My weekend with rock stars (or why my wife rolls her eyes whenever I tell her that I’m going to hang out with Rob Azevedo)

read more…: My weekend with rock stars (or why my wife rolls her eyes whenever I tell her that I’m going to hang out with Rob Azevedo)

At the end of the night, my boozy bride and I settled our tab and took an Uber home where she enjoyed her beauty sleep, and I prepared for the next day where I would be attending a Tom Waits Tribute that my good friend Rob Azevedo had organized at the same venue—a day that my wife greeted with humor and resignation and a simple phrase: “You’re going to hang out with Rob,” she said and rolled her eyes. “Oh brother.”

Tom Brady doesn’t owe us jack

read more…: Tom Brady doesn’t owe us jack

For 20 years, we had the pleasure of watching the greatest quarterback of all-time play the game. He helped to procure six Super Bowl rings here, and during the Brady-era from 2000-2018, New England sports fans enjoyed halcyon days unknowable to any other regional fans in recent history.

‘What’s it really like for teachers right now?’ Another season in Hell

read more…: ‘What’s it really like for teachers right now?’ Another season in Hell

“What’s it really like for teachers right now?”
“Let me tell you,” I said.
We’re enervated, we’re demoralized, and we’re feeling handcuffed as our own mental health hangs from the most tenuous of strings—which is to say nothing of our students’ mental health that has been profoundly affected by a virus that shows no signs of relent.

My house for the holidays, aka ‘the black gap off Bodwell Road’ – and other holiday musings

read more…: My house for the holidays, aka ‘the black gap off Bodwell Road’ – and other holiday musings

It’s not that I’m some kind of Scrooge or a holiday curmudgeon. I’m simply too lazy and indifferent to string lights on my house and trees. Besides taking the dog out [4], I seldom leave the house or, more specifically, my Man-Cave in the basement.

For singer/songwriter Yamica Peterson, music’s always been a ‘Family Affair’

read more…: For singer/songwriter Yamica Peterson, music’s always been a ‘Family Affair’

The music is, indeed, a prodigious part of Peterson’s lineage. She is the granddaughter of the late Jean M. Jones, who was deemed Portsmouth’s “Lady of Song.” Her great uncle was the Seacoast’s famed “Sweet” Roy Jones and her great-aunt is Sharon “Brown Sugar” Jones, who continues to perform in her 70s.

An Open Letter to the OED Editors advocating for ‘shitification’

read more…: An Open Letter to the OED Editors advocating for ‘shitification’

I fully acknowledge your venerable positions as the gatekeepers of the English language—and completely appreciate the stressors associated with being the experts who study the fickle nature of etymology. Yet I need to make a pressing and ardent plea for the addition of a single word in 2022: “shitification.”

Lessons from Civics class and other things to remember in November

read more…: Lessons from Civics class and other things to remember in November

As citizens in a democracy, we’re asked very little of us. But it is our collective civic duty to research the people we’d like to represent us and get out to cast our support for said candidates, regardless of one’s politics. It’s a job where we only need to punch the timecard—at most—twice a year and, yes, our votes matter.

It’s not about ‘you’

read more…: It’s not about ‘you’

On Wednesday, Oct. 20, employees for the General Electric (GE) Aviation Company in Hooksett organized a demonstration outside the workplace to protest a GE corporate mandate that all employees must receive a COVID-19 vaccine, or potentially lose their jobs.

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