The rent club delivers
I just received a quick visit from Mike Leslie of ‘Happy Birthday Mike Leslie‘ fame, who was kind enough to hand deliver this months rent club art.
If you still haven’t been to the shop at 420 Pleasant St Worcester, MA take a look at this little video tour courtesy of Mike Benedetti of WCCA.
Every city council needs one
No feeding the geese homeless in Orlando
What’s next, a Soylent Green expo in Epcot’s ‘Future World’?
“City Commissioner Patty Sheehan has become known as the commissioner for the dogs because she helped pass a state law allowing dogs to eat at restaurants outdoors,” Local 6 reporter Chris Trenkmann said. “But, now she is being criticized for not allowing the homeless to eat.”
Team Batshitinsane strikes again!
I’ve covered booze at the Worcester Latin Festival here before. The festival, one of the cities largest, most successful, supremely attractive and most edible is moving back to the Worcester Common this year after a brief set change to the other side of City Hall on Main St during the time the Common was being rehabbed. While the festival was partying like Argentina just won the FIFA World Cup on their temporary new home, they made the smart move of introducing a beer and wine tent to the festivities. More of a beer and wine jail actually as you could only drink inside a caged area under police guard because as any good prohibitionist knows, the mere sight of Poppie drinking a $5 Bud Light could send any youngin’ spiraling downward into a life of crime. Or something like that.
Well this year the festival is going to move a whole 20 yards back to its original location on the City Common and they intend to bring their overpriced beer garden/prison with them. But not if the most boring man in Worcester, Parks Commissioner Gary ‘Cromwell’ Vecchio has anything to say about it. Keeping true to form, he does in fact have something to say about it and as usual what he has to say makes very little sense.
From todays Telegram and Gazette:
“It looks like we’re going to have another debate about allowing alcohol in our parks,” Mr. Vecchio said. “It’s sad, but over the last six months, the Parks Commission has spent more time talking about alcohol in the parks than any other item.
“I think it’s wrong in every way and cannot be justified,” he added. “If we approve this, how do we ever say no to the Summer Nationals at Green Hill Park wanting alcohol? Or what about symphony concerts at Institute Park and Cristoforo Colombo Park, or the summer concert series at Elm Park, or to sporting events that request alcohol at their events? I don’t think we will be able to say no, and that will be a shame.”
The reason why you’ve had to put so much time into alcohol discussions, Gary, is twofold 1. you’re wrong and everyone else is right and 2. no wait, number one covered everything. The argument can and has been justified by normal, right thinking people such as myself over and over again. The Commissions fear of having alcohol requests made for other events is the whole point. I might actually start going to some of these borefests if they have booze on hand. I’ll guarantee my attendance to any event if I don’t have to drink inside some makeshift fortress of shame. Otherwise I’d rather just stay home and do something more exciting like watch the Home Shopping Network.
And they say government is boring
As some of you may know, I’m a member of the Worcester Cultural Commission which acts as the Local Cultural Council(LCC) for the city of Worcester. Over the years LCC’s statewide have seen a significant decrease in the funding they receive from the Massachusetts Cultural Council(MCC) which has obviously resulted in a decrease in the number and scope of projects we’re able to fund. Well this year we’re going to try and change that. June 26th we’ll be holding a public forum to gather input on a series of changes we’re working on to the local funding guidelines we use to distribute our monies. The most significant change will be allocating large chunks of our funds to public art. We have two paths to this goal that we’re exploring, one being the use of our current grant process for permanent installations. The second being a sort of rental system which has gained popularity in other communities nationwide that would also use our existing grant process to acquire works on a semi-permanent and rotating basis. As these are big changes in the way we do business and will affect the overall number of smaller grants we’ll be able to award in any given grant cycle we’re looking for as much public input as possible. Even if you’re not someone who would apply for a grant, large or small, this money still plays a role in your city; especially in how its viewed by outsiders. That said we we’re looking for a large headcount to attend and offer their input and/or criticisms.
The forum will be held on June 26th at the Worcester Center for Crafts.
I’ll see you there.
The NSA: “thx 4 teh add!! LOL!!!”
Just when you thought spying on Americans couldn’t get any more bizarre, the NSA appears to be working on a plan to combine mountains of MySpace data with it’s already well established phone records in an effort to connect people at “deeper levels”.
Who do you think is in Bin Laden’s top 8?
By adding online social networking data to its phone analyses, the NSA could connect people at deeper levels, through shared activities, such as taking flying lessons. Typically, online social networking sites ask members to enter details of their immediate and extended circles of friends, whose blogs they might follow. People often list other facets of their personality including political, sexual, entertainment, media and sporting preferences too. Some go much further, and a few have lost their jobs by publicly describing drinking and drug-taking exploits. Young people have even been barred from the orthodox religious colleges that they are enrolled in for revealing online that they are gay.
