La Machine

Every week I say to myself, this is the week I’m gonna run out of material.  After all, how funny can one small town be?  And just as surely, every week the Ledger, and the Mariner, deliver high-quality absurdity right to my door.  Only in America. 

From the Ledger this week, comes the news that Nancy Buckley thinks Senator Hedlund and Representative Murray haven’t been doing enough to stop the train.  This outburst was a response to the senator’s refusal to throw his (political) body in front of a $4.1 billion bond bill (that’s billion with a B), which, coincidentally, makes no mention of Greenbush.  Things were heated for a moment or two, but the old allies managed to patch things up.  In a compromise that was hailed by all sides, for the rest of the term, the legislators have agreed to wear yellow dunce caps with the words “NO TRAIN” printed on them.  Coalition members say they will continue to press the senator to don an anti-train sandwich board (with a 1/4 scale model of Hingham Center on the back) in place of the ‘less visible’ dunce cap. 

As usual, the Mariner carried the more important news of the week - the unmasking of La Machine, the oligarchical yacht club/revolutionary cadre that’s run Scituate with an iron fist since 1991.  The evil doings of this secret organization had gone largely unnoticed, but they couldn’t escape the eagle eye of candidate Marks who, with her fresh, outsider’s perspective picked right up on its subterranean activities.  She saw right through them, but bided her time, waiting for them to overreach ... waiting for that dramatic misdeed that would open the eyes of even the stupidest voter.  Billy Bulger’s St. Patrick’s Day breakfast, provided that defining moment.

I’m sure that at least some of you thought you were hallucinating when you tuned in to Channel 3’s rebroadcast of the breakfast only to see Governor Weld romping through a spirited, almost madcap, rendition of “Charlie on the MTA”. To quote from the Book of Politics, chapter 1, verse 1, “Remember ye never to remind a vocal constituency that ye’ve ignored their pet cause.  And if ye choose to do so, remember ye never to do it in song, in front of TV cameras”.  Wiser words were never written.

I have to apologize, because that whole thing with the singing at Bulger’s St. Patty’s Day breakfast was my fault, not Bill’s.  You see, ever since Governor Weld took office, we here at La Machine have been in control of his mind, through the power of hypnotic suggestion.  In fact, I’m Bill’s controller at La Machine.  Actually, I only cover nights and weekends, but that’s no excuse.  I screwed up.  Here’s what happened.

Ever since the Chamber of Commerce appearance, it’s been pretty boring on the Weld Control Desk.  Not that it was non-stop action before that, but we did manage a few chuckles with the senatorial run, the boats and the guided busways and all.  Since then though, it’s just been deathly dull.  After a while, all ketchup jokes sound the same, if you know what I mean.  Anyway, along comes The Great Day, and in keeping with my heritage, I get a little liquored up and before you know it, having the Governor prance around belting out the Greenbush theme song seems like a really good idea. I guess I got a little carried away.

Of course, running the tape of the event, over and over again, on Channel 3 wasn’t my idea, but that’s all water under the bridge now.  I’m off the Weld Control Desk for good.  Now they have me on the Discrimination Desk, trying to decide which layover site best expresses our dislike for other races.  This isn’t as easy as it sounds, since, being Irish, we really don’t like any other race.  It’s all degrees of dislike.  And the layover site decision is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to really stick it to someone, so we have to choose carefully.  So far, I have it narrowed down to the Scots on Otis St., and that crowd of Brockton people over on Sea Breeze Lane (oooh, Brockton people really get my goat).  And if you have any group you’d like to nominate, keep it to yourself, because prejudiced people is the group we hate the most.

We work hard here at La Machine, but despite our best efforts, Scituate remains a stubbornly pleasant place to live.  I suppose that’s the way it is with all volunteer work.  You strive and you struggle, and within your own lifetime at least, it all seemingly comes to naught.  It’s future generations we have to think about.  Can we, at La Machine, make Scituate a worse place to live for our children, and our children’s children?  We can only do our best, and leave the rest in His hands.

Tune in next week when I present a detailed expose of our very own band of cave-dwellers - the Scituate Militia.

John Rodley is an un-indicted co-conspirator in The Great Greenbush Conspiracy.