Paulie Walnuts suggested that I pose this question to the readership. It will be interesting to read the answers, especially from some of our long time friends. I launched the blog in late December 2007 for reference. It’s always great to see familiar names in the comment section and it’s even more fun when I get visits from our long time subscribers and FOBs when they come down the dock to say hi.
So please leave a comment on this post and let us know how long you’ve been around. The person with the best comment wins a T Shirt.
It would also be interesting to hear how you view GMG. Do you read it on our Facebook Feed? In the nightly email blast which you can get for free by subscribing here, or if you have the site bookmarked and come direct to the url http://www.goodmorninggloucester.com.
Good Morning Gloucester 
I don’t know – I’d seen GMG pop up when I was looking for local news and events for a couple of years and I thought it was just a bunch of old fogies doing cutesy stories about nonsense. I kind of pictured a retired man in his seventies sitting around Zeke’s with his buddies stirring up local tidbits – kind of like a local newspaper you might see in a tiny village in upstate New York. “Well, Tom Smith’s cow got loose again and there was a surprise guest at the church picnic!” – that type of thing.
I started seriously reading and following about a year ago when we were going into business and I was looking for a platform to reach the people of Cape Ann. I refer to GMG’s facebook page every day but between the amount of content and the format of facebook it’s easy for posts that do really interest me to get lost in the shuffle so I do read the emails – but I’m probably the exception not the rule for your 28 year old male demographic.
I’d love to see more human interest stories. Like an interview with someone who has got a great story to tell or check in’s from graduates from GHS who are now in grad school or pursuing some interesting career. I think a really fun segment would be, “fun at the beach” with like a picture and 3 paragraph short about random folks in boats at Wingaersheek and how they got there.
And how I view GMG going forward – I think you should be the landing spot for the 7 million tourists who descend on Cape Ann every summer. As soon as they cross the bridge GMG should pop up on their phone with a tutorial on how to drive in the rotaries, where to get a proper sandwich, what events are going on, and what to do on a rainy day (attend class at one of the yoga studios on Cape Ann). You should get an intern. Or interns.
That’s my thoughts. Keep doing what you’re doing!
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I moved to the North Shore in June of 2009 and very soon thereafter showed up at your dock. You told me about the blog, I checked it out, and subscribed immediately. It’s a beautiful thing, seeing what a major force it’s become since those early days, when it was just you slugging it out every day! Hugs from Karl Marx Street in Minsk, Belarus, with NewThing.net!
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I get it through nightly feed in my email. You should be on Oprah. Just sayin’
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JoeyC – you should make this sticky
Dot moved to Gloucester in 2000 and she found your dock in like 2005 – after getting suckered by some old time locals – and loved you from the start. I think I first found your blog through a Google search about taking the boat to Provincetown, something I was planning to do with Dot when I was back visiting her. I was living in LA (BIG MISTAKE) and missed MA/NE terribly and I was **hooked**. And I have been hooked ever since.
Fast forward 5 years and I’ve moved back in with Dot in 2010 to help support her. Greenhead-egg in town but eager to find ways to connect, GMG has been my lifeline into and within this amazing tight-knit and true-as-the-day-is-blue community.
Fast forward another few years, I am running for fracking City Council office.
Joey have a special talent of making people feel like the belong here, because you treat them as a great new friend you just found, and always want to have around.
I check GMG 3-4x a day. You and your contributors are the best new breakers around town.
AND I haven’t even started to write about how this blog led me to deep friendships with some of your first, core bloggers.THANK YOU Paulie for posing this question to Joey.
Bex OUT
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I have been reading GMG since 2014 Ienjoy connecting with events that happen in my hometown Gloucester GMG helped a family member find me which has had an awesome result thank you GMG love the blog and emails. Bonnie Foster from Glosta
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Met Joey on Main Street as he came in to small businesses to ask how he could help us. Loved and appreciated him and what he was doing and signed on the same month the blog launched.
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Don’t really know the date i joined close to the beginning , get mine through email like clock work 8pm every night. Love the news the photos and of course the humor., and when is that dam duck going to arrive. many friends all over the county i have turned on to GMG and they have actually visited and loved it.. Keep on keeping on Joey and staff joe
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Fred Bodin and I were having another conversation about the Cape Ann arts scene and talking about what we might do to help artists and connect with tourists. Fred suggested that I look at GMG and one of his stories about a historic photo that he had posted. You are bookmarked and part of the morning coffee ritual. (Prior to 2012 I think)
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I discovered GMG in early 2008. I have always been intrigued with the North Shore coast, and became re-intrigued with Gloucester around 2005 when I found out about the Cape Ann Artisans tour. I remember visiting Gloucester and Rockport as a kid, and wanted to share those destinations with my children as they were growing up. (I’m from Everett)
Living for the weekends as many of us do, I was always Googling for places and events going on around the North Shore. I stumbled across GMG during one of those Google searches. I specifically remember your posts on the filming of “The Proposal” with Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds. I saw that the blog posted many other interesting things going on around Gloucester. It took no convincing that I must subscribe to the blog so I could be “connected” to whatever was going on around Gloucester parts. The early posts of Snoop Mad and The Bean were always charming. I also loved Paul’s Art Rock posts, even though there was never a chance for me to go on a scavenger hunt to find them. I also remember and loved the early posts of Gloucester at Dawn and Gloucester Zen. Though I’m 30 miles away, the GMG blog made me feel like I was part of the community, as I lived (and still do live) vicariously through the always interesting posts. Thanks for keeping the blog going!
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My experience with GMG started back in the day when it was saltier and a bit less “refined” (I loved it). I’ve watched it evolve into a well rounded, well respected font of Gloucester info. Thanks to you and to all your contributors! Thanks for hanging in there for the benefit of the rest of us. Pat D
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Gloucester is like “home” to me, even though I have never lived here. My father grew up in Gloucester, and I still have family in the area. So finding GMG was a god send for me! It keeps me informed and part of a community that I just feel so connected to. I started following the blog in 2008 when my sister told me about it. The stories were not politically correct, and I LOVED it! The early days the humor was so much fun. I couldn’t get enough. The stories of Joey’s girls were also some of my favorites. Now it is so much more informative, but sometimes I miss that outlandish humor and running jokes.
The photography has always pulled me in. The “Beautiful Industry” shots made me look at the world differently. Thank you to all the contributors. This is the BEST blog, hands down. Please keep doing it!
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I started reading GMG in the spring of 2010 before moving to Gloucester in September; and was granted the honor of becoming a GMG author in December 2010. I first met Joey, Paul Morrison, Manny, Donna, Ed and others on January 1, 2011 at Passports where we met for breakfast before the Rocky Neck Plunge (they plunged, I covered it from dry land). I can’t imagine what life here would have been like without Good Morning Gloucester, through which I have met so many friends, good buddies and acquaintances, had so many great experiences and learned so much about this great place..
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Joey: Have been reading GMG since the beginning, I can remember sitting with and you telling about the blog. It has been an honor being part of this great team and love the comments from all around the world. It is amazing how GMG has reached so many people, GMG is the only way to find out what is going on, keeping the readers informed on all fronts. The people that I have met through this blog cover the whole spectrum of ages, careers, sports and life styles. Most important about Good Morning Gloucester is the fun we have and appreciate each other..
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Found in early 2008 when we were looking into moving to Gloucester and was hoping for some local insight. Jackpot! The positive energy and abundance of beauty exposed on this site drew us in. We moved here in 2011 and its been even better than we imagined. I still get the emails because its pushed to me when I get too busy and forget to go to the site. But now I also enjoy the podcasts and Facebook posts. Even though focus appears to be on Cape Ann and GMG, you’ll learn its a magnet for positive energy, creation, art, and good people. I’ve gotten so much inspiration form Joey and the contributors here. It’s a contagious outlook on life. Thanks everyone!
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My first time in Gloucester was 2011. Hubby and I took a three week trip up the east coast from Florida to Bar Harbor, Maine, staying only a night in most towns. Gloucester captured my heart. We have returned each year since staying longer each time. I googled Gloucester when we returned in 2011 and found the blog. At the time it was a combination of great photos, local articles and irreverence. Lol. I confess to enjoying the politically incorrect articles while shaking my head, oh Joey! In 2012 I went to the dock and met Joey. What a treat. As an avid reader I came to know the blog contributors like they were family and over the years have had the pleasure of meeting several. Because of the blog we attend the Schooner Festival each year, have eaten at great restaurants, gone to festivals, pubs, enjoyed all the local scenery, have an Art Rock, and met great people. We proudly have the GMG sticker on our car and represent when we travel and the pics have been part of the blog.
I have GMG bookmarked, get the email, and have the FB connection. I listen to podcasts especially to hear the accents. Lol. Wish I cold talk like y’all.
See you in September!
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I started reading GMG not long after it started and as Pat D noted it was a little more ‘rough’ back then. I think I stumbled on it shortly after I moved to east Gloucester and drove by Capt. Joe’s pretty much every day.
I got one of the original GMG stickahs and put it on my car. Had that car until last fall. Couldn’t salvage the sticker though. See my profile picture.
Don’t get there as often as I’d like now since I’ve moved way down south to Wakefield…
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Oh yeah = get the email digest and check the RSS feed pretty much every day.
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I found the blog in 2009 or so. I was in the USCG up there in the 80s and was “googling” Gloucester Harbor images one day. Seems like all the good fotos were associated with GMG. So I bookmarked it and followed along. My wife and I ended up visiting a couple of years ago… met Joey on the dock, met EJ, even got our pic on the blog. We will try to get back for the USCG reunion this fall. So greetings from down in Charleston, South Carolina.
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I can’t remember how I came across GMG exactly, though I think I found it not long after it launched. We moved to Gloucester from Texas in 2006, a few months after our first child (Atticus) was born. As new neighbors, we wanted to plug into the pulse of Gloucester as quickly as possible (we had close friends here, so that helped, too), and GMG really helped with that. The hook was not just one story, but about how it quickly became a common area for information about local events and people. I don’t think you can really overestimate how important GMG is to the community. It really is wonderful. Michelle and I often joke about how Joey is the unofficial mayor of Gloucester. I check in once or twice a day (it’s on my bookmark bar at the top of my browser) to keep up with all things Cape Ann. Thank you to all contributors. You totally rock.
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You know what the funny thing is? I’m reading about how everyone likes the way it used to be when I’d crack inappropriate jokes that were supposed to be taken as satire or so outlandish that they would be jokes but inevitably I’d take a shit ton of crap for it, like the yoga pants post and others. So I don’t do them any more because most people can’t handle the jokes or don’t get the jokes and the PC police steps in and makes it not fun to write them any more. But then I read all these comments people saying that that’s what they want.
Oy! I truly can’t win, LOL.
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Are you mathematically sure that “most people can’t handle the jokes or don’t get the jokes” ? Could it just be that those people comment more than others – And those comments are so stupid that the majority of us who DO like your jokes and DO get satire and DO NOT get offended easily just can’t think of any intelligent retort — or if we could think of such a thing, we’re just as afraid as you are that the idiots who don’t get satire wouldn’t get our comments either — so instead of stepping up to the plate and posting our comments in solidarity with you, we cower behind our screens and let you take the shit for us. Sorry if that’s the case. I pledge to do better defending you in the future should you decide to dive back into the sea of satire 😉
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Good point
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You can please all of the people some of the time.
You can please some of the people all of the time.
You can please some of the people some of the time.
But you can’t please all of the people all of the time.
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fish heads and ugly fish pulled me in. have been reading and following since way back in the gritty early days when Rabbit was a frequent feature. for some reason that guy cracked me up. and Paul Frontiero, of course.
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(Peter writing) 2007 — Wow! Funny how it feels like yesterday and somehow, at the same time, it feels like GMG has always been there. Honestly I don’t remember any one story that pulled me in — for me, GMG has just become part of life in Gloucester. I do remember being accosted on the street by Joey in 2010 asking me to pimp Celebrate Gloucester at 14-C2 when I wasn’t prepared. But Joey has that magical way of making you comfortable in front of the camera no matter what the circumstances. Thanks, Joey, for all your hard work over these years that have flown by so quickly!
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I loved when you stopped in to see Janice on Main St. and dubbed around. It is because of my friendship with her and her hounding you to stop in the shop that we got a chance to meet.
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Since 2013 and loving everyday is a new adventure plus get to go back in time as well! So many great ones impossible to single out any single one! Keep up the great work! What drew me in was the many articles and mentions of GMG! Keep up the great work is all I can say! And thank you from the heart and what’s wrong with a dream?
MINNIE RIPERTON the edge of a dream
Send “The Edge of a Dream”
(m. riperton r. rudolph)
The ripples run into the sun
And your smile blends with the clouds that flutter by me
As I sit on the edge of a dream
What do I see? what do I see?
I see the children playing in the sun
And there is love enough for each and everyone
As I sit on the edge of a dream
That’s what I see! that’s what I see!
Things that might be, if we look we just might see
Paint the world so brightly, let our freedom ring
Merry-go-round without a sound
I hear your song in the breeze that rock-a-byes me
As I sit on the edge of a dream
What do I see? what do I see?
I see the lord inside of everyone
Can it be my dream will really come
As I sit on the edge of a dream
That’s what I see! that’s what I see!
Things that might be, if we look we just might see
Paint the world so brightly, let our freedom ring
And here comes the morning sun
I wonder if my dream will really come
As I site on the edge of a dream
That’s what I see! that’s what I see!
Read more: Minnie Riperton – The Edge Of A Dream Lyrics | MetroLyrics
Dave 🙂 & Kim 🙂
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Probably started reading around 2008. Moved to midcoast Maine 15 years ago, and although it is beautiful here, I missed home. So, while Google searching for photos of Good Harbor Beach and “Wingie”, came across your site and was hooked from day 1. I check this site out every morning before work while meeting my caffeine quota.
Of note, I too remember the yoga pants post, amongst others that offended some.I guess those that had issues with it are not aware of that button marked with an “X”, or their scrolling finger is disabled not allowing them to scroll on down to something different. Poor things.
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It was over 6 years ago when I was looking for a menu for a particular restaurant and there it was! Been a reader ever since and the rest is history
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I don’t remember the year, but I started reading GMG when a fishing boat sank, and your stories about the family, especially the children, touched my heart. As I read more, I realized that GMG was the place to go each day to keep up with what’s going on in Gloucester. I get the nightly email.
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