Now for some insight into the 09/10 season, I will remark on its arc. If last season was about taking my skeletons for a walk in the Florida sun, then this one was about provocation by way of critical inquiry. I provided a perch on a windowsill from which to peer inside my crowded house and take inventory of its furnishings and fundamental design. My perceptions are not traditional, but they are consistent and authentic, and, in many ways, unaffected by the massively vicious yet cumbersome ideologies that now roam our downtown avenues and countryside lanes; they are objective with the exception of my love for dogs over humans.

In no way will I now explain each post and its roll in carrying readers across the span of season two—that’s what careful reading and comprehensive analysis can reveal—but I will relay the purpose behind those titles wrapped in quotations. 99% of them are either song titles or a refrain line from a song. The song selected for a particular post, if listened to, adds another dynamic to an already active delivery of goods. In short, each song accentuates its post’s voice, flavor, or genetic makeup whether it is serious, satirical, or sorrowful, and since I once relied on crutches to feel partly mobile and independent, I will place forth one for you now. Here are, in no particular order, the songs used for this season’s headers:

“I am the great defector” from The Great Defector—Bell X1

“When do you really get to go home?” from Home—Alexi Murdoch

Love for Sale—Talking Heads

Back in the USSR—The Beatles

“I found out long ago” from Holiday Road—Matt Pond PA or Lindsey Buckingham courtesy of National Lampoon’s Vacation

Christmas on TV—Chris Isaak

What’s the Frequency Kenneth?—REM

“When Lenin was little” from Lenin—Arcade Fire

Let’s Dance—David Bowie

Pay Me My Money Down—Bruce Springsteen

It’s Good to Be King—Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

Everyday—Buddy Holly

Jailhouse Rock—Elvis Presley

How’s Forever Been Baby—Elvis Perkins In Dearland

Who Are You—James or The Who, but I prefer James.

“That’ll be the day when I die” from That’ll Be the Day—Buddy Holly

“Keep on having that party” from Having a Party—Sam Cooke

Ashes of American Flags—Wilco

Whatever Happened to Us—Loudon Wainwright III

Gideon—My Morning Jacket

House of Cards—Radiohead

“Oh, Johnny” from Johnny—Violent Femmes

Doomsday— Elvis Perkins In Dearland

“After a year or two” from A Year or Two—Mt. St. Helens Vietnam Band

“Come on dad, gimme the car” from Gimme the Car—Violent Femmes

“Hold on tight to your dreams” from Hold on Tight—Electric Light Orchestra

Off the Record—My Morning Jacket

“Everybody Wang Chung tonight” from Everybody Have Fun Tonight—Wang Chung

Jump into the Fire—Harry Nilsson

123 Goodbye—Elvis Perkins in Dearland

In returning home to Beverly, Massachusetts last week, I was greeted by 80-degree weather and an extremely unpolished passion that has yet to be broken during these twilight days of sustainability and personal choice. Massholes are prideful. Whether it’s the WASP enrolled at Harvard or BC Law, the self-made millionaire business owner who lives in Sudbury, or the guys painting the trim on the house next to my apartment building, Massachusetts and specifically Boston represent not only a place of birth—origin—but a region that is far from naturally exploited and economically tired—see Michigan and Ohio and Pennsylvania–but still socially eclectic. Citizens of continue to believe in this Commonwealth, and the notion that its best days did not depart with the arrival of once Gov. Jane Swift’s twins.

Sure, the sports fanatics are obnoxious, the culinary delights based around seafood, batter, Greek roast beef sandwiches and Italian pizza, and the sidewalk  thinkers less than aware of their shortcomings (“What state should be used to house all the illegals?” “San Diego.”), but where else in America can you still find individual cities, towns and neighborhoods with genuinely strong characteristics imbedded within quirky, adorable or charming personalities? They exist, but are less than common and dying quickly. Massachusetts however, doesn’t seem to be losing much color, figuratively and literally (see what I did there?). Sure some neighborhoods or downtowns have been reestablished, restored or redesigned, but a major divide rests between evolution and extinction. I am of the opinion that while soda fountain bars, downtown cinemas, and Woolworth’s have exited stage left, the latter term from above has not taken hold in the Bay State, yet.

People are hurting no doubt, both emotionally and financially. Summers may even start to resemble winters around here, mentally speaking, as citizens are pressed to keep working and restrict actual living—taking time to walk a beach, hit a local pond’s rope swing, bike a reservation, or slam eight beers on the deck of Overtime in Beverly. During my walk down Cabot St. Monday night, I passed, at 9:30, a front yard cookout of blue-collar guys most likely on temporary or permanent leave from their wives. The condiments were still on alert, the grill assaulting cuts from two and four-legged carcasses, beers in distribution, and the Bruins game echoing across pavement, deriving from a front-stoop-residing am/fm stereo. Two minutes later, further down and from both sides of Cabot, booming “fuck yeas” and high-pitched screams carried well beyond several apartment windows screens and stopped me still: the Bruins had scored with 2:25 in the 3^rd. I appreciatively smiled and laughed out loud; I had not experienced such an uncensored street-side celebration in over half a year.

Blogs are taking a lot of chest shots these days. Literary lugs feel the immature and unsolicited nature of these sites is sprinting them down the trail of no return, and that’s perfectly fine with those whose words are finding ink. It must be a truly divine club that these establishers of the new establishment reside within, throwing their pebbles of insecurity out a fifth story window and onto an equally, if not vastly more, talented human mass. I gather these same drones don’t even support blogs as a form of creative or critical exercise. If you can’t get published, then you’re not saying anything of interest. They’d rather we stay silent and sterile while they spawn an eternal billet-doux for their intellectually elite and pedantic friends among folios. Indeed, they will continue to reject as the public accesses and embraces us; I’ll still tritely remark that they are full of shit.

Monorea will make a major evolutionary jump next September, and not because I’m afraid of editors. No, instead, like writing and marketing Apply Generously, I will embark on another foolishly long-term but necessary journey, only this time as publicly exposed as possible: I will, along with my running mate, Sean Quinn, engage the citizens of the Commonwealth with the hope that they will entrust us with representing and restoring their visions and voices inside the gold-domed state house on Beacon Hill by running for governor of Massachusetts in the 2014 gubernatorial election. I am not joking, and the bumper stickers are on order. Ask if I’m qualified to attempt such a feat, and I will respond with something similar to this: “If you mean qualified by way of a formal education in government and/or law, no, but after noticing how fruitful that vine has been across the country in terms of candidates who have what it takes to represent and deliver not for themselves but those who vote them into office, I think we could benefit from a few less lawyers and a couple lifeguards on the ballot.”

Have some carne asada and a Tecate for Cinco de Mayo. Enjoy your summer, and as my very good friend James packs his duffle and dons his Air Force blues for a stint in Afghanistan, remember those ladies and gents stuck in a giant sandbox 7000 miles away. They are not war junkies; they are human beings with no control over their operational destiny. Take care, James. I’ll map out our next road trip while you’re gone. To everyone: It has been yet another weighty season, and I thank you for it. Especially those like Noah who watched the foundation dry in September of ‘08. Be well and look for a teaser post come mid August. At the least, see you in September.

Monaco/Quinn: 2014

A Sustainable Future for Massachusetts

Join us on Facebook under Monaco/Quinn: 2014.

Last Friday I watched a five-year-old boy cry when his friend left the beach for the day. In witnessing the boy’s absolute display of despair, confusion, and anger, I realized we, no matter how old and seasoned, never address or amend our reaction to loss. Yes, the boy does not, cannot conceive death and permanent loss at the age of six, but that is superfluous since he, based upon his reaction, believed his friend would never return, and for the most part will never understand why. We are predisposed to harvest sorrow, and forever embedded with the inability to accept loss as a required and elementary component of life; we continually struggle with the fear of and the necessity that is goodbye. However, watching the boy cry at the shoreline before his mother’s arms lifted him to her consoling hug isn’t what affected me, but rather it is the inevitability that the boy will experience that same emotion countless times more without it ever becoming more manageable or accepted. We must embrace and yet prepare—cherish through acknowledgment; and then step forward without tears and contemplation. The goodbyes will never stop; the losses are far too many to dwell upon. We indeed owe it to those line breaks of life to consider the next images and interactions to be as fruitful and fulfilling as the prior. If it’s autumn, it’s time for Monorea: 9/21/09.

Tito tipping a yak with the Atlantic looking on.