Boston Rock Clubs of the 1980s: Green Street Station

Doug Mellon remains a lot of things to a lot of people to this very day. At one time though, he was the proprietor of one of the most revered clubs in Boston Rock Club History: Green St. Station in Jamaica Plain. But the story is not so much about the rock club as it is about the man. Back then, Doug Mellon was a man of many talents and moods.

After Ed Burke’s closed sometime in the mid 1980s there were just two places to play in Jamaica Plain: The Midway Café right next to Doyle’s or take a real short trip up the street to Green St. Station. At that time The Midway booked blues bands, lots of blues bands…and The Roys. The Roys were THE big fish in JP’s small pond for years featuring the enigmatic front man and founder Dave Roy.  The Roys were blues based but a far cry from the more traditional blues bands that were plying the circuit. They played raw and loud blues rock like the Rolling Stone's "Star Fucker" and The Incredible Casual's "Records Go 'Round" which I believe one of the guitar players "Philly Roy" aka Phil Kaplan actually co-wrote. They were easily the best band nobody outside of J.P. ever heard of.  

The other room in town, Green St., was an “Originals Room” that featured 3 or 4 bands a night that wrote their own songs. Because of it's location on the fringe of the Boston rock scene where most of the rock clubs at the time were located in Cambridge or Kenmore Square, Green Street had a less urban feel and more diverse musical atmosphere. Doug Mellon, whether he had heard of you or never heard of you, was going to give you a gig...at least once the clubs mainstay acts were the groups based in areas just outside of the city and in or close to J.P. such as West Roxbury, Roslindale and Hyde Park. These were mostly rock & roll bands that didn't quite fit in with the Punk or New Wave genre promotional preferences of the downtown Boston clubs. There was even a World Music group that played there but I couldn't tell you the name because nobody ever gave a shit about the stuff. 

Green St Station, previously known as Kilgarrif’s and run by Doug’s father, was housed in a building practically next door to the Green St. T stop on Boston’s Orange Line just before you reach Forest Hills, the end of the line. The building was eventually knocked down during the 2000 housing boom and now a condo building resides on one of Boston rock’s most meaningful corners.

My first band, Cool McCool, started playing Green St. sometime around 1985 and continued right up until Green St. was taken for back taxes somewhere in 1990. It was then quickly purchased from the city by an Irish “concern” and given the puzzling name, "The Bog of Allen" which almost exclusively featured touring Irish folk acts from “Ye Auld Sod”. 

During the day, Green St. served food to the after work blue collar crowd and, being Jamaica Plain, had a variety of different cooks with different styles. Jambalaya seemed always on the menu and the regulars who hung out there saw everybody who was anybody whenever they played Boston.

“Dude! I remember the night you broke three strings on your bass in a 45 minute set!”

"I'm sorry man, you must have me mistaken for someone else."

"No Dude, it was YOU, I remember, you broke three fucking BASS strings!"

Shit, someone remembers me from that fucking gig!

Green St. was a very homey place, cheap beer and some home cooking (when available). And there were bands. Band’s like "Stop Calling Me Frank", "Hell Toupee", “Those Damned Kids”, “The Hendersons”, “Ms. Zanna Don’t”, “The Phil Tawa Band”, “The Infections”, “Uncalled For”, “The Visigoths” , "Girl on Top" and “Nisi Period”. All solid, well rehearsed acts. 

Doug even booked G.G. Allin one time but threw them out, crowd and all, after people started urinating on the dance floor as soon as the band started playing. G.G. Allin and band never got through their first obnoxious song before they were done and out the door. Although you would think that Doug had seen it all at Green Street over the years, he was incredulous. “What a bunch of Assholes!” he was heard to say about the incident.

Cool McCool played many shows there since we all lived just up the street and drawing a consistent crowd at Green St. was a comparative breeze and at one point played at least a year of Wednesday nights there.

Green St. was a good place to go see a band. The stage was to the right as you walked the room lengthwise from the door and there was a clear view of the stage from every point in the room. The the bar was to the left of the door along the wall so as you walked in, the room opened into somewhat of a diamond shape with the stage at first base and the far end of the bar at third. 

The sound system was better than most by Boston rock standards and in the hands of someone who understood the room's dynamics, a pleasing sound experience could be had by all including the musicians. Since the monitors never seemed to be loud enough, a band derived most of its aural feedback from their sound bouncing off the back wall opposite the stage. This worked pretty well most of the time and it was hard to sound bad there. Bill O'Malley, guitarist for the band Seka, ran the board for a number of Rythmmen shows at Green St.  I wasn't aware he was even in the band until I saw Seka win in the Rock & Roll Rumble finals. Up until then I only knew him as Bill the "Good Sound Guy."

It was irrefutable that Doug was a tough guy. He was known to hold a black belt in karate and was a force to be reckoned with if things got out of hand but subsequently I can count the number of fights I've ever witnessed at Green St. to half a hand while Dough had the place. 

There was always a crowd at Green St. in those days. As a local “watering hole”, people just went there. I still call J.P. the biggest little town in the world. People there just love to go out and support their local establishments and bands like you seldom see anywhere else. Dave Balerna, owner of The Midway Café with his brother Jay, once said “Give me 5 people from J.P. and we’ll drain this bar dry!” upon witnessing the “Soda & Lime” crowd while visiting a music establishment in Cambridge. There was little doubt he’d be correct.

Doug Mellon also had a band. I don’t recall what the name of it was but the legendary Joe Coughlin, long-time Boston musician and bedrock of the local rock scene’s remaining rock magazine, The Noise, was in the band. There were many anonymous bass players and drummers and Doug…sang.

No, they weren't that good. I don't think they rehearsed much and I don’t know, there was always something funny about the sound when they played. Something beyond their timing was off somehow. But every so often the band would appear on stage and well, there they were.

But I can still vividly recall the night when Doug’s band sounded…well they sounded pretty good. Everybody in the place knew immediately that this was a night to remember. One by one people swiveled around on their stools at the bar to pay attention. Suddenly Joe’s guitar sounded full and loud, surprisingly the drummer, what’s his name, seemed to actually hold a beat through an entire song and eerily the bass player, what’s his face, found his groove. The songs were oddly palatable. Doug was…singing! People were applauding and then it was rounds, rounds for the house! Doug was buying. It was truly a special evening.

Then there was the time Doug ran afoul of the Budweiser Beer Union, which, throughout the 1980s, had an iron-like grip on what beer came into the state. No Coors being served in Massachusetts and very little from the Genese brewery in New York State either.  We never heard of Yuengling back then. If you wanted a beer you got a Budweiser, a Michelob, a Miller High Life or a fucking Rolling Rock.

So fucking Rolling Rock it was for the foreseeable future after Budweiser stopped delivering beer. It was the only group that would still deliver. The only redeeming feature was that RR was a whole lot cheaper than a Bud. I don’t remember Bud ever coming back.

But life was pretty good for a while until Doug fell behind financially for many reasons. Green St. was taken by the City of Boston and The Bog of Allen was born just in time for my next band, The World Renowned Rhythmmen! to be ready to play an entire evenings worth of tunes. We had done a handful of opening sets just before Green St. was padlocked and Doug had stiffed us at the door each time so at that point I was not too broken up about the situation and as it turned out the new owners took a liking to us, in part, because the "Irish acts only" business model wasn't paying the bills and so The Bog started booking local bands again. But beyond business, the Bog management and staff treated us so very well to the point we thought we were dreaming. 

The Rhythmmen! played The Bog on a monthly basis as well as Christmas and New Year’s. We also played every Sunday for 4 months during this time all while playing through a bitchen’ $12,000.00 brand new JBL stereo sound system that these guys put in. In fact, these guys totally redid the place. No more Jambalaya and the legendary stink and soggy floor of the men’s bathroom was relegated to the dung heap of history.

But Doug Mellon wasn’t about to go away quietly.

One evening while we were on stage playing a set on a crowded Saturday night, I see Doug come through the door, walk straight across the floor in front of the stage right over to the new manager an "off the boat" Irish guy named Collum-something and just straight on punch the guy right in the nose. No hesitation and no warning “blamo!”. The best part was that Cullum actually saw Doug coming and was leaning, one arm against a doorway and looking pretty smug just before Doug knocked that look off his face but good. 

Down goes Cullum! Down goes Cullum! right down to the floor but he was back up on his feet again as Doug was walking out the door, his hands still curled into fists. 

That was the first shot.

Then there were a couple of times we would come out of The Bog after a show and there was a dump truck sized pile of broken asphalt dumped in the parking lot entrance. We had to slowly drive off the high curbs to get out. This happened one other time when we were playing there along with the occasional burning automobile which was almost a cliché at every club you went to in those days.

But eventually something good broke for Doug. The owner of Bunnratty’s, a prominent, notorious and sometimes dangerous Boston nightclub formerly located at 186 Harvard Street in Cambridge, was going to retire or something like that and it was said he had asked Doug if he could run the place on an "option to buy" arrangement. But things went downhill fast for Doug as he was off to the worst start in Boston Rock Club history when he announced that he was going to re-name the venue, first built in 1920, “The Coconut Grove”!

Yes, it’s true. Doug apparently had no idea that it was actually against the law in Boston ever to name another establishment “Coconut Grove”, ever since the worst fire in the city’s history occurred there on November 28^th 1942 killing 491 people in a sudden flash of flame and smoke and is listed as one of America’s Great Disasters right in the same pages as the Johnstown Flood, the Dust Bowl and the fucking Hindenburg! 

This Doug did not know. So not everybody can be a historian, right?

Anyway, Doug’s idea makes front page news on both Boston newspapers and after being personally denounced by the Mayor of Boston, Doug relents and decides to call the place “The Melody Lounge” which was bad enough since the original Coconut Grove sign also listed the “Melody Lounge” after its name. But it all didn't last that long after that.

The “retired” owner of Bunratty’s decides he’s going to un-retire and he took the club back and tossed Doug and the nefarious crew he had as an entourage at the time back into the depths.
During this time The Bog wasn't doing too well either. The day after our New Year’s Eve gig, the City Licensing Board walked in and shut the place down. The story was that The Bog hadn't filed their liquor license renewal in time for the new year. Either that or it was just a naked shakedown by the city. Either way the city closed the place for a month until the proper “paperwork” was filed. But The Bog never recovered that one month lost revenue. It was too big a hill to climb over. They hung on for a while but closed before the end of the next year.

The place lay empty but then became a day care center for a spell before being razed.

Doug Mellon moved out of Massachusetts and was running a club up in Nashua, NH for a few years. Last I heard he had moved again, this time to Rhode Island to try to get another rock club going. That is where the trail ends.

Epilogue:

We had some great times at Green Street Station both as performers and spectators but I would like to mention that my most cherished musical memory happened while we were playing all those Sundays at The Bog of Allen as The World Renowned Rhythmmen! One Sunday evening the aforementioned local celeb Dave Roy himself walks in and asked to sing a few songs with the band. Make no mistake, this was a high honor! So we ran through a list of tunes we all knew like Elvis’ “Little Sister”, Bo Diddley’s “Who Do You Love”, Wilbert Harrison’s “Kansas City” etc. until we get to “Secret Agent Man”. Dave  says to me “Yeah, I know the song, what’s the first line again?” So I says “You know, There’s a Man who lives a life of danger…?” “Oh yeah” Dave says, “I got it.” So we jump into the song and Dave sings that same line over and over through the entire song ending with the chorus “Life of Danger Man! Life of Danger Man! He lives a life of danger; he’s life of danger man!” Perfectly in time with the music and people were rolling, it was so funny. It was a great moment. Who would've known that Dave Roy didn't know the words to “Secret Agent”?

At the end of a most memorable evening Dave suggested that since The Bog only had a one o’clock liquor license, that we should go down the street and “take over” The Midway Café which closes an hour later. We still had to load out so Dave went on ahead of us and when we got to The Midway a little while later, no Dave Roy. So I ask Dave Balerna if he had seen Dave Roy and he tells me; “You wouldn't believe it, Dave Roy takes four steps into the place and passes out cold!”

And that, boys and girls, is Rock & Roll.

The Global Quest for Olympic Gold

I remember when I was 12 years old watching the Wide World of Sports on TV with my older brother and they had a gymnastics competition to select who was going to the Olympics for the U.S. and one of the commentators, a former gymnast, was answering a question about the U.S. teams competitiveness on the world stage and he said that “It’s going to take our best efforts if we’re going to beat the Russians.” And I remember turning to my brother and saying, “Yeah, we've got to beat the Russians!” and in true older brother fashion, he ruins me with a simple question:

Why do we have to beat the Russians?

And to this day I still can’t come up with an answer. Why DO we have to beat the Russians in gymnastics?  Why does America have to strive for victory over what was then a Russian Gymnastics Juggernaut? Why do we as a nation even care?

Now one could just say “Because it’s fun.” But even a twelve year old knows that THAT isn't true. It’s more a case of Nationalism which goes beyond the simple joy of competition. And this is fine on a certain level really because we should all be proud of the country we've grown up in more or less.  WE may piss and moan about our country going to hell but if somebody from somewhere else says something disparaging they run the risk of a punch in the nose.

It is totally different for an individual athlete wanting to compete on the world stage against the best in their sport or to have a "nemesis" (who may happen to be Russian) that they can fight  epic battles with but will your nation lose face if you don't beat your nation's declared "bad guy" opponent in say, synchronized platform diving? Will the nation become unproductive as a result?

It is one thing to have a rivalry and another entirely to manipulate the population in a concerted effort to win at sport for some bizarre idea it makes a better nation. Mongolia seems to be doing alright without a number one basketball team.

Perhaps it’s just the modern age of man. Instead of the big modern nations blowing up each other’s cities, we’ll duke it out for supremacy on the basketball court, the judo mat or the swimming pool. Like that’s going to prove how bitchen’ our countries really are.

Or maybe, perhaps, we are just re-living the race to the Moon. We beat the “Ruskies” to that too, with the U.S getting a bucket full of moon rocks and orange flavored Tang for all our efforts at space superiority. Next time one of our astronauts has to hitch a ride on a Russian rocket to the International Space Station they can all have a laugh at that.

But it’s this quest for the quixotic vision of supremacy that some nations take to an unrealistic extreme. And although many nations have nationalized sports programs that pick athletes and provide facilities and training, we've also heard the stories of China, the East Germans and the former Soviet Union where very young children were selected, segregated and systematically trained to be swimming, fighting, and rowing autobots. This is the result of countries that base their national-image on their sporting successes in order to show the world that their system of government is the "superior model". Interestingly enough, these are the same countries that have had to put up barriers for the purpose of keeping their people in and the rest of the world out.

And here we see the difference between the East and the West.

Here in America all it takes is for any coach with a Team USA logo on his jacket to tell a young prospect’s parents that their kid has talent in a certain sport and he/she has a good chance to get a College Scholarship and they will GIVE them their kid and PAY them to train them. No solemn faced jack booted state officials are needed.

All you have to do is plant a dollar sign in the parents head and your work is  more than half done.

"A college scholarship, where do I sign?"

But it’s a very personal thing to find the sport you want to do and I find it offensive to think that people anywhere are chosen for a particular sport because someone else decides it’s a better fit.

Yet desire still trumps talent in many ways and it stands to reason that a conscript doesn't make as good an athlete as a volunteer and we've seen countless times athletes who were not initially thought gifted yet had triumphed just the same.

So if a country needs a Ministry of Sport "Grinding Mill" to produce a winning athlete to prove they're a great nation or to lift it's national self-esteem, I'd say that they're not only in it for all the wrong reasons, but they're a poorer nation than they ever thought they were.

America Drives the Olympics

One thing I find amusing during these big-box, large scale, upscale international sports competitions is that a large group of the people that the athletes wearing USA shirts are competing against are also USA athletic products themselves.

How many of these swimmers marching under the flag of their dear nation have actually spent the better part of the last 4 years swimming for American universities like Auburn, USC, UCLA and Stanford? I'd say plenty. And under full athletic scholarship no less.  Brazil's 400 IM entrant, Thiago Pereira, swims for USC, and New Zealand's Lauran Boyle swims for Cal-Berkeley. These "schools" I'm mentioning are all major Division 1 powerhouse programs with national competition schedules.

Ditto for track and field. Many of the Jamaicans, just to name a country, have been running here in the U.S. for American colleges since the 1970's.

Have I mentioned the Kenyans? They get recruited for collegiate cross country track and appear regularly in the national CC championships as well as plying their trade on the the American road running circuit. Even the Chinese beach volleyball teams actually moved to California to train full time in their sincere attempt to claim glory for the motherland.

Then there are the soccer and hockey players from all over the world playing in American collegiate and professional leagues who head back to make their national squads for the Games. Spain's basketball starting 5 all play in the NBA as do players on the teams from China and Australia to name a few.

I will hazard a guess that with the exception of Cuba and some of the Eastern European block, a majority of the worlds swimmers, figure skaters, gymnasts and runners train, and not just a little bit, in the good 'ol US of A. This is where the coaching is (or where they've defected), this is where the competition is and most important, this is where the scholarship and endorsement money is.

Many of these athletes never cite their U.S. university affiliations in their Olympic bios.

Just prior to the 1998 Olympics I remember seeing the world-class skater and future Olympic Champion Ilia Kulik of Russia skate at a charity event at Harvard University right here in Cambridge, Massachusetts. I mentioned to one of the organizers of the event how I thought that it was quite  a coup to get him to come to this event and was told it was no sweat at all since he had been training up in Westboro, MA for the last half year. Well what do you know? That's right up the road less than 20 miles away! I'll tell you where he wasn't training...Russia!

The U.S. also invents most of the new sports for other nations to blindly throw themselves at like: BMX, Mountain Biking, Beach Volleball and Snowboarding. Ok, so for this we should be apologizing to the parents of the world also. And thank God we didn't invent Synchronized Swimming! At least I don't think we did. Lord, I hope we didn't! And Rhythmic Gymnastics, what the hell is that all about?

Anyway,

So many of the world's elite athletes have matured in the American sports system where they were fed, clothed, housed, coached and maybe even educated so that they can head back home to "win one for my country!". I guess that's better than saying "I wanted to win but my country really had no resources to make that happen so I came to the United States". I don't think that would play well back home, where ever that is.

So while you're rooting for the nation of your choice in the newest big-money-production games just look again because the name of the place on the athlete's shirt hasn't been as important as where he or she chose to learn to play the game for a long time now and if a nation, any nation, China, Russia and even the United States included, really needs to place it's national worth on how many medals "their" athletes win, they're not fooling anybody but themselves.

Condoleezza Rice For Vice President!

I have been in love with “Condi” since I first laid eyes on her when that phony-baloney GW Bush was running for the presidency. I've always had a thing for brainy chics and Condoleezza is the real deal.

She’s brilliant! She speaks a half dozen languages fluently, is an expert on Russia and Eastern Europe, a classically trained pianist and she’s beautiful!

She is the perfect choice for Vice President for that fence walking Mitt Romney. Don’t know why I didn’t think of it myself.  What a smart move this would be.

Oh and she would SO go out with me! 

Ok, we don’t have a whole lot in common, she’s got Ph.D and was a Provost at Stanford University for six years and I went to night school for seven years to get my Associate’s. She plays classical piano and I play bass guitar. I suppose it would be a plus if I played classical guitar but I could never get the hang of that.  I’m more of a campfire strummer.

But forget all that, I believe we were made for each other and the fact that I’m an underachiever should not stand in our way. Well, my way I guess since she doesn’t know I’m alive but this is nothing that can’t be overcome!

I can see it all now… me lounging on the couch on a Winter’s evening reading some new comic book I bought and she playing a love sonata on piano. We’d talk about each other’s day and then later in the evening while lying in bed she can whisper her innermost thoughts to me in Russian. Ok, I wouldn’t know what it is she’d be saying exactly but how lovely it would be!

Can you imagine Condoleezza Rice in a debate with that imbecile Joe Biden? He doesn’t even know where Russia is! He’d have to call up Sarah Palin for directions. All he would know is that Sarah said she could see it from her house but then Biden would also have to know where Alaska is. That would be too much for him. The liberal press would have to fake a national television blackout or something to avoid showing that debacle. “You wouldn’t believe it, folks, all the satellite trucks lost power at once!”

Hell, have Condi debate Obama. She’d kick his ass. The guy can’t go five minutes without spouting some bizarre and meaningless campaign platitude like: “We’re almost there, help me get there with you.” Now if “there” means the bottom of a financial hole that we as a nation won’t crawl out of for 15 years, he’d be right on the money!  

And the last thing the President would want to do is debate his foreign relations record with a former Secretary of State and member of the National Security Council. Go Condoleezza!

But ultimately I believe that Condi and I will be reunited. Ok, I’ve never met her but if we were to ever meet, I’m sure she’ll fall head over heels for me.  So until then, as Vice President she'll be back at the forfront of American politics I can again worship her from afar.

Ok, so perhaps Mitt would be better off with a true conservative rather than a holdover from the Bush era but this time my heart trumps my head.

Condi Rice for VP!

Loners Shoot People

That’s the way it is. These people go off in our society for one reason or another and do something heinous. Why? I don’t know. Say its pressure to succeed. Say its dreams drummed into one’s head since childhood that they can be anything they want in life and then not being able to do it.
But for whatever the reason for cracking, these people walk among us and often there is little that we can do to stop them when they do decide to inflict their damages upon society.

Now a Liberal can blame the gun for these recent murders and the Conservative can blame the shooter but that doesn’t mean a whole hell of a lot if it’s your kid lying dead overnight at Columbine High School or in that Colorado movie theater.

I find the slightest thought of attempting to make political hay out of this wholesale slaughter offensive.

It disgusts me to hear any accusation that there was a political motivation or particular group affiliation to this act and the ones to utter them are worse than the dregs of our society despite their high incomes and daily media vehicles. They are merely manifestations of blind obedience, as evil in intent as the killer.

But our society has lost a step or two on the way to moral high ground and one of the chief loses in this land is justice. There can be no justice without the death penalty. There is nothing we do now that any criminal mind can respect. There is nothing that we can do to console the victim or the victim’s family that they will respect either. Justice in the U.S. is almost always a disappointment to both sides.

This man should hang for what he has done and hang before his 30^th birthday. Nobody believes that will ever happen.

But life is for the living and life will go on for the rest of us. There will be the memorials and the remembrances but this too will fad only to be replaced by another such atrocity somewhere down the road someplace else and we all will again be in shock.

And it'll be too bad then too.

Obama Comes Clean, Declares War on Success

Not that this is a surprise to anyone by now but the resentment that radiates from President Obama and his adherents toward anyone successful in this country is reaching new and scary levels.

It’s not a matter of ethnic origin. No matter what “color” you are, if you want to do something with yourself, you’ve got this man and his government standing in your way.

That’s not to say that past governments haven’t gotten in your way and they certainly have but no president that I can ever recall hearing or reading about has so steadfastly and declaratively stood up in front of the American people and said that it is the STATE that has made you a success, not YOU making yourself a success.

I have started hearing this argument many times from the American Left.  It is your lower waged workers that have made you a success, it is the infrastructure put in place by the State that allows you to get your goods to market, that it is the government underwriting low interest loans that got your business off the ground.

And this is all said to undermine YOU, your DRIVE to succeed, your original ideas and your ultimate success. If you are a Hispanic businessman, a Black businessman or a White businessman, you don’t count in the equation of success.

Anyone in any business, from the laundromat owner, the carwash owner, the corner store in ANY neighborhood up to the multi-site doughnut empire magnet, you should take pause with what President Obama is implying.

You’re ok with him just as long as you don’t try to get anywhere in life.

Or maybe you’re just not hearing it the way I am.

Either the President doesn’t know or doesn’t care that the infrastructure you use to move your goods was in fact paid for by the taxes your business and other businesses like yours generated. Or that the people who work for you either wouldn't be working or maybe working a lesser job somewhere else if YOU didn't give them a job. 

And those loans would still be available and most likely at a comparable rate if the government wasn't subsidizing them with taxpayer money.

But the bottom line is that Mr. Obama has nothing else to talk about. He’s all in with his "us against them" class warfare, hate the privileged working class, play to the lowest common denominator road show. It is now all about the takeover of the means of success that America has left to offer. Nobody will escape, nobody will be unaffected. The only unknown in all of this is how violent this will get come November. 

Nothing Obama has done to this point will stand. Obama's bloated expansion of the Federal Government is already starting to collapse under its own weight. The shortages of medicinal drugs has already begun to show itself and if your doctor retires, you will be hard pressed to find another one.  The state unions the Stimulus money has held up for the last three years is running out and the debts are pouring in with no new resources to pay for them and for the first time the city unions are starting to feel the impact. Many are starting to see their pension plans frozen and are being told to  to go to a 401k. Many are seeing their $5.00 medical co-pay become $25.00.

And I say to them, “Welcome to the real world.” Now live the life we in the private sector have been living. We've watched our tax money paying for other people's kids to go to college while we take on massive debt for our own. This is what happens when you pay people not to work and live in section 8 housing instead of paying them for a full days work. 

Bad policy takes a long time to kill a system of government. Since the 1960s the Feds have been looking for places to put a bridge instead of just putting a bridge where one is needed. We didn't need a massive School Lunch Program, we didn't need a massive Correctional Infrastructure and we didn't need an ever expanding Military Machine that in spit of being in a state of perpetual war, never seems to win any of them. Why kill the job? And we think it's only Egypt where the military runs things.

But alas, these are the shortages and debt that will be coming to your State, your Town and your Street. This is what a Marxist State looks like.

So how do you like it?  

Boston Rock Clubs of the 1980s: Chet's Last Call

There were two clubs we really called “home” during Cool McCool’s stay on the Boston original music circuit roughly from 1983 to 1989. First was Green St. Station in Jamaica Plain and the other was the first place to give us a show: Chet’s Last Call. Chet’s was located on Lancaster Street in the North End of Boston right across the street from the old Boston Garden and which sat right above the Penalty Box bar.

Legend told of how, sometime around 1982, Chet, a short and somewhat heavyset but not overly so guy who always wore a sweater and a beret,  leased this former Discotheque that had been shut down since the mid-1970s, with its tacky shiny orangey colored contact paper, it’s elevated dance floor with iron railings, mirrored walls and a big ol' mirror ball hanging from the drop ceiling and decided NOT TO CHANGE A THING. He just trucked in a sound system and mixing board and called it a rock club! Chet's booked 3 bands a night,Wednesday through Sunday.

Although many bands playing Boston in those days played Chets like Throwing Muses, The Bags, Treat Her Right etc. there were also bands I never saw anywhere else play there. Strange and intriguing bands like Sleep Chamber with their b&w flyers always featuring women in leather bondage gear, The Flys, The Pajama Slave Dancers, The Bent Men, The Bosstones (before they were “Mighty Mighty”) and one of my favorite bands in town, The Wandells with their Punkabilly sound and songs like “Basket-Case Boogie” and “Who Cares Anyway?” There was a real underground atmosphere at Chet's.

Don’t know what the “Vomit Bunny” stickers were all about but they were discretely placed and featuring a cute little white rabbit spewing a copious amount of red liquid. Who thinks of this stuff and why did they make a sticker out of it? I didn't even know if they were a band.

Cool McCool actually made money at Chet’s meaning over $125.00 as a band on weekends. It was a popular joint and there were nights it was just elbow to elbow. The first time we headlined a weekend night I remember turning around during set up and being totally surprised to see a room full of people looking back! It wasn’t something I was used to seeing that much at the time, ha, but it’s one of those feelings that you never want to let go of.

We also lived every band’s nightmare at Chet’s when the band I’ll Never Name as Long as I Live managed to clear the room of everybody but the people who worked there when they opened for us one night for the first and last time.

Since the trains stopped running at midnight in those days (early for a modern city, right?) the soundman at Chet’s would set up the board for the last act and then literally run out the door for the train.

Chet was a pretty funny guy and would have some great lineups. One year on the anniversary of Woodstock, Chet had “Chetstock” which the posters displayed a Woodstock parody picture of a buzzard sitting on the neck of a guitar. That night had an unbelievable array of acts from The Condo Pygmies (I don't wanna live in a nuclear apartment!), Scruffy the Cat, The Turbines to The Flys and a rare appearance by Valdez the Sinner and climaxed when the Dogmatics ripped what was left of the ceiling over the stage down. Classic.

So three of the best shows I’ve ever seen at Chet’s were: The Wandells who like I mentioned were a great Punkabilly Trio and I tried not to miss any of their shows. I never knew the lead singers name but he was a "born to be" rock & roller with a brown leather jacket, jeans and dark hair so long in the front that you couldn’t see his eyes EVER. It was just hair with a cigarette sticking out of it and he talked so fast that even though I was born in Boston and lived here all my life I couldn’t understand hardly a word he said. I don’t think they ever recorded an album so their music is lost to the world. Don’t know whatever happened to any of them but they were the BALLS!

 The Bent Men, Bill Desmond’s band, featuring Reeves Gabrels on guitar who I believe went on to tour with David Bowie in Tin Machine in the 1990s had a reputation for putting on a theater of the absurd. They were Pink Floyd-ish in sound but visually and content wise they were astounding and they drew big crowds where ever they played. There was a “mime” seated near the stage and he would visibly tremble every time Des would come near him. The show was dedicated to a certain controversial incident happening in Boston at the time. Des still owns The Sound Museum, a rehearsal and recording facility he opened later in the South End of Boston.

But the best show I ever saw there, or anywhere really, was The Pajama Slave Dancers where the house was packed and people were so fucking loud. They were Punk, they were Surf and they were hysterical. They would apologize after some of their songs and sometime even before. Songs like “Homo Truck Driving Man”, “Defreeze Walt Disney” with the immortal line: “Walt was a great old geezer, will someone please take him out of the freezer.”, the instrumental “Fast Cars, Girls in Bikinis” and my favorite “Farm Rap”. People were physically pushing these guys around while they were playing and at one point one of the guitar players (Steve) runs backwards over the railing and is caught and thrown back onto the stage by people in the crowd. That was a real leap of faith because if they decided to dodge him, he would’ve busted his fool neck. But he didn’t and it was great.

Chet’s, for all the awesome rock, was also a heroin den. Chet and most of his staff were reportedly also addicts. The dead giveaway could have been the excessively sweating patrons spacing out at a table or the bartender leaving the bar and going through the door marked "No Admitance" to get a nose-full or every now and then there would be someone who mistakenly tried to go out the back entrance and was caught between the self-locking door and the locked security gate and would have to beg for someone to go upstairs and tell them they were there so they could let them out. They were always three sheets to the wind. I had heard that Chet got clean quite awhile ago now and I hope he’s doing well.

Chet's was always a hard sell to our crowd. "Call me when you play someplace nice." was a familiar refrain. But the area Chet's was located had a certain air of uncertainty about it after nightfall and there were a couple of times after a show when the patrons had gone where I felt more than a twinge of concern being out on the street on my own but that's showbusiness.

And then there was a murder on Lancaster St. (Chet's was on the corner of Lancaster and Causway St.)two nights before one of our shows and our people wouldn’t go anymore. Chet started having troubles to the point where the name of the club on the wall outside was painted over. Chet was still booking bands but the place closed shortly thereafter in the late 80s.

Chet’s has passed into Boston Rock Folklore and rightfully so. Some good bands got to see the light of day at Chet’s Last Call. Chet gave bands a chance to play and for this I am forever grateful.

Economic Double Talk

How tiresome is all this ‘wink wink” media spin on what is good news and what is bad news on the US economy? Spin it anyway you want to, we all know its bad news.

If everybody knows that people dropping out of the work force are not being tallied in the national unemployment figures then why is anybody even talking about them? It makes no sense yet this totally useless unemployment “statistic” is reported every month even though it has no meaning.  

One media outlet will say “less people applied for unemployment benefits this month”, Good news, Good President! Another says “more jobs were lost than created this month”. Bad news, Bad President! Who watches Television News anymore?

Then there is this "job creation” myth. A government can only create a job in abstract since it can either get in the way or out of the way of a private citizens ability to make their own way in the world. In that respect, one can reason, a government can create a job. The government can declare something “illegal” and create an industry like our public sector multi-billion dollar Corrections Industry that keeps more people locked up than any other nation in the world. It’s ok though folks, they’re all criminals!

Or the government can declare you can’t throw certain items in the trash and create a recycling industry. And then the government can decide an industry is needed like the new Green Energy industry the present administration is breaking the bank over.

The hard distinction for people to contemplate is that these “industries” are artificial. They can't stand alone and they lose money. Many times lots of money. And since they are publicly funded ie: taxpayer supported “businesses” the shortfall is made up from public funds. These government organizations operate at a deficit and never can go out of business or become bankrupt since taxes are always taken to shore up the loses. 

We see these people in our community, good people, like us almost, who want to do a good job and raise their kids and have a home etc. But they aren't like us because we in the private sector pay their salaries and they are often higher than our own. How does that work for you?

You see them working and you think the government has created these jobs but they haven’t. What you DON”T see is the jobs and industries that ARE NOT created because the government has taken resources out of the economy to insure that their programs are funded. The money has to come from somewhere and that somewhere is the private sector because the private sector is the only group in ANY nation that actually produces something and creates jobs and wealth. Governments do not create wealth, the money they use comes from the people; taxpayers.

In other words: The Government Sucks…resources from us to transfer it to THEIR idea of what industries this nation should have and, as we have seen, has created a hell of a voting block to boot. It’s not about doing things better or more efficiently, it’s about control and when the government takes too much, private business and private citizens suffer the consequences. And here we are.

Spending tax money to the point of massive deficits does not create jobs. Increasing the public’s tax burden is not going to create jobs. Giving away resources for free isn't going to create JOBS. Not real jobs anyway that last beyond the government's ability to prop them up. If the public has less money in their pockets or are afraid to spend what they do have, no business that isn't selling an absolute necessity is going to survive. All other industries will be in for a hard ride. 

And if you think American citizens are so soft, so spoiled and so obsessed that they couldn't stop buying stupid stuff like the Salad Shooter or go without a pedicure or cable Television, think again. The tougher the economy and the tougher the tax burden the more people will change their behavior and the less they will spend.

And here lies the great unsolvable dilemma of a Socialist state. Try as it might, it can't pick a "right" industry. And as the State grows, it causes other aspects of society to shrink. Like a Cancer. Without the means of production and process of consumption, the jobs decrease and the taxes decrease and the system will fall. It is the unsolvable dilemma of Socialism.

So the Federal Reserve can continue to lower borrowing rates and the government can continue to borrow to hold up it’s public sector house of cards but one has to keep in mind that it’s all borrowed money and there is less and less of the private sector every day to pay it back.

Call it anything you want but this is not a design for a successful nation but more so a design for calculated failure.

And we’re closer to that today than we were yesterday.

States Lose Right of Self-Determination

The very fabric that has held the Union together today was torn. The fears of the founding fathers has been realized and the usurpation of the Constitution is complete. These United States are no longer a more perfect union under God but a direct extension of the Federal Government lead by an all-powerful leader. The autonomy of the States has now been dissolved. The President now dictates to all the mandates he and he alone feels that are best for the country. There is now no power higher that can stand up to the position of the US Presidency.  There is no law but Federal Law.

It really didn’t matter what the Supreme Court determined today in regards to the Arizona Immigration law, the President would have just issued an edict circumventing it anyway. Who could stop him? Will it be Congress? They wouldn’t even try. Perhaps Mitt Romney, the supposed “opposition” candidate? Nope, he’s really there for show. Even if he should ascend to the Presidency, he would only do the same, just like GW Bush before him. They all work for the same syndicate.

But now that Barack Obama has finally achieved what the government monarchs have been aiming for these past decades, will he be able to hold onto this power? History tells us he can’t and while he’s busy running the US economy into the ground; he jeopardizes his already shaky Fiefdom. The collapsing economy will only throw more and more people out of work and the more they are extended a government “helping hand” the quicker the spiral downward. Without wealth to grow, the economy can only shrink. Everybody can’t be on assistance. Right? Well, we’ll find out won’t we.

President Obama’s victory will be a hollow one in American history but perhaps there won’t be an American history after this.

The trouble with the plan is that the Obama regime doesn’t actually know how to run a country. Without the empirical knowledge of organization, division of labor, open markets and allocation of resources that was, like it or not, first developed and employed by the Europeans in their self-driven elevation from Tribe to Village to City-State, a country cannot stand. Obama’s America could very well look like North Korea in the decades to come: A virtual presidential dictatorship ruling a nation of despair, subjugation and of no cultural or economic value to anybody.

Just like the useful idiots from the slums of Venezuela that have kept Hugo Chavez in power for the last 12 years, Obama’s minions will ultimately end up with little. They’ll get to go to school but where will they work? Will the government employ them all? And with what will they pay these educated and privileged masses?  Only a Soviet style que awaits us all.

There was triumph in Zimbabwe when Robert Mugabe and his hordes of “oppressed” farm workers managed to “overthrow” the white European farmers who they had worked for all those years and were paid little when compared to the farmer’s prosperity. After all, it was they the farm workers, who made the farm produce. So they took the farms for themselves and rejoiced in their revolution. Now things were going to change for them. And they did. They starved. They took the most successful thriving economy on the African continent and within the year reduced it to the least. The farm workers, now destitute were drinking out of mud puddles and dying of Cholera in the streets. And why was that?

Because they didn’t know how to run a farm.

And here we are.

George Soros and His Money Mean Nothing

Everywhere on right-wing radio and TV I hear about the “power” of George Soros, how George Soros is funding this left wing group or that left wing group and how I should jump through some hoop or run out into the street to decry this billionaire crazy person who seeks to change the world into a socialized utopia. There's also a fund I can contribute to so this other group can fight his evil plan.

It reminds me of the time I got a campaign letter from my local Congressman about how he has fought to keep my taxes low for the last 8 years and I thought he wasn’t doing much of a job because my taxes seemed to be rising instead of falling. It’s the same deal.

So called “right-wing” stations NEED these “left-wing” foils or otherwise they wouldn’t have anything to talk about and sew fear so you will all run en-mass to a giant hand to take your cash. These right-wing yobs love to quote the Wall Street Journal and their slanted articles. And I would think that if you didn’t like what some newspaper was printing, wouldn’t you stop reading it? If the articles that appear in the WSJ are so slanted then why are you bothering to read them at all?

I don’t read the WSJ so the only way I know they’ve written something is when the right-wing stations pick it up and use it for their own slanted purpose. See? It doesn’t make any sense.
It’s sort of that analogy of it takes two people to slander you, first is your enemy that bad-mouths you and your best friend to tell you what he said.

Anyway, it’s like that with this guy I’ve never heard of except from right-wing media. I am told he is a Billionaire who uses his money to influence government. And here I thought there was already a line for people like that? He’s the only one?
But he funds unscrupulous left-wing groups and backs extreme socialist candidates for public office? So? Why is this important to me?

As a Libertarian I can see only market forces at work here. Billionaire George Soros is using money he’s earned to buy influence. He’s paying people to carry out his itinerary and they will do for him what his money will buy from them. They will therefore put the money they receive from him back into the economy with the consumption of goods. Now if he actually achieves what he’s after is irrelevant, he’s reportedly spending oodles of cash in the quest of an evil empire. Rather Ironic, isn’t it?

There’s only one problem…he’s either got it wrong or the right-wingers have it wrong about him. He may achieve his Socialist Society but he wouldn’t be able to hold onto it for very long and he more than likely already knows this. Perhaps he, much like Obama, doesn’t really care about achieving a Socialist State.

Rather than sowing the seeds of Socialism, Soros Inc. can only ultimately sow the seeds of fiscal collapse. No Socialist State can emerge and here’s why: The State, which does not actually produce anything, will inevitably take too much from producers that production will decline. A declining production will lead to declining revenues. To compensate, the State may print more money but that will cause inflation to rise and the money to lose value. This is economics 101. It's the law of diminishing returns. And here we are.

The government has voted so many guarantees to the public system that it is clear the system will not stand. What follows is collapse and possible chaos. What emerges from that no one can guess.

But I’ll wager a sure bet: There won’t be any social welfare benefits being given out. No pensions, Medicare, Medicaid, SSI or EBTs either. Unlike the first Depression, we've already printed all the money we can get away with to prop up this house of sand. There are no more tricks after that. If a collapse occurs it will be sink or swim baby for everyone. Any society that emerges will again stratify into the producers and the non-producers. This is instinctive, this is heredity, THIS is what a human IS and a human has wants.

This is why Socialism is always a failure: People want to own stuff!

The third word you learn as a child after “dada” & “Muma” is “MINE”. Nothing is going to make that any other way, not public education, WNPR or George Soros. The trees will grow the sand will blow and history will move on. People will behave the same as they always have.

No amount of money is going to change that.

Merkel Would Be Wise Not To Listen To Obama

Taking financial advice from President Barack Obama would be like opening a Big & Tall man’s clothing shop in Tokyo. What does this man know about money except to print and spend it?  Merkel should stick to her calls for austerity.

Contrary to popular media trumpeted misconception, the Stimulus spending package Mr. Obama initiated did not take the United States out of financial crisis; it only put it off for a spell. The U.S. is still in big trouble. Our “Too Big To Fail” policies have put us in a holding pattern right now but we won’t be able to hold up our massive bureaucracy for much longer. That’s why we need another sucker somewhere.

Having Germany underwrite Eurobonds to keep the Eurozone afloat for, let’s say, after the November presidential election, would be a folly of epic proportions. It’s just more of Obama’s soak the rich philosophy that Germany has so much yet Greece and Spain have so little. It’s a shame they didn’t pay attention to their business like Germany did; now Germany will have to pay? Tough sell. The financial cost for THIS YEAR is in the 900 Million Euro neighborhood. What do you suppose it will be NEXT YEAR? Earlier this year the European Central Bank already issued over a Trillion Euro Long Term Refinancing Operations bonds and they did nothing to stop the EU debt crisis so throwing more money at it is going to help? Guess again.

First of all, no nation on God's Green Earth has spent itself into prosperity on borrowed cash. All this money is supposed to be paid back but if it only goes to propping up existing bureaucracy, then it’s all going to waste. The money will be spent and the economy will not be any bigger but the bill for the damages will be. Obama is proposing the same medicine that got the EU into this mess; spending without producing. Without a corresponding increase in production or decrease in overhead, nothing will change except more wealth will be lost. This time German wealth.

Why should the German people, who have done the right thing by not overextending themselves while watching the United States, Greece and Spain grow their money bubbles, now have to go into debt and put off their own pursuits just to bail out a bunch of people who spent money they hadn’t earned yet like there was no tomorrow? It makes no sense. If she falls for Obama's line, I'd like to see Merkel explain it to the German people.

Just because President Obama, a guy who’s never held a private sector job, calls you up and tells you that your austerity measures are too harsh when he’s done nothing but run massive deficits, do you listen to this guy? What does he know about financial health?

Holding Obama and his fiscal know-nothings up until election time at the expense of the German people doesn’t seem like it should be on Angela Merkel’s list of things to accomplish. I wouldn’t buy a used car from this man let alone go along with his proposal to float almost a Trillion Euro to prop up EU countries that only want to avoid any responsibility for their negligent actions.

Only time will tell if Ms. Merkel has Obama’s number or not.

We Can't Afford Public Unions Anymore

Public employees should not be allowed to unionize. It’s that simple. If people don’t like it, they shouldn't enter public service. Public service does not make money, it is a service. When they bargain for raises and benefits, they are bargaining not for profits, like a private company, but taxpayer money. They are bargaining for OUR money.

This isn't a case of labor vs. management like with private unions. The difference between private unions and public unions is apples and oranges.

We are not talking about the Mollie McGuires vs the Coal Companies and the Pinkertons here. The Mollies didn't get their heads clubbed in just so a teacher doesn't have to pony up a $20.00 co-pay like the rest of us have to. Public servants are not gasping in coal mines for want of proper breathing equipment because the robber baron company boss won't spring for it. There is no line to be drawn from one to the other.

Public service was never a big career move. It used to be something people went into for the hours and the benefits, not the wages themselves because public servants never used to get much since everybody in those days understood it was taxpayer money. But somewhere down the line and it really snuck up on all of us, the public sector’s wages really took off in a big way.

People who work in the public sector have always been treated well and have worked in good environments. Now they are treated very well, enjoying rights, privledges and pay beyond most of the people who pay their salaries. Who still gets a pension these days?

The Public Unions use the money collected in dues to support sympathetic political candidates and then sit across the table from them when it's time to negotiate a new contract. The town I live in, Obscurity, Massachusetts, at one time had three of the five Selectman positions held by town employees. They have recently disbanded the Selectman in favor of a panel of 10 District Councilmen.

And never is it more evident of the sky high money some of these people are getting than the public school system. A second year science teacher can get over $50,000.00 a year! Some are making $70,000. That’s with 3 months off, full paid medical and generous sick time. Oh sure, they’re teaching your kids, creating inquisitive minds blah, blah, blah but they’re also making more than that kid’s parents. You know, the people who’s taxes go to pay that salary? Yeah, those parents.

The Teachers Union is the third most powerful union in the United States. Second only to the Police and Firemen’s union, the “Brotherhood”.  The Public School budget is the largest budget the town has to deal with, often amounting to over 50% of the town's budget and in some towns in Massachusetts, closer to 60%. That’s a big deal.

Every increase, every benefit boost and every pension “sweetener” comes out of a taxpayer's pocket. That money could have gone to their kids tuition or to support any of the local businesses but it can't because it's been taken.

The pension liabilities for these communities is more than any of these towns can pay going forward. The contracts must be rewritten but it’s just a case of town employees negotiating with other town employees so what the union wants, it’s gotten up to this point.

But there’s a new wrinkle. We’re BROKE! There are less working people to pay the exorbitant taxes to keep the public unions in silk undershorts.

Wisconsin’s Teachers Union has 98,000 teachers in it. That’s a hell of a voting block and if they want to vote themselves another raise, they most certainly have the votes. Many cities and towns are under the heel of these Kleptocrats. They enjoy more wage and salary benefits than the people who pay their salaries and in the case of the Teacher’s Union in Central Falls, Rhode Island, WAY more. Central Falls had a median income of $22,000.00, one of the poorest in the state. Yet the teachers have been making $72,000.00 to $78,000.00 on average. Plus the school was getting a failing grade for educating its students. When the principal asked that these overpaid lunch-suckers spend more time with the students, they complained and asked for more money. After all, they deserved it, right?

That’s the situation in a nutshell. Public Unions are out of control and call people “Radicals” for wanting to stop the crazy spending that is crushing the taxpayer and local businessmen alike.

No more. Public Unions are killing the towns. You want big money? Start a business. A PRIVATE business. No more living fat off of the taxpayer. We’ve got better things to do with our money than throw it down a public RAT HOLE.