Month: December 2014

Yesterday we talked a little bit about how we’re in a kind of collective funk this past few weeks. But today, we decided to celebrate the fact that as bad as things seem now, they could always be worse! For instance, we could also be dealing with:

• A worldwide fudge shortage.
• Everything in America, inside and out, smells like fridge. Everything.
• Climate change means one week of March weather, every month, all year.
• Every pizza is now a broccoli pizza.
• Like half of America gets trenchfoot for some reason.
• Turns out taxes were done wrong and everyone has to refile for the past five years, within the week.
• Downtown Gloucester is getting an Au Bon Pain and an Olive Garden.
• Housecats will start pooping twice as much for no discernable reason.
• Turns out condoms are only 35% effective!
• LEGO announces they will only now sell a completely new type of lego that is not compatible with regular lego.
• Neil Armstrong wrote “JUGGALOS RULE! WOOP WOOP!” on the moon with his rock collecting probe. It will be there for the next 5 billion years.
• I guess the Dalai Lama is a huge men’s rights activist troll on Reddit and is learning Pickup Artist techniques.
• Mayor Kirk, after a bout of possible food poisoning, signs an executive order banning Indian food within the city limits. You can’t even bring takeout home.
• The only candle scents left until 2016 are “wet dog” and “tuna fart”.
• Turns out the recent chicken regulation flap unearths a Puritan-era city law that actually forces all residents to own at least six chickens whether they want to or not.
• Elizabeth Warren quits Senate to become chief executive at Uber.
• Mick Jagger announces he will retire, but Kid Rock will replace him in the Rolling Stones.
• Every super bowl commercial spot has been bought by the NRA.
• We have made contact with alien species. But they just want to come here and have sex with pandas. If we let them, they give us cheap source of unlimited power. We have to watch. That’s the deal.
• “Actually, we have no idea how fucking magnets work. None.” –Scientists

I know I’m not alone when I say that the world, the country, the news, is all crushingly depressing lately. So many of us feel powerless to effect the kind of change we need to make sure that justice, liberty, the pursuit of dreams – all those things our country was fucking founded on – are still attainable. It feels overwhelming. It feels like a lot of our naivety has been stripped away. It feels like everything weighs a million pounds.

First we were turnt up on outrage. Now we’re burnt out on outrage.

“It feels a little like the months after 9/11, when we all just wandered through like zombies because it was all just too much,” my husband remarked the other day, looking up from the glow of his laptop. He’d just sent me a list of civilians killed in botched police raids. I didn’t read it. I already knew there were too many, the instances were too galling.

It’s not that it’s one thing we can focus on, however, like 9/11 – it’s EVERYTHING. It’s the seemingly unstoppable tide of unarmed deaths of people of color by police who are supposed to protect us, and there’s no repercussions at all. At fucking all. The backlash against the victims that makes certain cross-sections of America look embarrassingly ignorant, classless, racist, and awful. It’s Rolling Stone throwing their victim under the bus. It’s climate change, the squeezing of the middle class, the feeling that every politician has been bought and they’re barely bothering to hide it anymore.

It doesn’t help that the holiday season is often a time for intense stress for so many folks. I am one – while I truly want to feel the wonder, the magic of Christmas that I did as a kid, it’s no longer happening for me. I haven’t belonged to a religion since I was a teenager. I hate with a passion the crass commercialization that goes on during December. So while a lot of people take solace in the joy of the holidays, there’s those of us that go the other way.

i feel you, buddy

I struggle to come up with an answer to how I, how WE, how all of us that feel this, can make it better.

Usually our job here at the Clam is to cheer people up – make people laugh, make people think, piss some folks off, but our goal is to MAKE SHIT BETTER. A lot of that we do with humor, sometimes we’re serious, but a heck of a lot of the behind the scenes Clam conversations are about making people, making businesses, making the city better. I want to make this better for everyone.

But I’m not sure how, when I can’t even make it better for myself.

Do I tell you to take comfort in the small joys in life? I guess. Maybe you already do that. Maybe you already sniff out the positive articles on Facebook and enjoy them or share them. Maybe you already look around, realize we live in an incredible time of technology, of medicine, a time when knowledge is exploding, and take solace in that.

Maybe you do all that already and this is all still overwhelming and too big. It’s too much all at once, isn’t it?

I can’t make it better right now. At least, perhaps, by acknowledging the crushing weight so many of us are feeling, we can all stop feeling so alone in our anger-overload. Maybe the fact that we feel the anger and outrage, even if we’re so burnt out, means we care. We’re engaged, we’re listening, and we want to make it better.

Last week the Gloucester Clam brought you our two-part gift guide. Today, however, we wanted to change it up and focus on the more upscale gifts, so we can appeal to a wider audience, like Manchester, Rockport, or Eastern Point. Since I’m not a certified Rich Person (TM), I had to make an educated guess at what the 1% wants for Christmas. Here we go.

Kalamazoo Artisan Fire Outdoor Pizza Oven

Look, when you live on the ocean by some kind of boardwalk thing and there’s no houses in between, you probably live a pretty sweet life. Make it sweeter by giving that special someone (who you made sure to sign a bulletproof prenup with) the Kalamazoo Artisan Fire Outdoor Pizza Oven available at Williams-Sonoma. This indoor/outdoor oven needs no winterizing and can be used year-round, which is perfect for that ski lodge your gift recipient probably already owns. This brushed-stainless oven is available in propane (like awful middle class people use) or natural gas, and is built, welded and assembled in Kalamazoo, Michigan. $6795.

Luxe Fur Tree Skirt

You want style? This tree skirt from Anthropologie has got style, and then some! It does not appear to be a large enough tree skirt to bone your (second, much younger) wife under, but what do you want for a mere $698? This item is actually in their “gifts” section. It’s made of Mongolian Sheepskin and is Dry Clean Only, so make sure your wife’s creepy lap dog stays the hell away from it.

Black Steel & Wood Ping Pong Table

Buying a gift for that fraternity brother who never quite matured past his Alpha Sigma Phi days? Why not give the gift of the world’s finest beer pong surface? Look no further than Restoration Hardware’s Black Steel & Wood Tennis Table. This European-made table is hand-honed to resist scuffing, like when your inebriated frat brothers raced across it for a slice of lukewarm pizza and nobody won. And if your boy ever gets his shit together, this beauty easily transforms into a conference or dining table. $3995 plus shipping. Includes 2 paddles and 6 balls.

Jo Malone Pomegranate Noir Luxury Candle

Nothing says “I really don’t know what the hell I could buy for you, so here you go, boring person” like a scented candle. But the gift of an ordinary candle totally makes you look like a cheapskate, especially after your startup held its IPO last month. The Jo Malone ‘Pomegranate Noir’ Luxury candle from Nordstrom is the answer to this conundrum. This 4-wick, 7 inch high candle “combines the sweet fruity notes of raspberry, plum, pink pepper and pomegranate with patchouli, frankincense and spicy woods to create a scent that’s sensual, totally sophisticated and utterly compelling.” Sounds gross. Bonus:  “In celebration of Jo Malone’s passion for the elegant art of gift giving, the scented home candle comes presented in a signature box tied with a ribbon.” Yeah, buying a candle that smells like patchouli is an elegant art. $455 (shipping included).

 Waterford Crystal London Desktop Bar

Now that you’ve made partner at the law firm, it’s time to properly thank your dad for getting the D.A. to drop that unfortunate vehicular manslaughter charge you got in high school. And what better way to thank the old man who gave you everything he could (from his stock options to that poor girl’s family) than Neiman Marcus’ Waterford Crystal London Desktop Bar. This crystal and leather portable bar illuminates automatically when opened, and contains crystal decanters, highball glasses, and old-fashioned glasses, as well as a leather tray and coasters. Live it up, Mad Men style. $17,500 (free shipping, free returns).

So, here is the deal. We have nice things. Way nicer than we should have, actually. For a town of 30K people with a pretty high poverty line we got all kinds of crazy-ass awesome stuff. Think about it, or go back and read this feature for the past six months.

We got art. We got drama and music. We got technology programs for kids. And we have The Backyard Growers, a Gloucester-created organization that helps people and schools grow their own food. Look, you know this is awesome, you’ve heard about it, but I just want to remind you they REGULARLY hear from kids that didn’t know carrots came from the ground. That’s worth your support right there.

Someone buried these things in here I guess…

But you’re tapped. You have donation fatigue. I get it. 

So fuck it, let’s let the Saudis pay for it.

We could skip the Russia thing and just fund them directly through this link, Highness. No? Ok, as you will.

You know how gas has fallen in price over the past six months because the House of Fauhd, the rulers of Saudi Arabia, are trying to bitch slap the Russians over natural gas shipments to China? Yeah, well they are. And because of it we’re saving like 20 bucks every time we fill up our tanks.

So, here’s how this works. You fill up your car. You look and see that it’s about half what you usually pay. Say to yourself, “I am going to donate the difference to Backyard Growers.” You can do this on as many tanks as you want- two or three or just one. But the deal is this:

Now the Saudi Arabians are funding Americans growing of their own healthy food and teaching their kids about small-scale agriculture. Does this piss them off? Of course it does because agriculture is about 30% of US fuel spend. You are therefore using their own money to make us healthier, smarter and best of all less fuel-intensive. You’re kicking them right in the Prince Abdullahs.

So here’s the link- video by the amazing Stephanie Cornell, another Cape Ann talent allowing us to punch way over our weight creativewise.

Once we get BYG out of a house and into a real space they can actually use their energy and time to bring the awesome to more and more families and kids. It’s like a second-round startup right now, they’re out of the garage and kicking ass.

So send them some of that light, sweet Saudi cash! (petroleum industry joke)