Terence Burke Was An Awesome Human (1969 - 2024)

Self-portrait

So we lost my good friend Terence last year. One August night he just quietly died in his sleep. We were all devastated. He was only 54.

I can't say enough about how awesome Terence was, and that's both personally and professionally. I knew him a little through the music scene, then in 2007 I hired him at my workplace. He impressed the pants off everybody, was a fast learner and a superb employee. We became friends. We had many friends in common.

He was a singer. He loved music. He had an extensive vinyl collection. He lived right next door for about twelve years, and in summertime we could hear his tunes and it was most excellent, as were the CD "mix tapes" he made for Joe and I, and everyone else. He was also an artist. He went to Mass Art for a year and loved to draw.

Last night while trying to fall asleep I suddenly remembered Terence's Flickr albums. And that it was under a moniker he sometimes used. Tolerance Burke.

 

Terence always had a camera in his hand. He took literally thousands of pictures. He'd been documenting his friends and family at parties, cookouts, rock shows, karaoke, a LOT of selfies showing all his different looks through the years, and a lot more. His albums of his toys, T shirts, and the famous mix tapes are awesome. His family, especially his brother Dave and the kids, through the years, is so great. Plus his drawings.

The Flickr site is really great to look through. With these thousands of pictures, Terence really left us all a legacy. Pour one out tonight for our friend Terence Burke.

 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/45106708@N00/albums/

 One of Terence's last captures: https://flic.kr/p/2q9pfS8 

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Big 103 Boston…My New Jam, Baby

You guys. I accidentally found a really cool radio station. Google "Big 103 Boston" to stream it (or click the link at the bottom). Or if you're near me in Boston, tune to 103 FM. That's how I found it, twiddling the knob of the little radio I bought myself last summer, They play a wider variety than most stations. Hip hop, Indie, Metal, Pop. I got some screen shots from different days/times--check it out! If you're anything like me (Uh...eclectic Gen Xer in America, I suppose?) you'll find Big 103 Boston quite badass. 

 

 

 

(This is a new Blogger feature currently in Beta!) 

 

 

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Those Toy Soldiers! Another Throwback Thursday That Cracks Me Up

Joe circa 2003

 OMG you guys. I posted this old entry back in 2015, as a Throwback to an old Diaryland entry from 2003. This is a funny story from the old apartment! LOL! Like we frequently say to each other, "We have been together a looooong tiiiiime."

 

November 19, 2003

 

 

So Joe's been playing Army Men on the Playstation. If you haven't seen this thing, it's this old school video game where you play as green plastic army men, and you wage war against the tan plastic army men on battlefields—the back yard, the kitchen table, and other parts of a house. While I was in Davis Square the other day, I went to Family Dollar for toothpaste and toilet paper (thank God for dollar stores) and I saw a bag of green army men. Had to get 'em.

So last night when Joe took a game break, I quietly put every single one of the army men all around his desk. On the speaker, on the remote, the CD stack, the mail. All pointing their guns at him. Then I went back to my book (okay, it's not a BOOK, I'm "reading" a collection of Calvin and Hobbes cartoons, okay?!) and waited for Joe to come out of the bathroom and laugh.Joe came out of the bathroom and picked up the Playstation control. Resumed play..

Nothin'. Okay, from my vantage point, you guys? It looked like a small army had swarmed the desk.Tiny little green machine-gun guys and rifle-guys cast tiny little silhouettes on the TV screen, across which swarmed all those Playstation army men, controlled by The Big Kowalski. Like an hour went by. What is happening, why hasn't he called out yet about all these army men."I can't believe he doesn't see them!" Jeez, talk about singular focus. 

Long after I'd taken Calvin and Hobbes to bed and forgot about my little prank myself, FINALLY from the next room there came a sudden, "HEY! Where'd these army men come from!?" 

I love this guy.

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Reddit Deleted My Post About Amanda Palmer's Eyebrows But I Don't Need Reddit When I Have This Blog

I posted in the /whybrows subreddit the other day, which is a hilarious collection of truly astonishing eyebrow decisions from around the web. I tried to read the rules for the subreddit first, but there was nothing written under Rules. My post sparked a lively discussion about Amanda and the current state of affairs on that topic, and got 50 upvotes before they took it down. Obviously we were enjoying it. And it imparted some new info for people who only knew Amanda's eyebrows in later years. I was even able to get some advice on something that's been on my mind from time to time--what to do about all my old reviews/interviews/features about the Dresden Dolls and Amanda...I didn't know if I should now post a Disclaimer on those or...? I mean, I used to adore the Dolls. I wrote about them so enthusiastically! It's so cringe to go back and read now. I didn't know she was going to get so fucking bizarre, dare I say predatory and even possibly dangerous?

The mods deleted my post. This was my post that Reddit deleted: 

Of course I checked for Amanda Palmer posts the minute I found out about this Reddit thing (/whybrows is AWESOME). But the other Amanda posts are all more recent, when she had like the “lines” or whatever…someone said those are tattoos? I really don’t know. What I do know: in the early days of the Dresden Dolls, when they started playing gigs around Boston, when they still did whiteface, before all the craziness, Amanda had great eyebrow art, I thought. I think she shaved them off and drew intricate designs where the brows would be. They weren’t in a strange shape, they didn’t hover in a weird place. In person the effect was stunning. I don’t know what all that was about in the later years, and I don’t just mean the brows (boy, did that ship sail off the edge, huh?) but at least I want to say: in the early days, these were pretty brows.

They WERE pretty brows. 

In any case, the eyebrow art by Amanda is a thing of the past. She has normal eyebrows now. What, I'm still connected to Amanda on Facebook. 

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Books: The Night Circus (part 1?)

I got a bunch of books for holing up and reading this winter, and the first one I picked from the TBR pile was The Night Circus. Ninety pages in, I put it down, thought a minute, then Googled “I hated the Night Circus.” Found a Reddit thread. And a Goodreads thread. And a Facebook thread. All asking basically the same question: WTF?

Well. I’m glad it’s not just me. I had a stroke two years ago and some of my, I guess you could say, tastes? Or proclivities? Are “off.” For example, I now hate the taste and texture of sushi. I used to LOVE sushi. I accept that certain things are different now than they were before the stroke (over and above losing the use of my right arm and walking with a cane). But I was pretty sure I was perceiving The Night Circus correctly.

WTF is up with this book? I’ve read many many books of all sorts, and I cannot name one where I didn’t know what was going on yet at 90 pages in. That’s when we meet the dude that hosts the Midnight Dinners and his friends, and they start working on plans for his proposed Night Circus.

Which I would have thought would happen sooner but okay. I mean it was like 30 or 40 pages ago when the tents were up and the kid snuck inside and met the girl who gave him one of her gloves as proof that he’d snuck in. And the novel opens with a rather detailed description of the entryway. So those things happened in the future, AFTER the Midnight Dinners. Fine.

Mostly my issue with The Night Circus is that even now, at 90 pages in, the author is still introducing characters! And with no hint of how they fit into the story? In the beginning there are two magicians. We don't learn what mysterious "something" gives them their magic power. I get that the kids were young apprentices, if you will, learning magic in two very different ways from the two magicians. Then in later chapters we learn how that’s going. They're destined for some sinister sounding contest involving magic, that's been established at this point. But we don't know why there needs to be a contest. And who are all these other people? The Midnight Dinners guy? The kid that sneaks into the circus? Isobel? And what's the circus exactly? It seems like some sort of story would gel by now, I dunno. That's how I was taught to write. But I don't have a New York Times best seller and multiple award winning novel like The Night Circus. I just have this blog.

After reading all the posts on Reddit (that's not even the only post discussing the topic), Goodreads, and even Facebook (which I got off like a month ago), I have learned that there’s a slow slog of a romance ahead for the magic kids. That was to be expected. Something sad with Isobel. I suppose she gets her heart broken. I can only surmise that we finally get to the circus. And the magic contest. Which our two magicians don't even know about at this juncture. And we the reader don't know the reason for, not that we know much of anything?

I don’t even know if I want to finish The Night Circus. What do you guys think, should I persevere? Is there any joy in it? Does it get better at all? I'm sooooo booooored...🕮

 

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