Dave Alpert: I Know Where You’re Going with That

I just read this disturbing news tidbit about a kid that got ten years in jail for getting a consensual blowjob from a 15 yr old when he was 17.  Who else was giving blowjobs when we were 17???  They’re all 15-17.  I wonder how much of congress would have gotten jail time?

I guess  that some of the party where it happened was caught on tape.  Once again, I am sure glad that there weren’t camera phones when I was a kid.  That was a sexually confusing part of our lives when our hormones were out of control, and all of us did stupid things–and not so stupid things.  I mean, hello, we’re talking BLOWJOBS!

One silver lining is that the law that allowed this has since been changed.  Still, the attorney general down there is trying to keep the kid in jail.  One humorous part of the story is that the jailed kid’s defense attorney’s name is B.J. Bernstein.  That’s awesome.

It was two years ago (at about the same time I’m writing this post) that the POPstick St. Valentine’s Day Massacre went down.  Every employee in this small but well respected interactive firm was brought into the middle of our office space by Fenway Park and told that most of the company would be laid off.  While in and of itself, that’s quite a story, it isn’t the story

The news was delivered by Danny Kastner, straight off of his crushing defeat as a reality show contestant on season 3 of The Apprentice.  And, the layoff was in the form of a reality game that could have only come from the fertile imagination of a network TV gameshow loser.  Dan stood before us with a large stack of manila envelopes, and we were told that everyone in the company was going to get a packet.  Some would receive a “letter of retention”, others a “letter of separation”.  (As on TV presidential debates, applause were to be held until the end.) 

As Dan went to call the first name, he looked and said, “There are no names on these envelopes!”  A voice from the back of the room shouted, “Pass them out anyway!  It doesn’t matter.”  Apparently, David Wagner, our COO and lawyer by trade, had written the names in such small mouse type on the large envelopes that Dan couldn’t find them.  Most of us were laid off, and the vast majority without any severance whatever.  I was fortunate to get less than a month and a half’s salary as severance (after 5 years with the company).

While I found Wagner to be entirely despicable as a human being and the type of start up executive clearly out to maximize his profits at the expense of the company’s worker bees, I couldn’t help but admire the way he came out of this horrible situation a winner.  He had a contract with serverence packages reminiscent of the ones being criticized in the news today where even with utter failure to achieve his responsibilities as a corporate executive, he would earn major bonuses.  Moreover,  he managed to move to an executive position in another company despite the fact that he, the VPs and Danny K ran a profitable business with clients like Microsoft and LYCRA into the ground.

If there is a silver lining to this story, it is that most of us came out better than we started.  I, for one, learned a lot in my five years working with Dan.  And the layoff allowed me to finish my CD and start a new band.  Nevertheless, I’ll never be able to look at Valentine’s Day in the same way again!

Okay.  I guess as a Boston blogger I’m compelled to weigh in about yesterday’s viral marketing success story.  First, I’ll just get my point of view out of the way.  No.  The police didn’t overreact.  Yes. The TV network and marketing agency should be held accountable.  No.  The two shmucks they got to put up the signs shouldn’t have been the ones arrested.  But yes.  They are shmucks for acting so pompous and unapologetic in light of the problems they caused.  Yes.  Unless Turner is ordered to donate all the show’s proceeds to Homeland Security, they are still going to be the big winners in all this.  How’s that?

To my first point, who are all these bomb expert citizens that keep blabbing their mouths off about how the devices were CLEARLY not bombs?  It just goes to show that we Americans still have a long way to go in being prepared for a world in which this country isn’t immune to acts of terror.  If this were Bagdad or Beirut or Beersheva, there wouldn’t be idiots going around thinking it is such a joke. 

I lived in Israel for a few years and one of the first things I learned was to be conscious of seeing what they call a chefetz chashood (suspicious object).  I remember walking up to the bus stop near my apartment to catch a bus to the university.  The bus stop had been cleared and a police officer with a bullhorn screamed at me to get back.  The police robot blew up what turned out to be a kid’s backpack.  That being said, no one that was inconvenieced at the bus stop snickered and said, “Anyone could see that was a sponge bob backpack.”  In the 1970s, the PLO used to plant bombs in Israel that looked like packs of cigarettes or childrens’ toys.  Who cares that these devices (planted under bridges) look like litebrites?  In countries where there is a history of bomb attacks, citizens know to look for suspicious objects; in Israel, this vigilence has saved MANY lives. 

To my other points, I don’t care to elaborate.  I’m sick of this topic already.  In 2007, you still can’t scream “fire” in a crowded theater… or can you?

UPDATE (2/2): I live in Boston, traveled in and out of the city yesterday and this event didn’t affect me at all.  I don’t understand these people around the world laughing at Boston for “shutting down” and “overreacting”.  Did I miss something?  Here’s what the Boston police commissioner had to say about the chronology of events… (Seems pretty reasonable to me.) Message from Boston Police Commissioner.

Wednesday is going to be the coldest day of the winter to date, so remember to keep your crack covered…

I love that picture!  Remember that post?

Anyway, it’s gonna be cold outside, but HOT in the Abbey Lounge where I’ll be playing an early FREE solo show.  So, come by and celebrate “Hump Day” with a few beers and acoustic DAVE ALPERT.

Wednesday, January 17th, 7pm
ABBEY LOUNGE (pub)
3 Beacon St, Somerville, MA (Inman Sq)
NO COVER. 21+.  Solo Dave, playing and yapping.

My friend Elissa used to tell this joke when she lived here in Beantown:

Question: How come in Boston you can only eat two hundred thirty nine baked beans?
Answer: Because if you ate one more, it would be two forty (pronounced ‘too fahty’).

I recently thought about this for two reasons: 1. all this holiday eating has given me some pretty noisome flatulence. 2. I read this article about farting in prison.

Despite the fact that I consider myself an atheist (and as I pointed out, a memeber of the most distrusted minority in the US), I’d like to wish my fellow Jews and non-Jews alike a very happy Hanukkah.  Ah, the memories of lighting candles, the smell of potato latkes, gifts, gelt and family gatherings.  In college, we used to refer to a specific drug-related phenomenon as the Hanukkah bowl.  Nowadays, it means very little to me–apart from some holiday greetings from friends and family.

Oh, but before you feel too comfortable, remember this: there are anti-semites EVERYWHERE!  The world is an icy-cold place for a Jew.  Here’s some proof…

 

Click To Play

As I was walking past the International Youth Hostel on Hemenway Street yesterday, I heard a voice call out to me, “Dave.”  I looked up to see this guy smoking a cigarette out on the steps.  He continued, “I heard you telling that girl the story of your mom doing coke at your Bar Mitzvah.  Funny stuff!  I’ve told everyone I know that story.”  Suddenly, I recall seeing this guy sitting one table over that the cafe in which I hang out.  Now, I realize he was listening to our entire conversation.  That’s fine, I guess.  But isn’t there some kind of eavesdropping etiquette–some sort of list of rules to govern how you use information gathered while observing the social interactions of others?

Granted, sometimes it’s easier when strangers know the personal details of your life, as opposed to close friends.  They tend to judge you differently.  My friend Kim used to say that she held her most intimate conversations with strangers she met on the bus.  Still, the confirmation that this guy was, in fact, listening in–and even knew my name–was a little freaky.

Personally, I would have been a whole lot happier if he hadn’t felt it appropriate to approach me and tell me what he thought of a story I never even told him.  But what’s done is done.  I suggest that if he really wants to get the most out of the story, he tells it from the first person.  It would be a way cooler story if it was his mom doing coke at his Bar Mitzvah and not mine.  Or if he’s gonna leave me as the protagonist, at least use it as an opportunity to plug my EP.  “I think that sort of life experience led to him writing the brilliant Peace of Mind EP.”  Bastard.

 Any thoughts on this?

I know.  I know.  Who would have thought that I’d be writing two consecutive blog posts about Boston infrastructure?  Soon you’ll see Dave Alpert rolling down Mass Ave. with jeans tucked into untied construction boots.  But I digress.  As long as I can remember, the sidewalk on Boylston Street between Hemenway and Mass Ave. has been one of the most treacherous in the city–especially in the winter.  The sidewalk was entirely uneven, half-paved, re-paved, patched up, run down and crumbling.  I have seen many an innocent pedestrian wipe out on that sidewalk.  Well, after all these years, they finally decided to do something about it THIS MONTH.

Here’s a bit of the new handsome and level sidewalk:

Of course, they left some of the mess so we would never forget:

While they can never finish a construction job entirely in this town, it’s still looking pretty good from here.  Some local ambulance companies and doctors are going to be pissed.  Very nice…

My swell girl is moving to Portland, OR. 

I think this means we’re breaking up…

Ah, remembering happy times…

And speaking of West coast defectors… Rodrigo is moving to Olympia, WA (probably to become a pack mule for a meth lab or something).

There they go…

Join me in wishing them the best of luck… and a swift and triumphant return to Boston!  Oh, and Rodrigo: FINISH THE VIDEO ALREADY, BITCH!

When I was a kid, we used to wear these old-school flip-flops to the beach.  I grew up in Hull, MA, and flip-flops were commonplace all over town.  Actually, we used to call them “thongs”.  That was before thongs looked like this:

But you can see the resemblance here:

In any case, sometime at the turn of the millenium, women started wearing flip-flops around town, to work, out to shows and other places that, well, aren’t the beach.  Fine.  A sexy woman’s foot looks good even while flexing a fashion faux pas (like wearing beach-wear to a 5 star restaurant).  This trend is pretty much over.  Yeah.  There are still some holdouts–usually amateurs that probably still wear UGH!…ly boots in winter.  Northeastern students… What can you do?

Here’s the thing.  If you thought women flip-flopping around town was bad enough, there is a scourge of flip-flop wearing dudes around the city.  Oftentimes, they are also wearing backwards baseball caps (indoors).  Imagine what our civilization must look like to beings from another planet?  Greek.  And I don’t mean like people from Greece.  Sadly, at least in Boston, the fraternaties and sororities have won.  The one saving grace of 9 cold months is that in the coming weeks the flip-flops will all but disappear.  Now, what can we do about the baseball caps?