The B.W.E.F : Above & Below Charlestown
Posted on July 28, 2003 at 1:29 pm | No Comments
Yesterday afternoon the mutating group known as the Boston World Explorers Foundation got together to check out an abandoned stretch of highway over Sullivan Square in Charlestown. Possibly legal, sure, but quite safe given the complete lack of traffic and apparant structural integrity (well, for pedestrians at least). Even though auto access was impossible, we couldn’t help but paranoidly glance behind us whenever we heard traffic on the streets below.
photo by dave belson
The overpass was a bit shorter than we expected, so we extended the tour with an even more-probably-illegal walk through a closed chunk of route 99 that headed underground. Traffic was still flowing in the other direction, so we tried to act casual while sidestepping the pigeon carcasses. The tunnel ended up near the Mystic River drawbridge, so we headed to the riverside for a look at the ball fields, industrial sites, and docked gas tankers.
Here are my photos from the walk, and fellow explorer Dave Belson has a few here on Ofoto.
If you’re interested in possibly joining the B.W.E.F. on the next irregular outing, sign up for the new Yahoo Group and you’ll be in the message loop. There have already been trips to Castle Island and Beacon Hill, and you’re more than welcome to have a say in where the group heads next.
Miss Vermont vs. Tucker Max : Case Dismissed
Posted on July 28, 2003 at 9:03 am | No Comments
A couple months back I wrote a bit about unabashed rude-boy Tucker Max and his legal battles with former Miss Vermont Katy Johnson. The gist of the whole mess was that Tucker kissed (ok, more than kissed) and told, and Katy didn’t like that he shared their story with the world. Given her online persona as the abstinant Queen of Nice at her totally over-the-top website (which is mysteriously non-existant this morning), it’s apparant she had a self-imagined image to uphold, and that Tucker’s account completely contradicted that. So she dropped a lawsuit and a temporary injuction down on him and his site.
Simply put, she wanted to shut him the hell up, to at the very least have the courts force him to take down the details of their affair (which were, admittedly, painfully brutal). Her and her family called him ‘depraved’ and ‘a complete liar’, not just claiming he had no right to share the story, but denying that much of it even took place.
Well, unsurprisingly, the case has been dismissed. Voluntarily and without prejudice. Mr. Max, who was unable to speak publicly about the lawsuit once it started, now shares every detail, including the original story of their sordid, dysfunctional tryst, all the legal documents, and even so-called proof that their affair took place. He may be a jerk, but it appears he may be an honest jerk.
I’m certainly not defending Tucker and his mysogantastic website, but you’ve gotta give him a little bit of credit for sticking up for anyone’s right to speak about their life, their own experiences, online, and for his willingness to offer up a look inside the whole process. You’ve gotta wonder what prompted Miss Johnson to yank the lawsuit (logic? nah.), and exactly what happened to her cheesariffic website. Has she gone into hiding? Quietly reinventing herself? Maybe working on a followup to her book “”True Beauty: A Sunny Face Means A Happy Heart”? Oh, we can only dream.
update : her site’s back. whew, the world was such a darker place without it.