Posts by Nathan Graziano
However, as I’ve gotten older, some of the joy of celebrating my dramatic comeback has subsided and—aside from a few rites of passages at the end of another decade of spinning around the sun—my birthday now goes largely unnoticed. This needs to change. And not just for me. For everyone.
While I am far past the age where I’ll be zooming downtown at 6 a.m. to open the bars with the hosts of a radio morning show— “That is no country for old men”— I still like to celebrate the day with a few beers, a boiled dinner and a Pogues playlist.
During the last week of February, I had a weeklong winter break from my job teaching at a public high school. Many of my friends and colleagues in education use the break as an opportunity to vacation with their families—whether it’s a day trip skiing in the White Mountains, or hopping a last-minute flight to Hawaii.[1]
Recently, I found myself—perhaps serendipitously—interviewing Jeremiah Walton, a Bedford native and a co-founder the “Bards on the Rocks” reading series, and his enthusiasm for poetry and performance – and the blending of both – helped me shake off some of my middle-aged cynicism.
I teach in a public school so I can’t possibly write a column about school vouchers with a modicum of diplomacy. This screed will invariably devolve into another hot-shot of liberal vitriol, right? Wrong.
My allegiance to the Red Sox vastly contributed to my developing a Chicken Little Syndrome—“The sky is falling”—while creating a seemingly endless well of negativity.
Last Saturday afternoon, after finishing an interview with a local author at Barnes and Noble[1], I met with my editor and publisher of Manchester Ink Link, Carol Robidoux at The Shaskeen Pub to brainstorm some article ideas.
The former high school senior is now a 37-year-old debut novelist, having self-published an impressive piece of historical crime fiction titled “Malice Aforethought,” a novel based on the murder of Josie Langmaid.
It’s nearing bedtime on Tuesday night, and I’m lying on the couch after a long day, unwinding while watching “Law and Order: Special Victims Unit” reruns and cursing Stabler for being a dick. That’s when the itching starts.
For some reason, I experience a vast amount of existential dread—a fear of an eternal abyss—while driving to work each morning.
And I planned to vote for Ralph Nader for president. That was until I stepped into the voting booth and stiffened with terror at the thought of Bush winning. I wanted to vote my heart and my conscience, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. There was too much at stake.
So I plugged my nose and voted for Gore.
This isn’t my original idea, of course. I was first introduced to it while watching an interview with author Dennis Lehane, the Boston native who wrote the best-selling novels “Mystic River,” “Gone Baby Gone” and “Shutter Island.” In the interview, Lehane explains how he carried around a three-by-five card with the words “Nobody cares” scrawled on it when he was starting as a writer.
Fortunately, my wife Liz and I have adequately prepared to remain in comfortable clothing while lounging on the couch for days, watching endless stretches of “Law and Order: Special Victims Unit” and gorging ourselves with a diet that would make our primary care physicians blush at its immodesty—as well as the cholesterol intake.
Let’s cut out the holiday lettuce—the peace on Earth, be kind to each other, family and togetherness nonsense—and get to the real meat of the season. Here in America, where the ultimate goal is to gorge ourselves with as much consumption as humanly possible, Christmas is—and always has been—about one thing: the present.
“I don’t need to be a big rock star,” said Gallo, who opened for the Adam Ezra Group at the Bank of New Hampshire Stage in October. “I’m just happy to be able to play. I’m probably happiest playing at a bar and joking around with people drinking beers.”
But the idea of Trump being re-elected keeps me in the future, frantic with worry. For those people—on both sides of the political aisle—who haven’t been listening to the bone-chilling statements the former president and his toadies have been spewing on the campaign trail lately, may I suggest that you start.
I knew it when I woke up that morning, lying in bed after hitting snooze for the third time, staring at my alarm clock and watching the digits and waiting for the next staticky blast of classic rock. When depression descends, I feel it on a cellular level, in the marrow of my bones, and contrary to what some may believe, depression doesn’t always manifest in melancholy.
The music streaming app released the annual statistics for its Premium subscribers, including their top five most frequently played songs and top five artists, as well as the numbers of hours they spent listening to music on Spotify[1] in the past year.
What makes this a dirty little secret for me is that my love for Christmas music and decorations runs antithetical to the wise-ass, cynical disposition I try to cultivate for most of the calendar year. It’s as if the moment I rinse my Thanksgiving dinner plate and place it in the dishwasher, I turn into Buddy the Elf.
