Where does the money from and where does it go? As Northampton’s Ward 5 City Councillor, Alex has been studying the City budget intensely for the last 6 years or so. Here he tries to explain it to me (and other listeners). With it being election season – preliminaries this past Tuesday, and general election in a month and a half – some candidates promising to find more money for their priorities. But where will it come from? Alex breaks it down.

I got a spot in Thurs night’s NEPM Valley Voices story slam at the Drake in Amherst! and shared a story about my friend “Waldo” :  “He drives a truck for USA Waste; I ride a bike for Pedal People…”

official story starts at min 8:40

Thinking of stories, I played story songs to go along with the show:

Randy Travis: 3 Wooden Crosses

26min: Adele and Cale (and Eli?) talk about how to work on bikes at Bike Lab on a cold wet winter day.

32m: Harry Chapin: The Mayor of Candor Lied

45m: Winter biking tips

56m: Heart: All I Wanna do is Make Love to You

 

another unmotivated week in Out There interview gathering land, so I resort to reading some of the flyers on our house bulletin board.

a recap of my week…(see title)

Christmas is in a few days.  As a trash hauler, Christmas means Consumerism, Trash, Waste.

1: Rev Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping sing it like it is

4: myself and my coworkers have a debriefing session.  Brett, Miguel, Cara.  oh, and a former coworker and current customer Emily Fabel brings out the cookies and gizzards 🙂  And an excerpt from my coworker Ethan Tupelo’s book/dissertation.

15: chants from last Saturday’s 25 mile march for Palestine, from  Northampton to Springfield.  “New Day, Same Fight!  All Day, All Night!””Not another nickel, Not another dime! No more money for Israel’s Crimes!”  “When People are Occupied, Resistance is Justified!”

20: the Flo-Op is looking for 2 new housemates, preferably towards the perfect fit end of the spectrum

23: Psychostick sings (or yells) N.O.E.L. ,making the connections between shopping and war

28: Bike Party/critical mass clip from last night’s ride to Look Park

29: Eric and Pamela Matlock, the feature interview for today.  This interview was actually from 2019, but is still pretty darn relevant.  They talk about their work on the street in Northampton to demand respect for houseless people, and an end to hostile and accusatory treatment of houseless people, drunk people, cigarette-smoking people, people of color, by the police, and by people who call the police, and by people who smoke up the air with car exhaust.

Judge: Civil-Rights Lawsuit Against Northampton Police can Proceed

 

25 mile march for Palestine coming up (was supposed the be Dec 10th but got postponed to Dec 16th due to rain/flooding).

4: my 16 y.o housemate, in the prime of her able-bodiedness, keeps asking her great aunt to drive her the 1.2 miles to high school.  Why, my child, why?? ( and so many other high schoolers.)

Timmon Wallace and Vicki Olsen just finished their book Warheads to Windmills. ( I’m only announcing it.  no interview yet.)

10: Pedal People picks up compost for L3Harris, the big military contractor.   We have mixed feelings about that. (only me talking, no interviews yet)

14: at the conservation commission meeting last night, one of the things on the agenda was to repave the end of Northern Ave where it goes in to the woods/wetlands.  (the Bike Lab is on Northern Ave)  This is so Sovereign Builders can then put a bunch more pavement and housing back there in the woods along the wetlands.  Where there is pavement, there is no life.  Conscom says existential concerns are not with their purview.          Did you know that asphalt can continue to cause air pollution, on hot days, for a long time after it is put down?   (only me talking, no recordings)

Next we have speeches from the Dec 3 rally for Palestine in downtown Northampton.  It was steady rain and about 40  degrees.

25: Umass Faculty for Justice in Palestine

27: Islamic Society of Western Mass (Mohammed Dastigir)

35: Jewish Voice for Peace: Rachel Webber, who is also a N’ton public defendant defending UMass students arrested for protesting Israel’s attacks.  Rachel educates us about the creation of Israel, the history of Zionism, the political power of  Christian conservatives in the United States who are pro-zionist, pro-military, and anti-semitic.

45: Dina, a young Palestinian woman from Springfield, shares poems from the bombardment, as well as a story about the every day impact of the occupation, checkpoints, and harassment by the IDF.

55: Marvin Gaye sings Mercy Mercy Me

 

My coworkers Neal and Colin did their Pedal People routes today together on a tandem bike.

11: the PVTA is free again this year, from Thanksgiving to Xmas.  Nao Sakurai tells us why she rides the bus, all year round.

25: Tom Lehrer sings “Hanukkah in Santa Monica”

27: my friend Bill is taking a cruise to Trinidad and back.  maybe  i can catch a ride so i don’t have to violate my ethics by flying???

29: Peter Paul and Mary: Light One Candle

33: in Flo trash barrel I found “Air and Space Forces” magazine, classic pro-US-Global-Military-Dominance mindset.  I share some key quotes.

36: my morning waking-up rant about American culture and the environment

41: Alex Jarrett on riding the PVTA  (intervw from last year actually)

52: Amiga Negra art show

54: Chants from the rally for Palestine Dec 3

55: garbage truck emptying a paper recycling dumpster downtown: what a lot of loud complicated machinery.  and they drop cardboard and paper just like Pedal People does sometimes.

 

 

The Flo-Op is finally official!  6-8 High St in Florence signs the papers to transfer from being owned by me, Alex, Tammi, and Matt, to being owned by the Flo-Op Inc, which I think is currently me and Alex Jarrett and Sara Howard, and growing.  Alex, Sara, Rebecca Fletcher from Cooperative Fund of the NorthEast, and Jim Oldham from Equity Trust celebrate around the dining room table of 6 High.  A Northampton Community Land Trust will be in the works.  It’s all a way to preserve affordable housing and democratic control.

Live guests in the studio today:  Vincent Hedger and Francie Delaney (York, PA) are visiting me for the week :).   Vince’smain project has been ComeByBike Farm on the eastern shore of MD for the last 7 years.   He bikes 25 miles from the barn/studio where he stays to the farmland where he grows.  He’s a channel for growing and feeding people, helping out with his broad array of practical skills wherever he can, generally rejecting the money economy.   In his 60s now, when I asked him about health care, he kinda laughed and said he said he was on God’s plan.  He’s hoping to find a place, a farm, to relocate to in WMass this year.   Originally from Alaska, MD is getting too hot for him.

Francie is from York, PA, where she does urban gardening, and homesteading, has raised 3 children, hosts wwoofers, does physical therapy, art, all kinds of community engagement, and has partnered with Vincent on multiple projects.   She reminds us to Leave the Leaves!  they’re important for the ecosystem.

 

 

 

 

Yesterday was Thanksgiving.  National Day of Mourning at Plymouth Rock, for many Native Americans.

I took a hike on Thanksgiving Day to “the mossy rock” in the Sawmill Hills, where Duane grew up, and asked to have some of his ashes “dumped”.   What a tear-jerker.

23: Diana Ross sings “Missing You”

34: Cleveland P Jones with “Kiss of Freedom”

40: John Prine with “Hello in There”

51: Garth Brooks with “We shall be free”

54: Tanya Tucker with “Delta Dawn”

I took a bike-bus-train trip to the Hudson R Valley and met up with my friend Giselle visiting from Trinidad. Enrico (I played this clip last week) with his bike and blower clearing leaves from the Manhan r-t Satcha and Sonia at L3Harris encampment (L3Harris is a military contractor with a Northampton base, supplying the Israeli army with surveillance etc as they bomb, harrass, and strangle Palestine.) 39: Cheryl Wheeler sings about fall in New England World Day of Remembrance for people killed and maimed by cars 48: Ana Tijoux with “Somos Sur” 53: Leroy Troy sings “Bicycle Wreck”