole must have once said, “And then let’s put a cut-through in the same intersection. I have spent seven minutes getting from the top of Sayward at Haskell down to Meineke. I know this because I timed it, since I had nothing better to fucking do since traffic wasn’t moving. You know what the fucking worst is? When some super de dooper dickbag goes in the right lane and then takes a left. I want to punch these people right in the butthole. Although blog-friends of ours live on the corner and sometimes it’s fun to drink in their kitchen and watch people angrily navigate the intersection.

Norman/Magnolia/Shore is our attempt to reach beyond downtown and include our far-flung friends in Magnolia. I mean, no intersection is particularly bad, as Jim Dowd pointed out to me, “because it looks like a freight train of nerve gas tipped over there.” Point your angry letters in his direction. Anywho, the one time a year I bother going to Magnolia for whatever reason, this intersection kinda blows. I mean, first of all, why is there a round thing in the middle of an intersection if it’s not meant to be a rotary? We have a tourist population, people have no idea how to drive in optimal conditions, let alone when faced with a random barrel thing in the middle of a 4-way intersection. Nevermind, there doesn’t even have to be a fucking next thing, because that’s it. Yeah, and then the confusing one-way stuff going on there, that’s probably a thing too.

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Two Sisters of Mercy

Gwen Sclafani’s

Destino’s Child

Ocean Soundgarden

Temple of the Dogbar

Mike’s and the Mechanics

Donny and Maria’s Pizza

Gloucester House of Pain

Daft Punkworth’s Bistrot

Boy George’s

Rolling Stone’s Pub

Fleetwood MacDonalds

Pratty Smyths

The Franklin Goes to Hollywood

MadFishbone

Tacos LouReeda

Halibut Pointer Sisters

Katrina’s and the Waves Bar & Grill

Bachman Turner’s Seafood Overdrive

Diana Ross and the Supremes Roast Beef

Belle and Sebastian’s Pizza

Jason Mrazorean

The Sheryl Crow’s Nest

The future can be a scary place. For instance: at some point in the future you, dear reader, are dead. That’s kind of a downer. Sorry. But it’s also true that everything awesome that’s ever going to happen occurs in the future. It’s where every sandwich you will ever eat from here on out resides. The next season of your favorite show is out there. Every upcoming breakthrough and triumph and most importantly, it’s where our kids live.

Downtown Gloucester, 2017

The future is something we ignore at our, and especially their, peril. There are aspects of it we can control and lots more we can’t.  But while it makes sense to remain optimistic, being delusional is another thing entirely. So with that in mind, I feel that it is the responsibility of The Clam to point out that, regardless of how we got here and who’s to blame for what, it’s a very real possibility that the fishing industry in Gloucester may dwindle down to pretty much nothing.

There. We said it.

Understandably, that comes as a gut punch to a lot of people. It gets others mad and they start going on about catch limits and how tourist jobs suck and all kinds of things that are not germane to owning up to this very real possibility. And because people get mad, we don’t talk about it.

I’m becoming worried that in order not to hurt understandably upset people, we’re not speaking about this openly. I’m deeply concerned that leadership is not addressing it, as this is their, like, job and stuff. I’m terrified that the only place willing to openly state: “The fishing industry in Gloucester may very well be on a downward slide from which it will never recover” is a satire blog best known for imagined lists of nautical strip-club names and the term “assweasel.”

Weasels are assholes

For years I have listened to convoluted mental gymnastics from smart people when they are even tangentially confronted with this idea. I have heard a few intelligent people say that the fishing industry in Gloucester is “on pause” which I suppose is a step in the right direction in the acceptance of a possible post-fishing future. But it sounds sort of weird when you think about it for a second, right? On pause? Things on pause have a way of not coming off pause, such as my relationship with Sarah Andrews which went on pause at the end of Spring semester in 1989. I saw her at a reunion a few weeks ago, she has two boys and owns a bakery in midcoast Maine. We’re still on pause.

Ask your leaders, “Should we plan for a post-fishing future?” If the answer is “no” then we need to know why. If the answer is “yes” then we need to know exactly what that plan is. We need to think and prepare for what we’re going to do without fishing if we accept that possibility as a real one. We need to be prepared to make changes and spend money. We need to do this calmly and without freaking out.

Oh, who am I kidding. Here, let me get that out of the way:

“You WANT this to happen because YOU aren’t from here/are an elitist snob/whatever”

No I don’t. I’d rather there be a robust fishing industry, but I’m also not a fool. Also: your doctor might be an elitist snob, but she also can tell you if you if that weird mole is a concern. Those two facts have little bearing on each other.

“The reason we’re opposing change is because we’re grieving our loss.”

Grief is fine to a point, but once it begins to make it difficult to do the work needed to make necessary change, it’s corrosive. Lots of industries have changed, even right here. Quarrying was once a huge thing, now it’s not. Change happens, it’s hard and yes, sad. But the trick is managing it. And on grief: Mom may be grieving Dad’s loss, but if she can’t afford to stay in the big house then she can’t. It’s up to us to help her do the right thing. Not talking about it is not helping.

“We’re going to become like Newburyport!”

Newburyport

Not if we plan, not if we make some kind of real efforts to move forward will we come to resemble the most detested berg on the northern coast, a city whose name is spat like an epithet. But if we continue to do nothing, we’re going to wind up like Lynn after GE scaled down.

“You should have seen it back in…”

Stop. Stop right there. Nostalgia has, at this point, become a destructive force. I don’t want to hear about 40 years ago. I want to hear about ten years from now. We need to spend some time detaching ourselves from the past and figure out who we are now and who we plan to be. Sorry.

“Tourists Suck!”

Ok, fine. Give me another plan then. If we don’t want more tourists, then we need other business, but that’s even harder in a lot of ways. Businesses need the same stuff: hotels, restaurants, mixed use office spaces, parking. Businesses also require trained local employees, so get ready to spend a lot more on the schools. I’m ready for a non-tourist plan, though. Hit me.

“It’s over man! Game OVER!”

Pull your shit together, Hudson.

So, there. I said it. Be mad at me if if you want, but know this: I’m not responsible for catch limits or climate change or ground stocks or any of that stuff. I, honestly, don’t even want to have that discussion at this point because it feels like we’re on the Titanic, taking on water and all anyone wants to talk about is who was steering when and if the iceberg was tabular or non-tabular.

Sort of academic at this point

Be pissed at me, but know this: What I want is for the future of Gloucester to be as cool as any point in the past. That is all. We have resources that other communities would kill for, we have natural beauty by the fuckton, we have a formidable DIY spirit that will be essential as Western culture moves from passive consumers to situational creatives. We have the most visceral (to the point of frequently being alarming) group of out-of-the box thinkers you can imagine.

The future is going to get weird. And we’ve got just the right weirdos to meet it.

Clam, out.

Now that we’ve sufficiently pissed off a few folks over yesterday’s post, time to head back to our Tournament of Shitty Intersections! We’re almost through the first round!

Maplewood/Railroad/Prospect vs Washington St @ High St

Maplewood & Railroad‘s intersection with Prospect Street better win this fucking competition (although, fucking Tally’s corner, right?). I live around the corner and used to commute this way when our shop was on Maplewood. HOLY. FUCKING. SHIT. What a goddamn flaming barge of trashbags this intersection is. You know what the fucking worst part is? When folks coming from Maplewood block the intersection for those turning from Prospect onto Railroad, and before you know it NO ONE CAN MOVE AND EVERYONE IS BEEPING AND GESTICULATING WILDLY. Save me, Cthulhu. It’s worse now that you can’t cut through the Shaw’s lot easily. No one understands what the fuck the purpose of the random buoy is, as I’m pretty sure a fucking old buoy from the goddamned ocean is not DOT approved but MAYBE I AM WRONG.

Washington & High up in Lanesville is one that I don’t use too much, but Jim added in because he’s lived up there and wanted to include more than just downtown stuff. Its giant drawback is that it’s pretty much a 90 degree angle that you have to take at about .001 MPH or risk smashing into either another car or a stone wall. Meanwhile, it’s around a curve, so some giant truck will whallop you in the ass if you slow down to actually cut the corner correctly. Well done. Jolly good. Etc.

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Joan of Arc vs Pond/Eastern/Witham

The Joan of Arc crappersection is kind of like a rotary in that you have to go around it, but it’s the exact opposite because people exiting from Washington onto Middle and those coming up Washington from Rogers/Main have the right of way. Add in tourists, the American Legion, and folks coming from Middle street by the YMCA, and it’s just a mess. Just yesterday morning I was stuck there for five minutes because a crane truck coming from Middle accidentally snagged a telephone cable and didn’t realize it until everyone started honking in terror, and I almost started drinking at 10 AM. If you’re unfortunate enough to try to use it to make a u-turn, practice your angry screaming in the mirror first.

Pond/Eastern/Witham. I don’t know about you, but this intersucktion (ha!) has a personal, gnawing level of hatred for me. Because I have a love for thrift shopping, I am often turning into and out of Pond Rd to go to Second Glance, and almost every dang time it’s like taking your life in your hands. Ditto trying to turn out of Witham, the opposite street from Pond. For a reason I don’t quite understand, people seem to disregard the “35 mph! please god” signage and go by at about 88 MPH, maybe trying to get back to 1955 or whatever. On the flip side, if you’re going straight, the chances someone will put on their left blinker midway through the intersection and slam on their brakes so you pee your pants in fear are approximately 99%. How does that happen? “Just drivin’ down 127, OH YEAH POND ROAD THAT’S WHERE I WORK!”

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