Day: December 18, 2011

The Pledge To Plunge Updated List, A Food Drive and A Chance To Win A $100 Gift Card To The Azorean

Posted on by Joey Ciaramitaro

Y’all know all the cool people will be taking the Plunge New Year’s Day at Rocky Neck.  Here’s our list of people who have pledged to plunge-
Optional to meet at Passports at 10AM beforehand and Plunge At Oaks Cove Beach New Years Day at Noon!
I can tell you it is incredibly invigorating and the very best way to start your year. It sets you up to overcome a fear and once you do it the rest of the year you feel like you can and will do anything!

Here’s the way this list works- you commit to plunge ahead of time, get your name on the list and show up, whoever plunges we pick a name out of the people who pledged out of a hat and that person wins a $100 Gift Card To The Azorean that Our Terry Weber donated to the cause!
If you pledge to plunge and then bail out for ANY REASON, that gives us free license to ridicule you for the entire year!

Is your name on here?  If not comment on this post and I’ll add you to the list of plungers to join us!

Joey C, Donna Ardizzoni, Rick Moore, Ed Collard, Paul Morrison, Rick Paolillo, Melissa Cox, Dr. Ray Cahill, Colleen Apostolos-Marsh, Lotus Marsh, Lukas and Lasse Struppe, Owen, Henry, and Jon Hardy, Alexandra Rhinelander, Charles Du Deaubien Gaspien (or something like that), Ericka Hyam, Steve LeBlanc, Jamie Verga, Kevin Ryan, Patrick Ryan, Denny Cunningham, Carolyn Kirk, Bill Kirk, Amanda Nash,Tom Robinson Cox, Mike and Eva DiLascio, Amandacakes and Beasley, Keara the chick with the heavy green eye shadow (I forgot her last name), Vickie Van Ness,Greg Bover, Brian O’Connor, Skip Montello,Kane Oshiro,Barry “Cuda” Pollack, Charles Rodgers, the bald guy that was second on the list, Terry Weber. If you told me you were plunging last night and you don’t see your name please alert me so I can add you. I somehow misplaced “the list” we complied last night at the XMAS party.

Last year’s plunge photos-

Click the picture below to see the slide show from Manny Simoes

Well Carol McCarthy is organizing a food drive for the Open Door Food Pantry.  here’s the deets-

Just a heads up that I am organizing a food drive the day of the Plunge… PLunge will be at Noon and the food drive is to benefit The Open Door..  They are in real need this year and Its time we give back on the Neck..   I asking everyone to bring what is needed by the Pantry.. I emailed Judy Cox and she is posting in the newsletter this week.. We need to make a HUGE push for the food pantry… What is desperately needed!!!!   Barrels will be set up at the entrance of Oak Cove Beach for the non-perishables.. Thanks Joey..

Cathy McCarthy  8978 317 2352

TUNA, Peanut Butter, Pasta Sauce, 100% Juice, Baking Items, Breakfast Cereal…

West End Walk

Posted on by Marty Luster

WEST END WALK

 

Her shadow preceded her by many feet

as she whisked up Main Street in the still West End,

strongly backlit by the sun low in the sky.

 

The glare also gave brief life to the streetlights

and they glowed as if they were old gas lamps, not

those a modern day designer has copied.

 

Facades and doorways and holiday wreaths were

accented by the intense low rays of the

same sun that shined when these buildings were first built.

 

It seemed odd to me that a person should be

moving so quickly through a momentary

scene that the strobe- light sun sought to freeze in time.

 

Marty Luster

A Party to Remember GMG Christmas Party Pics From Fred Bodin

Posted on by Joey Ciaramitaro

Paul Morrison, Sushi King Dan Leahy, and Father Matthew Green attack the sushi brought by Mark McDonough from Lattitude 43. R Duck doesn’t like sushi.

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A great crowd  of 100+ at the GMG Christmas party at Bodin Historic Photo

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Theo MacGregor and Jerry Oppenheimer, FOB’s and FOG’s (Friends Of the Gallery)

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Sally Jackson, Brewmistress of the Boston Brewing Company (Sam Adams) and husband look at an 1884 map.

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An indication of a really good party- and this was only half way through.

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Fredrik D. Bodin

Bodin Historic Photo

info@BodinHistoricPhoto.com

Like us on Facebook- http://www.facebook.com/BodinHistoricPhoto

Did You Know? (Jacques Cousteau in Lanesville)

Posted on by God's Morning

In 1943, Jacques-Yves Cousteau and Emile Gagnan invented a system that would revolutionize the world of deep-sea exploration and push diving into the mainstream, allowing people around the world to become exposed to the magical oceanic wilderness they had been unable to experience before. The system is known as the “Aqua-lung.”  Jacques-Yves Cousteau, invented and tested the “Aqua Lung” SCUBA regulator in Lanesville. 

E.J. Lefavour

gimmesound music lineup & new give-away ~ Check Peter’s spanish

Posted on by Vickie & Peter


We have a new give-away starting Monday (12/19/11).  Here is how it works:

  • There will be a trivia question in every lineup video (Monday – Friday)
  • After you see Friday’s Video and you have all the answers
  • click the ANSWER LINK under the video to give us your answers
  • The FIRST person with the correct answers wins the prize.  A Jalapenos $30 Gift Certificate plus 4 jars of their signature sauces.  Its a great prize that I want to win but I can’t so GOOD LUCK to you!

Get today’s live music lineup and check out Gloucester’s best local music!

Where’s Kory?  Those of you who have been following us know that he moved back to Gloucester from LA having worked in the film business.  We were lucky to have him join us for a couple of months.  Now he’s got a big, fancy associate producer job in Boston and no longer has time for us little folks.  Good Luck Kory!

The Lobstah Crackah sampler

Posted on by Matthew Green

I went to the Friday performance of the Lobstah Crackah at The Annie.  It’s an ingenious new Gloucester seafood-flavored take on the Christmas classic The Nutcracker.  It’s not the Russian Ballet, but there is enthusiasm and humor – and live accordion music accompanying the score!

Here are some clips and snapshots to give you a feel for the production.

  • Dec. 15-Jan. 1
  • Thursdays-Sundays 7PM & 2PM Sunday matinees
  • $15 suggested donation
  • located at the corner of Rogers and Washington Street, in the Blackburn Tavern building, above Giuseppe’s (entrance on Washington Street)

Joey Ciaramitaro, a blogger from Gloucester, Mass., called it “ridiculously disfigured” and “horribly disproportionate.”

Posted on by Joey Ciaramitaro

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Yeah, that pretty much sums it up.

New York Times, Front Page.  It’s What We Do.

Click here for the entire story

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Excerpt-

When Jonesport joined Beals to make a lobster trap tree on the island for the first time last year — it was 56 feet tall — Joey Ciaramitaro, a blogger from Gloucester, Mass., called it “ridiculously disfigured” and “horribly disproportionate.”

Mr. Ciaramitaro said he preferred his hometown’s tree, which stands about 35 feet, illuminating a plaza in the fishing city’s downtown. Each year, a local arts group invites children to decorate buoys as ornaments, which are auctioned off to raise money for the group. There are 353 on the tree this year.

“I think ours has a lot more soul in it than the other trees,” Mr. Ciaramitaro said. “It’s not just a bunch of traps all stacked up.”

Gloucester is believed to have started the tradition of the large lobster trap tree when it built its first one in 2001. Janice Lufkin Shea, who was a Gloucester shopkeeper at the time, was frustrated that Main Street had no holiday display. She saw a tiny lobster trap tree in someone’s yard and thought a bigger version would be perfect for downtown.

Legend has it that when people in Rockland, Me., learned of it, they decided they had to have one, too.

Click here for the rest of the story at The New York Times Website

I mean was there ever any question?  Last year’s fair and balanced poll proved out the numbers without a shadow of a doubt- the Gloucester Lobster Trap Tree Is Clearly the Most Beautiful.   Especially when you factor in the love and care from Art Haven and 353 sweet children who pulled together to adorn our tree with community messages and incredible art work.  You see, Gloucester isn’t just one dimensional.  Sure we have a great fishing community but it is so much more.  The Arts, The Food Scene, The Literary Scene, we’re not just a one dimensional fishing town.  We’ve got it all!

The Gloucester Lobster Trap Tree Has Been Constructed and Adorned With Buoys Hand Painted With Love and Special Messages Of Peace, Joy and Hope By The Children Of Gloucester.  And then there are the sterile generic boring trees erected by prisoners of the Maine criminal system who have been incarcerated for unspeakable crimes against the elderly and sick and destitute.

We’ve Got God On Our Side.  The Results Of The Poll Were Inevitable.

The numbers don’t lie, here’s the poll-

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Nice That The Bean’s Buoy Was Featured In The Article-

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Here’s the Bean painting her buoy last week at Art Haven-

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Community Stuff Sunday

Posted on by Joey Ciaramitaro
Ralph Bates, of Manchester, Heats Things Up at The Open Door

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Julie LaFontaine writes-

Hi Joey,
I am excited to share some news with you and the GMG readers! The Open Door received a generous donation of $8.000 from Ralph Bates, of Manchester, to replace and and install a double-convection oven for the Community Meals kitchen. The oven is a Turbofan Convection oven that will speed up cooking times in the kitchen and make meal time more efficient.

This generous gift came at a time when the ovens that had served the kitchen for more than fifteen years finally gave out.
"Ralph Bates has a quick wit and a heart of gold," said Julie LaFontaine, "Through the years, he has shown up just when we needed him most."
Over the years Ralph Bates has also provided a commercial refrigerator and a gas range for The Open Door’s kitchen. More than 40 groups from the community use the kitchen each year between 15,000 and 18,000 meals are prepared in the kitchen each year to guests needing food and companionship.
Dressed in a Red Sox hat and jacket, Ralph Bates joked as he posed for his photo between Kenn Taber, the Community Meals manager, and Julie LaFontaine, executive director, but he was serious when he said, "It just makes me feel good to know I am helping others."

The mission of The Open Door is to alleviate the impact of hunger in our community. We use practical strategies to connect people to good food, to advocate on behalf of those in need, and to engage others in the work of building food security.

Pictured left to right: Kenn Taber, The Open Door Community Meals manager, Ralph Bates, of Manchester, Julie LaFontaine, The Open Door executive director

Julie LaFontaine