Hmm. I got a little dressing down from one of my neighbors on the subject of Meaney Park.

I want to be clear: I love my little neighborhood in Dot. It’s very mixed and we all get along (although I did hear gunshots last night). And, I do get out and talk to my neighbors, by the way. I am neighborly with them, as they are with me. We have a very neighborly little neighborhood.

I’m not really sure what Owen (not Meany) is getting at. We know our neighbors and talk to them. We maintain this property, and take pride in our little one-way street. The triple decker is in tip-top condition. We keep the lawn and the hedge trimmed. We routinely clean up litter off the sidewalk and street, all up and down the street. We initiated tree-planting on our street. So whatever you’re getting at, you’re making assumptions that are just off-base.

Our aesthetic sensibilities are probably at odds, Owen. Because the park is sad, as the pictures below will testify (and I have more photographic proof I am willing to produce), and saying it’s not sad doesn’t change the fact that it is, and doesn’t do it any service either, it just makes the situation sadder.

Here are some scenes from Meaney Park:

I went out and took these pictures this morning. While the neighborhood gets an A for effort for its sad attempts to spruce up the park with painted placards affixed to the fences, this low-cost “rehabilitation” took place years ago. As you can see, now the paint is all peeling, the benches are broken, the weeds are overgrown, and the play equipment is outdated and uncared for.

You know, you don’t fix things by ignoring the problem, or by blaming the messenger. I don’t have any agenda except to call ‘em as I see ‘em. I’ve talked up Dorchester in my blog, and praised my neighbors for their conscientious rubbish disposal. But I’m not going to lie about Meaney Park. It may be used, but it isn’t loved. And that’s sad.

You want to prove me wrong? Instead of pretending it’s not a sadly neglected little parcel, organize a clean-up. heck, organize regular clean-ups. Do more than just talk to your neighbors, Owen, get out with them and maintain that little much-loved parcel. Saying “I don’t think it’s all that sad, except for the occasional drunk or junkie” and then contrasting it with the Common after midnight? Somehow I’m still not convinced that’s not sad.

Let me share a story with you. I was walking through the Common one day recently, and there was a young woman–a teacher or a social worker, I guess–with a group of kids, all around the ages of seven or eight, probably. They were using one of the ball fields there.

The teacher lobbed a ball at the kid in the batter’s box and he hit it, but it was way foul. Several feet to the left of the third base line. Still she screamed and clapped and encouraged the boy to “Run! Run!!”

But there is more to playing ball than just hitting the ball. And while it’s good to make contact, for the “coach” to pretend that a foul ball and a fair ball are the same does no service to the kids. If it’s batting practice, that’s one thing, but if you’ve got the players arrayed in the field, then it’s time to play by the rules of the game.

It was sad, because you could see that she wanted to boost the kids’ self-esteem, but she was setting the bar too low. Not only that. It becomes quickly patronizing.

My point is, Meaney Park is only a nice park by these patronizingly low-expectation standards. You don’t make a park beautiful by neglecting it and then pretending it’s beautiful. Let’s get back to reality-based politics, people. You can’t fix it until you admit it’s broken. And don’t blame the messenger.

And thank you, Charles Swift, for the background and the link–I was looking for information yesterday, but couldn’t find anything. It makes it even sadder to me, that this is a real piece of history that’s being neglected by the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation. I say it’s time to start writing letters and making phone calls.

My street was closed off today, because BEN AFFLECK is filming right down at the end of it, in my DRUG PARK!

That’s one of the saddest little parcels I know, but somehow it’s got the most appropriate name: Meany Park. But it was somebody’s name, I think. Maybe Owen’s. It’s a historical lot–site of the first something or other. Whatever it was, it’s gone now. There’s a plaque. I’ll get back to you on it.

I think the movie’s about a missing child. I think it really promotes Dorchester’s drug parks to highlight them in a movie about child abduction.

But now, with this big-ass crowd out there, I’m not gonna be able to get my Thursday night crack fix. My dealer’s camera-shy.

Article by Charles D. Chieppo in the Boston Globe, HERE.

Chieppo argues that the T should focus on maintenance rather than expansion. Whether you agree or not, he makes some good points about how the MBTA’s $8 billion debt could be addressed by the legislature.

He cites Stephanie Pollack’s study “On The Right Track: Meeting Greater Boston’s Transit and Land Use Challenges,” which you can find HERE. Pollack is a Senior Research Associate at The Center for Urban and Regional Policy at Northeastern University.

It’s been an exceptionally busy week for me so far. I spent the entire afternoon Monday out making the rounds with a case worker from Homestart and a physician’s assistant from Mass. Healthcare for the Homeless. I’m writing a feature on the Housing First initiative, and have been meeting with folks involved on all levels. Warriors and saints.

There are currently ten people in the program, all of whom were homeless for a minimum of five years (three of the ones I met claimed to have been on the streets for twenty, and I can believe it) and were all “high utilizers” of the emergency rooms. The social worker and physician’s assistant told me there was someone who’d visited the emergency room three hundred times in the space of a year. When I spoke to Dr. Jim O’Connell, who runs the program, however, he put the figure at around fifty, but when you consider an emergency room visit runs around three grand, and a bed runs ten, we’re talking a minimum of well over a hundred thousand bucks a year for these guys.

In the eight or so months since they’ve been housed, these emergency room visits have, of course, been cut back drastically.

Which is the whole idea behind the Housing First pilot. Housing, according to O’Connell, is a big part of healthcare. Once you get them in stable housing and in a situation where they’re getting regular physician’s visits and preventative care, they’re not only better off themselves, the idea is they’re saving the taxpayers big-time.

But O’Connell admits, the jury’s out on the supposed savings. It’s still a question whether the cost of multiple weekly visits from case workers and physicians will turn out to be less than emergency room visits in the end.

And as far as the clients ever being truly self-sufficient, most are simply too impaired for that to ever be a real possibility. Before visiting the first clients in North Quincy, the case worker suggested going to the supermarket to pick him up some groceries, which she does for him routinely. As we waited for the physician’s assistant, who was picking up some meds for him at the pharmacy, I talked to the case worker about gardening. It turns out we both have plots in public gardens.

She asked me what I grew, and I said, mostly flowers. The thing about growing vegetables in the public gardens is that it’s labor-intensive and then inevitably just before they’re ready for harvest, either someone comes along and plucks them, or some critter digs them up and eats them. And I haven’t got time for the pain.

I asked her the same, and found her answer telling. She said she grew mostly vegetables, and as to the inevitable heartbreak that comes with that: “oh, we don’t care if we can harvest them, we just like to see them grow.”

Stay tuned for more on this story…

I also met yesterday in Cambridge with the indomitable Shugars (of tboycott.com) and Jeff Rosenblum of livable streets, to discuss possible action on the fare hike issue. Jeff wasn’t so hip to the idea of a boycott. Shugars explained that it was something to get people fired up. Jeff’s objection was that it’s not actually the T that needs to be demonstrated against, it’s the legislature. I thought I had made it pretty clear that any rally that took place in conjunction with a mostly symbolic boycott would be directed at the legislature. Jeff has obviously not been reading my blog. But I have to admit, I have not been reading his, either. I’m determined to start, anyway, and you should, too. Livable Streets has been doing some great things for Boston.

Jeff suggested getting in touch with MassPIRG and the Sierra Club, who he says are planning a demonstration at the State House. I would be all for one big rally, and to leave it to the pros to organize it. So I’ll be in touch with them, and then back to you on that.

Following that little meeting, Shugars and I attended the T fare hike Q&A near Central Square. There were no more than fifty people there (and I would put the number at 35 or so, and it was a rather gloomy crowd at that, except for the guy from Medford who made a rousing proposition: that the T should be absolutely free of charge, period–people went nuts for that).

There were actually two state legislators (Rep. Alice Wolf and Sen. Jarrett Barrios) there for part of the meeting. They both urged the MBTA to come to the legislature for debt relief, to which the T representative, after being silent on the issue through most of the meeting finally responded:

“On the issue of the T going to the legislature…the prevailing feeling at the T is that the legislature gave us forward funding to live with and the T really can’t go and lobby the legislature. If individuals want to go and lobby the legislature, more power to you, and that would be fabulous if everybody went out and lobbied the legislature for us, but the leadership of the T doesn’t feel like it’s their place to lobby the legislature, because they gave us forward funding and said ‘you’re on your own, this is what you’ve got,’ and we have it.”

A public member of the MBTA Riders Oversight Committee (TROC) reiterated, but in stronger terms, that “the T is not allowed to ask for any more money from the legislature.” She went on to say:

“What the…members of the Oversight Committee did is we met separately and as a bunch of individuals we wrote a letter to every member of the senate and the legislature. We delivered those in person a week ago Thursday, asking them to reconsider the idea of forward funding, and that the state really needs to step in and really needs to contribute to public transportation, and not just in the urban areas, but across the state. So we’ve done that, and we hope that other people will do that, too, since the T is not able to do it. It’s up to individual people to do it.”

State senator Jarrett Barrios had a slightly different take on the issue, and told the T representative: “It is never, ever, ever successful for a legislative initiative if the agency you’re seeking to help denies they need the help. It is absolutely critical for us to hear from [that] agency.” I like Barrios, but both his comments and Rep. Wolf’s sounded suspiciously like passing the buck.

In fact, that’s a big part of the problem with the T. But that’s what you’re dealing with. So, as the TROC member basically said, the message riders and the taxpaying public have to send to the T and the legislature is “the buck stops here.”

I’ll get back to you on the issue of a demonstration at the State House, and the fate of the rally at Copley once I’ve contacted some of the other organizations involved.

According to Universal Hub this morning, 28 people are so far in favor of boycotting the T JUNE 6TH, 26 people are opposed. So that leaves about 1,172,946 who could give a fat rat’s ass either way. Power to the people! Woo-hoo!

What if I told you that New Kids on the Block had contacted me, begging to co-opt the demonstration at Copley Square June 6th to kick off their comeback tour? I’m not saying they did, but what if?

And if they did, here are just a couple of the potential scenes you might miss out on…

Now, far be it from me to try and bribe you all with one of the greatest, if not THE greatest boy bands that was ever assembled, and a local boy band at that. I’m just saying, you don’t know what we’ve got up our sleeves. So don’t come whining and crying to me when, on the 7th, everybody’s talking about what a wild, funky-fresh time they had on the 6th, and all you can say is, “hey, guys, what did you think about America’s Next Top Model last night?” Might as well just plan on putting that giant neon L in your backpack before you set off for work that morning, because you’ll be wearing it on your forehead all day.

Well, the sun was out most of the day today, but I happened to get caught in the rain. I had got on my trusty bike and cycled down to the Shaw’s on the other side of the JFK/UMass T station. I make it a point to go to that supermarket rather than the new Stuper Slop-n-Schnapps because every time I go to Shaw’s I hear Nicolette Larson’s “Lotta Love”. They have it on a continuous loop there, and Jesus God I love that song with all my heart. I do. Neil Young wrote it, and I have his version at home, but Neil Young is no Nicolette Larson. Once you’ve heard her version, you go back and Neil sounds like Kermit The Frog singing it. I heard Nicolette’s version first, of course. That’s the one they played on the radio back in ‘78, when I was nine. Nine. That was a very good year.

So every trip to Shaw’s is like a trip back in time. To nine.

Now, it was sunny–you know, partly cloudy, but the sun was shining, when I got to Shaw’s. When I stepped out of the supermarket there was this wall of black, impenetrable evil barrelling across the heavens. It was inscrutibly ominous and headed straight for me, like, like, like my future, or something. But it was moving so fast and headed for Southie, I thought maybe, just maybe it’ll pass right on over me and rain on somebody else’s parade.

No such luck. Just as I got on my bike and jetted off across the parking lot, all hell broke loose. There was this ferocious wind whipping all around, and lightning and thunder. It was very Wagnerian. And then came, not rain, but HAIL! Riding your bike in a hail storm. Not a good idea.

So I took a detour into the T station. Haven’t been in JFK for probably a month, maybe a little more. Figured I could wait out the brunt of the storm there. Or at least the hail. I was surprised to see that they’ve got a wall of ticket machines where the newpapers used to be. They’ve also got a couple of the new turnstiles in there, though I can’t say if they’re up and running yet.

I still didn’t really want to hang out there, so after a couple minutes, I took off. I was soaked to the skin by the time I got home, and now the sun’s out again. It’s true what they say about New England weather: you don’t like it? Wait a minute, it’ll change.

So why, exactly, should anyone boycott the T and attend a rally in Copley Square on JUNE 6TH?

A poll at Universal Hub shows those opposed to a one-day boycott and rally are neck-in-neck with those in favor. (Sure, only about 75 people have taken the poll so far, and a quarter of them chose: “Don’t take the T but love polls,” but somehow I think the level of resistance or apathy towards organizing and demonstrating shown in the results is probably pretty accurate.) So it’s a good question.

As I have said before, I’m more an agitator than an organizer, and I’m actually fairly uncomfortable in the role of encouraging public spectacles. I think most people should remain indoors at all times, and never show themselves publicly. But there are times when a demonstration is in order, and I think this might just be one.

What, in my view, would a demonstration achieve? Well, for one, it shows that there’s a significant level of interest and involvement in the issue on the part of those affected, that requires the powers that be to take notice.

In this case, while the MBTA is calling meetings and “workshops” it’s really the legislature that must be lobbied. By demonstrating outside of the MBTA-sanctioned “workshops” taxpayers and MBTA customers are showing that we understand that we have a stake in the system, that, in fact, it is our system, many of us are paying for it two times over, and we’re willing to take responsibility for reforming it ourselves.

And it needs reforming. If the legislature does not address how the T is funded, how it is managed, and how it is maintained, we are looking at a spiral of rising costs and declining services.

I also believe, as I have stated before, that fair fares are a social justice issue. I am not for silly proposals like free fare on the T. But I am very much for fares that take into consideration that for many there is no alternative to the T, and that realistically consider the social impact of constant fare increases on those who have already overstretched resources.

So, some of the more astute smart allecks out there will say, “hey, those people who have no alternative to the T can’t boycott the T, now, can they?” Well, no, they can’t. But maybe you can for them. And there’s also a rally that you can come to regardless. You don’t have to boycott the T on the 6th to come to the rally.

If you can’t afford to boycott the T, you can still come to Copley Square and show the legislature that you understand that this is about more than an isolated fare hike, that this is part of a much bigger, even more troubling trend that if not addressed by lawmakers will result in a downward spiral.

The rally is not to stick it to the T, it’s to widen the discussion of what’s wrong with the T, and to show legislators that taxpayers and T customers are serious about a system that works for those who need it and those who use it.

You know, some days it’s all pity, some days it’s all scorn. Though they are so closely related it’s sometimes hard to distinguish between them.

Wednesday I had a break between classes and took a stroll around the Back Bay. And after admiring the Hancock, which looked smashing against a stormy sky, and some stonework on the Old South Church I hadn’t noticed before, I took a stroll down Commonwealth Ave., and sat for a spell on a park bench.

There are days, as I said. And this was one. You know, the sun was out—in and out, but out—for the first time in two weeks, or something utterly ridiculous, and you know how people are. They forget themselves. And everywhere I looked people were rushing around, like they had someplace else to be. It seems like nowadays you are hardly ever where you are.

There were a couple of dog walkers who went about their task with utter joylessness. And you’ve got to admit that if you can walk dogs joylessly, you can do just about anything joylessly. It was impressive in its way. There was a neatly attired jogger with a tennis racket sticking out of her backpack. She was wearing the ubiquitous white ipod earphones, and looked determined in her joylessness, as well.

A pinched-face yuppie yammering on his cell. Two pumped-up gym bunnies jogging by trying to show the world how str8-acting they can be. And the construction worker who joined me on my bench, methodically, meticulously unpacking his methodically, meticulously packed sack lunch piece by crinkly, crunchy piece over the course of an endless half hour.

And there I was joylessly watching all this determined joylessness joylessly unfold before my eyes. Thinking, of myself as much as those around me: “vanity of vanities, all is vanity.” Every gesture, every thought, every breath. All in vain.

But this is the danger of sitting on park benches. They should be required to post some sort of warning on them.

I’d gone to see Poseidon with my friend Robert over the weekend, and I thought about the stereotypes we were supposed to be happy to see survive in the end. And now, as I watched the self-style stereotypes around me, I thought, please God, let me die alone. And that’s what you get from watching Hollywood disaster movies. It’s not just that I don’t want to be part of the body count on the nightly news. The real reason is I don’t want some other drama queen stealing the scene. I’m only gonna die once. It’s my freakin swan song.

So, as you can see, last Wednesday I had only contempt. No pity. Except for dogs.

I got up and moved on, thinking about how hard we work to eliminate the magic in life, but how sometimes it still manages to slip under the radar. Occasionally things happen that shake up the manufactured and painstakingly maintained mundanity of our thoroughly modern lives.

For example. I have been receiving communiqués from my past, a boatload of them all at once, from all corners of the globe. From places as unlikely and disparate as Paris, France and Lawrence Kansas; Budapest, Hungary and Hobart, Tasmania. From friends and lovers, old students and teachers. From different points along my path. And all these messages came thundering in over an utterly random two-week period. After years, nearly a decade in a couple of cases, of silence.

You know, what is that?

No, really. What is it?

This morning I had a very positive and productive conversation with a representative from the Parks Dept., one of the three people in charge of granting special events permits. He was extremely helpful, told me nothing was scheduled for Copley Square JUNE 6TH and seemed to think we could get in there to do some “street theater,” picketing, and leafleting with no trouble.

He also suggested a mid-morning gathering for the noon news, and a mid-afternoon presence for the six o’clock news, which I think is a great idea, too. Obviously some sort of presence in Copley Square all day would be optimal. I can be there, but a commitment from at least five people to just hang out for some portion of the day and drum up some interest would make all the difference.

With that in mind, I’d like to announce an organizing meeting for Thursday, June 1st, after workish time and location TBA (if anybody has any suggestions for a Back Bay location, pipe up now), first round of drinks on me. By the way, I’m not committed to this date, I just figure Thursday’s a good day of the week for it. Any and all feedback will be considered.

Now, I want to be clear about this. No one is asking is for your first-born, and this is not some scary cult. This is the real grass roots. No organization is sponsoring this. Nobody here except us chickens, as it were. Make of that what you will. Nothing grave, nothing awful, and nothing will be asked of you except that you show up and make a fool of yourself for fair fares.

(Chex will be the guy in the hoodie and unibomber shades hanging off to the side counter-demonstrating. But, you know, what’s a demonstration without a counter-demonstration?)

Myself, I look at it as an opportunity to see some fresh faces and share some terror tales of the T. If we make the news, too, all the better. If we make a difference, icing on the cake. Have fun with it, goof around, make a spectacle of yourself. No biggie.

Feel free to contact me through this website if you’d like to join me for beers, pretzels, and tears on or around the 1st and I’ll keep you posted…

It certainly does not surprise me that many who read this blog pretty much agree with Chex, and are resigned to paying higher fares. They may not put it in quite the same arrestingly childish way Chex did (which should remind us all that the internet emboldens people who should remain under their rock to tentatively crawl out from under it–please, Chex, get some social skills and then get back to us) , but I think the idea of joining anyone in public protest challenges their pretensions of being utterly individual.

But, I’m sorry, the idea of being all for a 25% increase in the cost of anything is counter-intuitive, and all the blather about the cost of things in other places or the facilities available elsewhere (yes, it’s true that Paducah, Kentucky does not have a subway system–and?) does not address the issues on the table here.

It’s very important to keep your focus. It’s not about how much you hate the T (I’m a big fan of public transit myself) or how much more you hate dirty hippie protesters who hate the T.

It’s about showing you’re serious about long-term viable solutions to the problems peculiar to our public transit system, here, where we live. The simple, incontrovertible fact is that this fare hike doesn’t solve the funding problems of the T. That’s why I object to it. If they raise the fares and don’t address labor, funding, and budget issues in a real and significant way, the fares will go up again in the space of another couple of years. And it’s not always “the T needs more money!” Sure, the MBTA could always use more money, but it needs to be using the money it has much more wisely first. We need transparency, oversight, and accountability, which are all currently undermined by the unions, as well as better ways of funding the system, for which the legislature must be lobbied, and we need management that’s truly able to manage, and up to the challenge.

And blabidee-bla, right? Who cares! It’s inevitable, isn’t it? The T itself predicts it will lose up to 6% of its riders with the fare hike, at a time when it should be drawing new riders and revenue. Who are these six percent? People like me, first of all, who live and work in town, who are able-bodied, and who have alternative ways to get where they’re going. Which is fine for me. I mean, I enjoy cycling around town. And I get an extra lift from the money I save.

But there’s more to the idea of public transit than a way to get ME from point A to point B. There’s the promise of public spaces and public facilities that work because people care about the idea of a shared spaces and facilities.

And there are social justice issues that are larger than public transit, but are related. The minimum wage is currently $5.15 an hour, as it has been for nearly a decade. With this fare increase, while the minimum remains stagnant, subway fares will have doubled. This may not be a big deal to you, but there are a lot of people out there who have no transportation alternative, and no discretionary income to cover an instant 25% increase in the cost of transportation to and from work. Maybe they should move to Paducah, where the cost of living isn’t 240% the national average, with apartments ranking 48% more expensive than the national average.

Yes, we all hate haters. But pull your head out of your cyber ass long enough to see that this is not some meta thing, about critiquing the critiquers. Relax, it’s just a good, old-fashioned, pre-post-modern protest. Sometimes you just gotta get up off your duff and do a little something, make a little noise. But if all you can do is grumble about the grumblers and protest about protesters, well, then, best to just stay under your rock, where you’ll do about just as much good.