December 31, 2025 • 42 mins
Bradley Jay Filled In On NightSide with Dan Rea:
Bradley invited the listeners to check in and talk about how this year went and their plans and expectations for 2026! Bradley rung in the New Year as 2025 faded into the distance and a new future emerged!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's night Side with Dan Ray. I'm WBZ coustans me Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Well wait, welcome back on my friends. This is Nightside
for Dan Ray, Bradley j for Dan. Happy New Year
do all, including especially Dan Ray. Uh. This is open
lines now, and of course we can focus on New
Year's stuff. Don't even have to. It's you. You're celebrating
(00:29):
New Year's with me and vice versa. By the way,
you know who else is working tonight. Besides all the
thousands of Tea operators in the operations department tonight, Rob
Brooks is working his h New Year's Eve in the
master control working the wheel. Six one seven two five
(00:50):
forty excuse me, six one seven two is the number.
I always have to be careful about the number, and
sometimes I overthink it. We have Tim in Boston who's
going to give us a shout. Anything you want to
talk about is fine. I mean, get my monk's working
(01:11):
the There we go. Hello, Tim, how are you sir?
Speaker 3 (01:15):
I'm late?
Speaker 4 (01:16):
How are you?
Speaker 2 (01:18):
I know?
Speaker 4 (01:18):
So?
Speaker 2 (01:18):
This is Tim, Tim the t inspector. Now you're like
chief inspector.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
Or something, right, I'm actually instructor.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Wow. So it's good to hear from you. You heard Brian,
your phone your quality, your phone calls a little mumbley.
Is there anything you can.
Speaker 4 (01:34):
Do about it?
Speaker 3 (01:34):
I apologize one second?
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Yeah, sure, So I know Tim, because all right, how
are we doing now? Yeah? Much better. So I met
Tim on the t and I ride the Tea so
much that I'd see him around and just came to
know him from seeing him on the tee. And Brian
Kane on the advisory board said that you are a
legend in the Tea and in Boston. Tim, Well, that's
(01:56):
pretty cool.
Speaker 4 (01:57):
Cool.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
So how did you become a legend?
Speaker 5 (02:02):
Well?
Speaker 3 (02:02):
I used to make the history announcements. I tell people
about the history of the Tea as I did UH
did my trips, you know I did. I was an
operator for UH. I believe I was an offer for
seven years. Then I was an inspector for four and
now I'm actually teaching people how to how to do that.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Must a good gig. All this talk about the NBT
is great on n BT, A is great on New
Year's e because it's a time to party and drink
and it's very valuable, very important to the celebrate the
city celebration. So when you were on as an operator,
you worked the Green line, right, and I think I
remember you. You didn't tell so much. You told some
(02:42):
about the tea, but you talked about what was above
you as you went below and the history of what.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
Yeah, absolutely what I used to I tell people talk
about Hines and I used to tell people about the
history of the A line. You know, everybody knows all
the other lines of Why what happened to the A Line?
I told him about the UH used to go to
Watertown and it was temporarily just spent him back in
nineteen sixty nine and it was never heard from again.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
So that's too bad that the tracks were there and everything,
and it would it at what's that what's that corner
something corner where Packard's Corner where the B line takes
a left. The A line used to go straight all
the way to Watertown.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
Right, yep, yep. I used to go through you know, Alston,
through Union Square and all the way down through Newton
Corner and straight into the Watertown Square.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
That's a crime that that went away. I wonder why
that went away.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
It is well, they weren't expecting the Riverside line to
be as popular as it was when back in the
day so they originally were planning on looping most of
the Riverside trains at Reservoir. Then it became as popular
as it did all the way to Riverside and they
needed the trains, so they temporarily spended it to put
(03:59):
all the trains out there, and then they just never
they never resumed the service. Kind of like what happened
on the heat Street line as well.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
Kind of too bad because that it took you to
the probably to the Watertown bus yard where you could
pick up a bus and continue. But now there's this
big gap.
Speaker 3 (04:17):
Correct, correct? So I I listened, I heard the last
ten minutes. I I've been pretty busy tonight obviously, but
I heard the last like ten minutes. We were talking
about the fair enforcement, yes, and a couple of other things.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
So you're standing there as as an inspector trainer and
you're seeing hundreds of people get on the t and
not pay right.
Speaker 6 (04:44):
No.
Speaker 3 (04:44):
I think it was about five, maybe four or five
years ago. Some of my might out there might know
the exact time. But they decriminalized fair visions the massachist legislature,
so it's no longer a criminal offense, so there's no
incentive really for of someone to actually give up their ID,
but to actually take a fine.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
So parking tickets aren't a criminal offense either, but people
pay them.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
Oh yeah, most part. For the most part, people are
honest and they will pay.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
But yeah, you're right, I disagree. I din'gree I disagree
with you, Tom. I see it. I can I see
them not paying most most of the people.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
You know, I'm not. I'm not saying, you know, everybody
does trusting, trusting, And I heard about the UH that
you know, people are becoming normalized on the fact that
they're not paying. It's like it's like most of the
people over in Summerville, you know, with the new g
l X that was opened up, and none of the
(05:49):
stations have fair gates, So we have the transit of
asses out there trying to get people to pay as
they get on the train. And then they have validators
that are into the UH to the UH fair machines.
So we're having them do that. And we have all
the new fair inspectors that have been hired. How many
(06:12):
they will be out on jils as well? How many
I believe initially there have been sixteen hired and trained,
and I believe there are more being hired fairly soon.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
So how will that work? They will be on the trains,
and how will they ask you to verify that you paid?
Speaker 3 (06:33):
Well, they'll have fair validators that handheld validators that they'll
randomly walk up to a person. They'll be able to
scan their Charlie card or Charlie ticket and be able
to tell if they paid on that trip or not.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Okay, but these new fair paying devices let you pay
with your phone. How how can you make sure that
somebody that used their phone to pay actually did? How
do you verify that.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
With the phone?
Speaker 7 (07:06):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (07:06):
That that's the whole thing is that it will be
able to tell if a person either the phone or
or the ticket or you know, whichever whichever route they chose.
They can they can, they can tap on that validator
and it will be voth to tell.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Okay. How come t operators and God love them? They
work hard. They have to deal with a lot of
nice people, but a lot of mean people. Uhh. I
saw a huge fat tire basically electric motorcycle folded up
in a handicapped spot on the n B t A,
which I would think that and why is that all?
(07:46):
Why is that allowed.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
On the green line, UH, on the heavy rol side,
the orange, red and blue lines, they're allowed to bring
a bike on board on the green line, and they
have to be folded up. If they're folded up, they
are actually allowed. There's nothing I get it. There are
some folded up bikes that are extremely large, but as
(08:11):
long as it's UH folded up, they are allowed to
bring the bike on.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
Board, even during rush hour, even though in rush off,
because that wasn't the case before. But that's that's a
terrible rule in my opinion, and that needs to change.
You want people, you want, you know, people to take
the tea and if you have to, you know, wrestle
your way around some giant and you've seen you've all
(08:36):
seen these massive new you know, sixty pound, forty mile
an hour e bikes with tires that are nine inches
in circumference folded up in a handicapped place. That would
seem to be counterproductive. And on buses too, what's what
is the rule do you have to know the rule
(08:56):
about about baby carriages on buses? What's the rule there?
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
I don't think there's any restrictions on baby carriages on
buses and I know there are baby carriages that are
extremely wide and extremely long, and you know they probably
should be a rule that they have to be in
a certain area.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
Okay, Well, every once in a while when I'm riding,
I'll see another inspector and say, hey, you know Tim
and I They go yeah, and I say tell him,
tell them Bradley, Jay said I, and he probably don't.
I hope to see you when that's sprawling underground place
I love called the subway. Soon. Thanks for calling in.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
Gerry, talking to you as always always.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
Let's take a break and we'll go to After this,
we'll go to listen Alison in Maine on.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
W b Z It's Night Side with Dan Ray on
w b Boston's news Radio.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
Happy New Year's or just reason okay new Year's. I mean,
at some point it's like happy New Year?
Speaker 4 (10:05):
All right?
Speaker 2 (10:05):
What about just a nice, comfortable new Year. I'd like
to know how your twenty twenty five was. I'd like
to know what you'd like to see improve in the
world in twenty twenty six. In the world, meaning your house,
your town, your state, your country, your world. I guess
that's it. We'll stop there, and I would like to hear.
(10:28):
I love stories. I'd love to hear the story of
your worst New Year and or your best New Year.
Everyone has a new year they can remember that just
didn't go well, and of course you have your your
best one as well. I have a story for each,
(10:49):
which I will tell you. I'd like to think they're interesting,
compelling stories. One's very very sad, and one involves travel.
Seven the number. Let's go to Alison in Maine. Hello, Hi.
Speaker 6 (11:06):
I know you're a big animal lover, right, and this
is thought. I usually bring this up every year on
Morgan Show, but he's only down to two hours in
the weekends. He doesn't have time for things, and you know,
he's real nostalgia based, and I'm you know, I'm nostalgia
practically in my life now. But anyway, I just want
to bring something up, and I know it's just kind
of heavy, but back in twenty eleven year on the air,
(11:27):
when this happened in Dainsville, I'll hire some guy who
had a private menagerie of animals. He let them free,
and then he killed himself, and then the police showed
up and slaughtered many, many animals, and without even waiting
for the for the people from the zoo or you know,
tranquilizer guns or nets for anything. Eighteen tigers, seventeen lions,
(11:47):
eight bears and some other animals just completely slaughtered. And
most people don't even remember it, you know the way
that I think two days later Kadafi got killed or something,
so they just moved on a new cackle. And it's
been haunting me ever since. And uh, you know, and
I I try to help animals whenever I can't, I give.
I don't have a lot of money, but I give
to animal causes and things, and I have two kiddies
(12:09):
on my own, and I just want.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
Let's think talk about what you can do to deal
with that horrible memory that keeps haunting you, if you
if you try to get help for it, because you know,
it might be like a PTS, a form of mild
domestic PTSD.
Speaker 6 (12:26):
For you kind of it. Because I'm such a big
animal lover, and I just the idea that that, you know,
I mean, I'm not anti police or anything, but obviously
they were completely in the wrong there, and it's just it's,
as you said, people forgot, you know, And I just
very few people remember it except some of the animal
places and the There are a lot of places that
you can give to, and I'm not affiliated with them,
(12:46):
I'm not asking for money. But there's so many, you know,
Tiger Haven, Tiger Creek, Wildlife Refuge, there's even one in
in in Ohio called Noah's Lost Arc, and there's there's
just so many animal place helped farm animals farm thanks,
uh killers, key killers, sorry, keepers of the wild. There
are lots of places to give to, you know. And
(13:07):
if the animals have been saved, there were lots of
places they could have been sent to. You probably know
Tippy Headron the actress. She had a place called Chambala
where she had big cats and took care of them
all the time. And it's just it is very very sad.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
That's very sad, and I'm glad that you're You're sort
of glad you reminded us of it. Yeah, so that
we'll if there's a situation, it won't happen again. And
I wish, you know, I hope that the pain of this,
the memory of that terrible thing, will hopefully hopefully subside
a bit in the in the new year. Maybe that's
(13:43):
what you could wish for. Of course, you're gonna wish
that it doesn't happen again. But I can tell this
causes you a lot of pain and you have to
live your life and you perhaps I should actually seek
professional help. It might help you either way. She's right.
It's a great to donate to pet shelters, et cetera.
(14:03):
And you don't need to necessarily donate to fire away
Tiger organizations. There are many around here. One that pops
to mind is Schultz's guesthouse in Denham, which is the
place I have. I got one of my dogs, one
of our dogs. They're so nice and they they take
(14:25):
care of these these dogs, and they they helped find
homes for them. And there are many places. Let's talk
to David in San Francisco. Hello David, Oh, hello.
Speaker 8 (14:38):
Bradley, Happy New Year to you and uh everyone at
the WBZ. And yeah, I've had some wonderful uh New
Year's Eve. I lived in New York for seven years
and actually one year I went to the Times Square
to watched the ball drop and that was crazy cray
(14:58):
a million people there.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
Crazy bad, pardon crazy good or crazy bad.
Speaker 8 (15:06):
A little believed. But because some New Year's as I
started drinking too early in the evening and I missed it,
but for the most part, and I tended bar for
seven years too in Baltimore, and some of those were
really great, and for the most part they were very good.
But I had the reason I'm calling brobably because the
(15:26):
other night you were talking about music and a punk
scene and all that, and I was just really surprised
that you you never mentioned the Specials.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
Okay, that's just open lines. That's fine to bring up.
Go ahead, make your case for the Specials.
Speaker 8 (15:41):
Oh, they were my favorite bands since nineteen seventy eight.
And yeah, Terry Hall, the lead singer and writer, passed
away last year pancreatic cancer. And do you know that
he wrote or lits or sealed? I did not, And yeah,
he was hanging out with Belinda Carlisle from the Go
Gos and I guess you better for her or a band.
(16:02):
But he was really talented and one of my favorite
performers and songwriters. But uh huh, I mean, I'll let
it go there broadly, and you and everybody thirty eight states,
you all have a wonderful new year, and and thank
you for taking my call.
Speaker 7 (16:17):
Man.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
Of course, David so he brings up the fact that
he believes the band The Specials should have been included
in our pantheon of punk bands that we addressed the
other day. We I talked with Jim Sullivan music, former
music writer for the Boston Globe and author of a
music book about what was uh, you know, what were
(16:42):
the good punk bands and what really the most important
part is the definition of what a punk band is.
And I made and I maintain solidly that Incubus should
not be on any punk rock band lists. That just
doesn't fly. And further, the Green Day should not be
on any punk list. There are a number of reasons,
(17:04):
but I don't even really need to get into the
length of the songs, or the attitude of self destruction
and snihilism that I associate with punk bands mostly, or
the kind of living in desperate situations. You can't I
don't think you can be a rich punk band, and
(17:25):
once you got money, you're not punk anymore. That's my definition.
But there's kind of a slam dunk thing in this
music genres. There was punk rock and a lot of
you you know this is you grew up with stuff
you call punk rock punk rock, and then came post punk,
(17:47):
and the fact there was a genre called post punk
means punk was over, So for me, you had to
be in a certain time frame, maybe seventy five till
the time post punk music became popular because post punk
means after punk, which means punk is over. Let's take
(18:11):
a look at the phrase post war. What does that mean?
It means the war is over. Post anything means that
thing is over, postpartum, partum is over. So by definition,
(18:34):
anybody that came late doesn't count as punk. And now
let me address that. The Specials, I'd have to qualify
them as a ska band, and some some bands are
like half punk and half ska. But ska was a definite,
(18:56):
a very finite thing, and they were in the center
of that. And I don't consider skah a subset of punk.
I think of it as separate. So that's why I
wouldn't include them. But I did love the Specials and
select Her played them all the time, and actually went
to the Middle East one time and saw a kind
(19:16):
of supergroup made up of surviving or remaining members of
both of those bands. Number one top of the Pile
Clash Pistols, Ramos, Clash Boom Boom Boom, And there are
those out there that say you just can't play too
much clash and I would agree. My favorite rock video
(19:37):
is the Clash London Calling. So back to New Year's
Thanks for bringing that up, David, appreciate it. Open lines,
I said, you can talk about anything you like, say hello,
ask a question, hang out. You know, while everybody else
is getting hammered, you're you're hanging out, hanging in, being comfortable.
You've done that, You've been there. He decided, Nah, I'm
(20:01):
going to hang in here, not get a hangover. I
might as well begin my stories. I guess my worst
New Year's Eve ever, and it was quite bad. It
was in very very young, just over drinking age. And
(20:25):
in my when I grew up in New Hampshire, there
was a while the drinking age was eighteen, it was
twenty one, then it became eighteen exactly when I became eighteen,
and then kind of changed back kind of exactly when
I was twenty one. So in my early years the
drinking age was eighteen. And I remember one New Year's Eve,
(20:47):
a girl that I was sweet on said, Hey, I'm
babysitting for so and so, why don't you come over?
And of course that's a that's a red a red
banner idea. I think that's a fantastic idea. Absolutely, as
(21:09):
you know when you're when you're young, at least when
I was young, I was a nerd. I was outcast
in high school. I came from a small town outside.
We carpooled. I was one of those carpool losers. We
didn't we didn't belong to any of the cliques because
we didn't know anybody in junior high in that town.
(21:31):
Because we were we went to our own little elementary
school while they were forming their clicks. I was, you know,
I was in the in the country. I was a bumpkin.
So when I got there, I didn't know how to dress.
I didn't know that Levi's jeans were mandatory. I was
wearing my J. C. Penny mustard colored plaid slacks thinking
(21:55):
they were cool. Nope, they were not cool, not at
the time. So I the fact that someone that was
I was attracted to asked me nerd boy to come
over for New Year's while the while the parents of
the kid child had gone out, was like, WHOA, Absolutely, well,
(22:21):
I get over here. I don't know pretty early, I
guess it was dark, maybe seven was she this young
woman started raising the liquor cabinet a little too. She
was also legal of legal age, started overdoing it. I guess,
(22:45):
I don't know. She didn't seem to have much experience
of drinking because she was drinking too much. I was not,
but she drank too much and just went to sleep.
We'll call it sleep. Someone call it pass out. I'll
call it sleep out of mercy. Well, you want to
know what happened, then well you're just going to have
(23:06):
to stick around till after this break on WBZ.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
Night Side, filmed with Dan Ray on WBZ Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
No, I hope you have an accountable New Year, New
Year's Eve, I should say, and I hope you have
a good New year. Twenty twenty five was for me.
Was was a good year. I mean, obviously, the number
one best thing that happened in the year, besides the
fact that I can still see, I can still walk,
I can still talk, I can still live life, is
(23:41):
that I was. You know, I'm now back with the
wb Z family, whom I love, and that's a huge
deal for me. So that's that's red letter year. And
I was, uh, you know, telling you could. I'd love
to hear your stories about your best New year and
Astoria new Year's, not so great, your worst New Year's.
(24:03):
And I was in the middle of my worst New
Year's story, and I'll finish that up. Then we'll get
the kneel in Watertown number six one seven two to
share anything you like. It's open lines, but that's certainly
a topic idea best worth New Year's. So when we
left off before the break had been invited over, I
(24:23):
was eighteen, the legal drinking age at the time in
New Hampshire, with someone that invited me over, also legal
in every way, and uh, she drank too much and
went to sleep. And there I am in the house
(24:46):
and I just said, this is no good. I'm getting
out of here, and did. But living ten miles away
on a cold, cold night, I just couldn't go home.
I didn't have anywhere to go. Could it jack home?
But too cold? Really, I would have been ten miles
at night, you know, late at night. I had done that,
(25:09):
I've done it a number of times, but I think
it was too cold that night, So what could I do?
I just had to kill time all night until day
in some place and there was only one place available,
and that was Dunkin Donuts. The Dunkin Donuts in Rochester,
(25:29):
New Hampshire was open all night, so I sat at
a stool back then they had stools and a counter
at the Dunkin Donuts for maybe ten hours, you know,
like eight, nine, ten, eleven, eight to six in the morning,
(25:53):
eight to eight, eight to six in the morning, something
like that. And you would not believe how slow time
can go in that situation. There's this clock right there,
right up there, talk tick and I had money for coffee.
I had money for donuts at all. And it was warm,
so there's that. But man, you have no idea how
(26:15):
long that stretch was. And then finally the sun came
up and warmed up a little bit and I didn't
manage to hit tik. So that was I guess that
was the worst one. I have three really good ones
that I'll share, but I'd really rather hear yours, And
of course, open lines, you can talk about anything as well.
(26:38):
I may actually pop up a couple of a couple
of items that wouldn't really justify an entire hour, but
this is a good time to bring up and you
can do that as well. Let's talk to Kneel and
Watertown on wb Z.
Speaker 5 (26:51):
Hello me, Hello Bradley. I hope this isn't too much
of a stretch. But green Day, what's the name of
the lead man, lead singer, Billy Joe, Billy Joel. All right,
So the reason I know about him is because he
and Norah Jones and twenty thirteen they did a full We'll.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
Stop you there and just explain why you're calling just
a moment ago, I made a big deal out of
saying green Day is not a real punk fan.
Speaker 5 (27:20):
Oh no, I'm not challenging that at all.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
All right, but that's why you're talking about green Day.
That's how it happened.
Speaker 5 (27:26):
It's just the fact that it's green Day. Okay, so
as I so, I hope this is germane. But he
and Norah Jones twenty thirteen, they did a full copy
of the Everly Brothers album from nineteen fifty eight, Songs
Are Daddy Taught Us. I was very surprised at that,
and he said he just found it and he did it,
(27:48):
and it's really that's their masterpiece album from nineteen fifty eight.
And so that's why I have a place for Billy
Joel in my mind.
Speaker 2 (27:58):
So don't get me wrong, I'm not I don't dislike
them or or Billy Joe, but they just don't fit
in the bud. But that's cool, that's nice that you
called about that.
Speaker 5 (28:10):
Well, you said open lines.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
Oh, you're totally right. You're totally right. Do you have
any recollection of a particularly good or it's particularly bad
New Year's Eve?
Speaker 5 (28:21):
No, I'm sorry.
Speaker 2 (28:23):
I tell you, all the hundreds of years that you've lived,
you you can't even think of one good New Year's
Eve or one bad one?
Speaker 5 (28:31):
Can I tell you this? If it's if it's irrelevant,
I apologize, no problem. Give me January first, eighteen fifty two.
You know Robert Browning a great poet. He made a
New Year's resolution that he wanted to write a poem
every day. So he had to be looking at king
Lear where it's a long star. But Edgar potends he's mad,
(28:55):
and he says, child roll into the dark tower came.
So he wrote a poem. He had that as his
last line of the poem, thirty seven stanzas, and he
finished it that day. My first thought was he lied
in every word that's the first line, and went on
for thirty seven stanzas, and he said he didn't really
know what it was about, but it's it's really a
(29:15):
very interesting poeman, my master writer. So thanks for sh
Sorry it's irrelevant.
Speaker 2 (29:23):
Nothing is irrelevant now open lines, and I appreciate it.
Hey Bob, and Woolburn wants to chime in here. Hello Bob,
thanks for being on with me on Nightside with Us.
Speaker 7 (29:36):
Hey Bradley, nice to talk to you. So I'm kind
of a history buff and I'm going to be at
the Prospect Hill tomorrow. It's kind of a big celebration.
It's the first time the Grand Union Flag was raised
on American soil, and it's the turn in fiftieth anniversary tomorrow.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
So I think guess Bob Allison was talking about that
they're raised on the flag the Prospect Till. Is that
Somerville and some of it Prospect Hill Park. Yeah, that's
a big deal. Tell us a little more about that event.
Speaker 7 (30:13):
So I've been to it a couple of times, and
the idea is that they're going to have some speakers there.
There's a guy, John Coopman who kind of re enacts
George Washington. He's going to be there on his horse.
That they're going to have a little parade from City
Hall right up the Prospect Hill. And it was really
(30:33):
an act of defiance where they said, you know, all right,
we've got the Grand Union Flag. This was before Betsy
Ross and all that kind of stuff, but they said,
you know, we want to really claim this. And it
was a big hill, so it's something when they raised
it up on this fort. There's a nice fort there
that's thirty forty feet high. You could see it really
(30:54):
all throughout Boston, Roxbury, Dorchester, pretty high hill back in
the day.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
So is the fort still there?
Speaker 4 (31:00):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (31:01):
Is the original fort?
Speaker 7 (31:03):
No, it's probably built up a little bit. It's it's
more of tradition kind of thing, but you can climb
up it. It's it's forty feet I it's it's almost
like a well, you know, made of rocks and all
that kind of stuff, and like it castle. Yeah, more
of a castle kind of thing. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
And can you talk about this Grand Union flag? What
it looked like.
Speaker 7 (31:29):
Yeah, it was there's some stars on it. They had.
Let me see if I can look at a picture
of it. So it was some stripes. There was right
red and white stripes and then they had almost like
a British cross, so you know where the these stars
(31:55):
are nowadays. There was kind of an accent and the
tea was red and then part of it was blue
and part of it was white. So it was kind
of a Grand Union flag that they had for a while.
In seventeen seventy seven, I think is when Betsy Ross's
flag came in, but they call it the Continental Union
(32:16):
flag or the Grand Union Flag. You'll see some pictures
of that if you look at some history in the
seventeen seventy five, seventeen seventy six. But tomorrow it's gonna
be the tourn in fiftieth anniversary.
Speaker 2 (32:31):
So what other parts of history do you like? Just
a revolution or others.
Speaker 7 (32:38):
Well, I've actually been Captain Isaac Hall in a couple
events where Paul Revere gets on his horse and goes
from Charlestown to Medford. So mostly it's mostly what I've
done is the Revolutionary War. I've got a chance to
meet some of the guys that shoot the guns when
they score the touchdowns at the Gillette Stadium, and a
(32:59):
lot of those guys were that Revolutionary Patriotic militia kind
of uniform and they said, hey, when you retire, maybe
you can kind of help us out promoting it. And
so I've showed up a couple of their events and
and I'll be there tomorrow. I'm not doing anything formal.
I'm just kind of there that kind of promote that
we're putting up a statue of a woman in Medford
(33:20):
in April, of a woman that was known as the
mother of the Boston Tea Party, Sarah Bradley. Sarah Bradley Fulton.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
That's the mother. So explain how how she's the mother
of the tea party.
Speaker 7 (33:34):
Yeah. So her brother Nathaniel, his home was right on
Griffin's Wharf. So as they were discussing whether or not
they were going to send the tea back to London
and back to England, and they decided, we're not going
to dump it back. I mean, we're not going to
ship it back. We're going to dump it. A lot
(33:54):
of the people that decided that, you know, Samuel Adams
and the Sons of Liberty and the Grand Mason's and
all that kind of stuff, they said, well, if we
get on the boat, we're going to have to disguise
ourselves because if the British know who we are, we're
going to be trouble. You know. They could tower feathers,
they could do some damage to us. They could burn
a house down. So Sarah happened to be there and said,
come on over to my brother's house that's in yours house,
(34:16):
and I'll put some makeup on you and you won't
be able to tell who's who. I'll just put some
soyr on you and some ash on your face, and
we'll put some feathers in your and you kind of
grab some some rags and stuff and some stuff like
making you look like a mohawk Indian and just go
in there. And there's about thirty of them that she
dressed up, and the British didn't know what to do.
(34:37):
They're not going to mess with these Indians, you know.
So the next thing, you know, all these Indians they
were all synchronized. They went down the bottom and you
stay in the bottom, you hook it up to me
your second floor, third floor, and they had the full
synchronized thing. They dumped three hundred and forty buckets of
tea into the Harborn just a couple hours and then
they ran into the crowd because the crowd was cheering
(34:58):
them the whole time, and Sarah got some soap and
washed it all off with her sisters and a few
other people, and they dispersed. And the people that were
part of this Mohawk Indian disguise, they were sworn to secrecy,
and a lot of them didn't tell anyone that they
were actually on the ship until twenty thirty, forty fifty
years later.
Speaker 2 (35:18):
Oh, thanks for I didn't realize that. Well, thank you
very much, Bob. I got I got to go now,
but thanks for the call. Appreciate it. We'll go to
Ohio after this and then hand over.
Speaker 4 (35:31):
I have.
Speaker 2 (35:32):
I've told you my sad New Year's story. I have
a couple of good New Year's stories, fun, upbeat. I'd
love to hear your you're not so good at New
Year and your best New Year and anything else you
want to talk about. Opening lines here on WBZ.
Speaker 1 (35:48):
You're on Night Side with Dan Ray on WBZY, Boston's
news Radio.
Speaker 2 (35:54):
Brad J for Dan tonight, Happy New Year's Eve, and
hope you have a pleasant tomorrow as well. It's interesting
about celebrating New Year's It's always anticlimactic after for me.
Ten nine, eight, seven, six, five four three to one.
(36:16):
Yay now, what you know, that was always a problem
for me, that the aftermath was a downer. That then
that kind of I think that was, you know, when
I realized that, that's when I stopped really partying on
(36:36):
New Year's as much. After that it became a more
chill event for me. Open lines. You want to talk
about your best or worst New Year's it's great. Anything
else is fine. Six, one, seven, two, five, ten thirties
Craig and Ohio. Hello, Craig, how you doing.
Speaker 4 (36:52):
I'm gonna chime in on punk rock music. Sure, it
was seventy eight as in Amsterdam, and it seemed to
be exploding around then. I don't know for sure, but
I remember Johnny Rod and the sex Pistols was a
big thing. And then I was at a club called
(37:14):
the Paradisio his old church that turned into a rock
and roll club, and I was kind of freaked out,
you know. I remember as Sandy Vix's girl, she had
safety pins going from her cheek to her ear lobe,
and I was partaking in things that were available there,
(37:37):
and uh it was I asked the girl, what's the
name of the band, and she goes, She's from New
York and it was Blondie. Oh yeah, I'm talking. I
was five feet from the stage, so.
Speaker 2 (37:55):
You must have been impressed by Blondie. The band was
pretty good.
Speaker 4 (38:00):
Well, yeah, you know it was. But I was just
kind of like, wow, what the heck is going on
around the Blondie was you know, here's this you know,
beautiful blonde girl you know on the stage is singing.
I couldn't tell you one song to tell you the truth,
you know, its a long time ago, but uh, I
(38:23):
just never you know. And that's when the guys with
the big spikes in their hair, yes, I guess girls too,
And I was asking about I said, what's that all about?
And I said, well, they go to a job interview
like that. They know they're not going to get a job,
so they you know, so I guess they got more
(38:44):
government money or some government money or whatever. But uh so,
let me ask.
Speaker 2 (38:49):
You, how did you end up there? And that, you know,
you being you? How did you end up in that environment.
Speaker 4 (38:59):
You meaning Amsterdam, in Amsterdam and.
Speaker 2 (39:02):
Even more particularly that particular club.
Speaker 4 (39:05):
Well, I was, you know, as a young guy, I
was trying to look for, you know, some cool places
to go, and uh, you know, I was kind of
bored with everything else. And then you know, they told
me about the Paradisio and uh. As a matter of fact,
I remember one guy, I went downstairs and you've shown
me posters of uh the who played there and some
(39:28):
other bands, proco harm and stuff like that. I was like, Wow,
must be a cool place, you.
Speaker 2 (39:36):
Know, in Amsterdam.
Speaker 4 (39:39):
I was in the Navy and I took a train
from Rotterdam to Amsterdam.
Speaker 2 (39:44):
Wow. And there must have been some eye opening stuff
there for you in Amsterdam.
Speaker 4 (39:51):
Oh yeah, yeah, it was definitely different, you know, as wild,
you know, but you know, walking up and down the street,
women in the windows and stuff and.
Speaker 9 (40:03):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (40:04):
But uh, you know, I never got the punk rock music.
I just never got it, Bradley, you know, I a
lot of.
Speaker 2 (40:12):
It I didn't like either, So I liked some of it.
I love the clash And I was never a big
sex Pistols fan, to tay the truth, and I kind
of admit, don't tell anybody I was never a giant
Ramos fan either. Craig, I gotta go because I gotta
make time, make time for Harold in Hanover before the
top of Harold, what's going on?
Speaker 9 (40:33):
Hey, how you doing Bradley. We're talk to him quite
a while. Yeah, I know, we used to talk quite
a bit about your love for Bowie. Yes, I love
to act. I think you know. Given he died to Lily,
he didn't live longer here. He was dabbling another types
of music before he died. He listened to his last
(40:57):
I think, but not quite. No one could betish greative.
Speaker 4 (41:02):
You know what.
Speaker 2 (41:03):
I had to let you go because your phone is
breaking up, but I do I feel bad about that
after the break. If you can get a better phone,
we can continue or a better location. But it was inaudible,
couldn't really make out what you were saying. But he
didn't talk about David Bowie and his last album, which
is called Black Star, which he made Wiley was dying
(41:25):
and it turns out to be a masterpiece. It's actually
a jazz album. Love to have you on board. I'm
very thankful for all you. I'm glad that you call.
It's good that you have a voice on WBZ and
the community. I know you can feel that community. I
do have a question whenever happened to Joe Anne and Walfam.
I pray that she's okay. Well, if anybody knows her.
(41:49):
I suppose it's late to call her up, but I
hope joe Anne's okay, and maybe if she's listening, she'll call.
Tell me about your best New Year, your worst New Year,
New Year, or anything else here on WBZ
It's night Side with Dan Ray. I'm WBZ coustans me Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Well wait, welcome back on my friends. This is Nightside
for Dan Ray, Bradley j for Dan. Happy New Year
do all, including especially Dan Ray. Uh. This is open
lines now, and of course we can focus on New
Year's stuff. Don't even have to. It's you. You're celebrating
(00:29):
New Year's with me and vice versa. By the way,
you know who else is working tonight. Besides all the
thousands of Tea operators in the operations department tonight, Rob
Brooks is working his h New Year's Eve in the
master control working the wheel. Six one seven two five
(00:50):
forty excuse me, six one seven two is the number.
I always have to be careful about the number, and
sometimes I overthink it. We have Tim in Boston who's
going to give us a shout. Anything you want to
talk about is fine. I mean, get my monk's working
(01:11):
the There we go. Hello, Tim, how are you sir?
Speaker 3 (01:15):
I'm late?
Speaker 4 (01:16):
How are you?
Speaker 2 (01:18):
I know?
Speaker 4 (01:18):
So?
Speaker 2 (01:18):
This is Tim, Tim the t inspector. Now you're like
chief inspector.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
Or something, right, I'm actually instructor.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Wow. So it's good to hear from you. You heard Brian,
your phone your quality, your phone calls a little mumbley.
Is there anything you can.
Speaker 4 (01:34):
Do about it?
Speaker 3 (01:34):
I apologize one second?
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Yeah, sure, So I know Tim, because all right, how
are we doing now? Yeah? Much better. So I met
Tim on the t and I ride the Tea so
much that I'd see him around and just came to
know him from seeing him on the tee. And Brian
Kane on the advisory board said that you are a
legend in the Tea and in Boston. Tim, Well, that's
(01:56):
pretty cool.
Speaker 4 (01:57):
Cool.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
So how did you become a legend?
Speaker 5 (02:02):
Well?
Speaker 3 (02:02):
I used to make the history announcements. I tell people
about the history of the Tea as I did UH
did my trips, you know I did. I was an
operator for UH. I believe I was an offer for
seven years. Then I was an inspector for four and
now I'm actually teaching people how to how to do that.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Must a good gig. All this talk about the NBT
is great on n BT, A is great on New
Year's e because it's a time to party and drink
and it's very valuable, very important to the celebrate the
city celebration. So when you were on as an operator,
you worked the Green line, right, and I think I
remember you. You didn't tell so much. You told some
(02:42):
about the tea, but you talked about what was above
you as you went below and the history of what.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
Yeah, absolutely what I used to I tell people talk
about Hines and I used to tell people about the
history of the A line. You know, everybody knows all
the other lines of Why what happened to the A Line?
I told him about the UH used to go to
Watertown and it was temporarily just spent him back in
nineteen sixty nine and it was never heard from again.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
So that's too bad that the tracks were there and everything,
and it would it at what's that what's that corner
something corner where Packard's Corner where the B line takes
a left. The A line used to go straight all
the way to Watertown.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
Right, yep, yep. I used to go through you know, Alston,
through Union Square and all the way down through Newton
Corner and straight into the Watertown Square.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
That's a crime that that went away. I wonder why
that went away.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
It is well, they weren't expecting the Riverside line to
be as popular as it was when back in the
day so they originally were planning on looping most of
the Riverside trains at Reservoir. Then it became as popular
as it did all the way to Riverside and they
needed the trains, so they temporarily spended it to put
(03:59):
all the trains out there, and then they just never
they never resumed the service. Kind of like what happened
on the heat Street line as well.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
Kind of too bad because that it took you to
the probably to the Watertown bus yard where you could
pick up a bus and continue. But now there's this
big gap.
Speaker 3 (04:17):
Correct, correct? So I I listened, I heard the last
ten minutes. I I've been pretty busy tonight obviously, but
I heard the last like ten minutes. We were talking
about the fair enforcement, yes, and a couple of other things.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
So you're standing there as as an inspector trainer and
you're seeing hundreds of people get on the t and
not pay right.
Speaker 6 (04:44):
No.
Speaker 3 (04:44):
I think it was about five, maybe four or five
years ago. Some of my might out there might know
the exact time. But they decriminalized fair visions the massachist legislature,
so it's no longer a criminal offense, so there's no
incentive really for of someone to actually give up their ID,
but to actually take a fine.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
So parking tickets aren't a criminal offense either, but people
pay them.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
Oh yeah, most part. For the most part, people are
honest and they will pay.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
But yeah, you're right, I disagree. I din'gree I disagree
with you, Tom. I see it. I can I see
them not paying most most of the people.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
You know, I'm not. I'm not saying, you know, everybody
does trusting, trusting, And I heard about the UH that
you know, people are becoming normalized on the fact that
they're not paying. It's like it's like most of the
people over in Summerville, you know, with the new g
l X that was opened up, and none of the
(05:49):
stations have fair gates, So we have the transit of
asses out there trying to get people to pay as
they get on the train. And then they have validators
that are into the UH to the UH fair machines.
So we're having them do that. And we have all
the new fair inspectors that have been hired. How many
(06:12):
they will be out on jils as well? How many
I believe initially there have been sixteen hired and trained,
and I believe there are more being hired fairly soon.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
So how will that work? They will be on the trains,
and how will they ask you to verify that you paid?
Speaker 3 (06:33):
Well, they'll have fair validators that handheld validators that they'll
randomly walk up to a person. They'll be able to
scan their Charlie card or Charlie ticket and be able
to tell if they paid on that trip or not.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Okay, but these new fair paying devices let you pay
with your phone. How how can you make sure that
somebody that used their phone to pay actually did? How
do you verify that.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
With the phone?
Speaker 7 (07:06):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (07:06):
That that's the whole thing is that it will be
able to tell if a person either the phone or
or the ticket or you know, whichever whichever route they chose.
They can they can, they can tap on that validator
and it will be voth to tell.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Okay. How come t operators and God love them? They
work hard. They have to deal with a lot of
nice people, but a lot of mean people. Uhh. I
saw a huge fat tire basically electric motorcycle folded up
in a handicapped spot on the n B t A,
which I would think that and why is that all?
(07:46):
Why is that allowed.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
On the green line, UH, on the heavy rol side,
the orange, red and blue lines, they're allowed to bring
a bike on board on the green line, and they
have to be folded up. If they're folded up, they
are actually allowed. There's nothing I get it. There are
some folded up bikes that are extremely large, but as
(08:11):
long as it's UH folded up, they are allowed to
bring the bike on.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
Board, even during rush hour, even though in rush off,
because that wasn't the case before. But that's that's a
terrible rule in my opinion, and that needs to change.
You want people, you want, you know, people to take
the tea and if you have to, you know, wrestle
your way around some giant and you've seen you've all
(08:36):
seen these massive new you know, sixty pound, forty mile
an hour e bikes with tires that are nine inches
in circumference folded up in a handicapped place. That would
seem to be counterproductive. And on buses too, what's what
is the rule do you have to know the rule
(08:56):
about about baby carriages on buses? What's the rule there?
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
I don't think there's any restrictions on baby carriages on
buses and I know there are baby carriages that are
extremely wide and extremely long, and you know they probably
should be a rule that they have to be in
a certain area.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
Okay, Well, every once in a while when I'm riding,
I'll see another inspector and say, hey, you know Tim
and I They go yeah, and I say tell him,
tell them Bradley, Jay said I, and he probably don't.
I hope to see you when that's sprawling underground place
I love called the subway. Soon. Thanks for calling in.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
Gerry, talking to you as always always.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
Let's take a break and we'll go to After this,
we'll go to listen Alison in Maine on.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
W b Z It's Night Side with Dan Ray on
w b Boston's news Radio.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
Happy New Year's or just reason okay new Year's. I mean,
at some point it's like happy New Year?
Speaker 4 (10:05):
All right?
Speaker 2 (10:05):
What about just a nice, comfortable new Year. I'd like
to know how your twenty twenty five was. I'd like
to know what you'd like to see improve in the
world in twenty twenty six. In the world, meaning your house,
your town, your state, your country, your world. I guess
that's it. We'll stop there, and I would like to hear.
(10:28):
I love stories. I'd love to hear the story of
your worst New Year and or your best New Year.
Everyone has a new year they can remember that just
didn't go well, and of course you have your your
best one as well. I have a story for each,
(10:49):
which I will tell you. I'd like to think they're interesting,
compelling stories. One's very very sad, and one involves travel.
Seven the number. Let's go to Alison in Maine. Hello, Hi.
Speaker 6 (11:06):
I know you're a big animal lover, right, and this
is thought. I usually bring this up every year on
Morgan Show, but he's only down to two hours in
the weekends. He doesn't have time for things, and you know,
he's real nostalgia based, and I'm you know, I'm nostalgia
practically in my life now. But anyway, I just want
to bring something up, and I know it's just kind
of heavy, but back in twenty eleven year on the air,
(11:27):
when this happened in Dainsville, I'll hire some guy who
had a private menagerie of animals. He let them free,
and then he killed himself, and then the police showed
up and slaughtered many, many animals, and without even waiting
for the for the people from the zoo or you know,
tranquilizer guns or nets for anything. Eighteen tigers, seventeen lions,
(11:47):
eight bears and some other animals just completely slaughtered. And
most people don't even remember it, you know the way
that I think two days later Kadafi got killed or something,
so they just moved on a new cackle. And it's
been haunting me ever since. And uh, you know, and
I I try to help animals whenever I can't, I give.
I don't have a lot of money, but I give
to animal causes and things, and I have two kiddies
(12:09):
on my own, and I just want.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
Let's think talk about what you can do to deal
with that horrible memory that keeps haunting you, if you
if you try to get help for it, because you know,
it might be like a PTS, a form of mild
domestic PTSD.
Speaker 6 (12:26):
For you kind of it. Because I'm such a big
animal lover, and I just the idea that that, you know,
I mean, I'm not anti police or anything, but obviously
they were completely in the wrong there, and it's just it's,
as you said, people forgot, you know, And I just
very few people remember it except some of the animal
places and the There are a lot of places that
you can give to, and I'm not affiliated with them,
(12:46):
I'm not asking for money. But there's so many, you know,
Tiger Haven, Tiger Creek, Wildlife Refuge, there's even one in
in in Ohio called Noah's Lost Arc, and there's there's
just so many animal place helped farm animals farm thanks,
uh killers, key killers, sorry, keepers of the wild. There
are lots of places to give to, you know. And
(13:07):
if the animals have been saved, there were lots of
places they could have been sent to. You probably know
Tippy Headron the actress. She had a place called Chambala
where she had big cats and took care of them
all the time. And it's just it is very very sad.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
That's very sad, and I'm glad that you're You're sort
of glad you reminded us of it. Yeah, so that
we'll if there's a situation, it won't happen again. And
I wish, you know, I hope that the pain of this,
the memory of that terrible thing, will hopefully hopefully subside
a bit in the in the new year. Maybe that's
(13:43):
what you could wish for. Of course, you're gonna wish
that it doesn't happen again. But I can tell this
causes you a lot of pain and you have to
live your life and you perhaps I should actually seek
professional help. It might help you either way. She's right.
It's a great to donate to pet shelters, et cetera.
(14:03):
And you don't need to necessarily donate to fire away
Tiger organizations. There are many around here. One that pops
to mind is Schultz's guesthouse in Denham, which is the
place I have. I got one of my dogs, one
of our dogs. They're so nice and they they take
(14:25):
care of these these dogs, and they they helped find
homes for them. And there are many places. Let's talk
to David in San Francisco. Hello David, Oh, hello.
Speaker 8 (14:38):
Bradley, Happy New Year to you and uh everyone at
the WBZ. And yeah, I've had some wonderful uh New
Year's Eve. I lived in New York for seven years
and actually one year I went to the Times Square
to watched the ball drop and that was crazy cray
(14:58):
a million people there.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
Crazy bad, pardon crazy good or crazy bad.
Speaker 8 (15:06):
A little believed. But because some New Year's as I
started drinking too early in the evening and I missed it,
but for the most part, and I tended bar for
seven years too in Baltimore, and some of those were
really great, and for the most part they were very good.
But I had the reason I'm calling brobably because the
(15:26):
other night you were talking about music and a punk
scene and all that, and I was just really surprised
that you you never mentioned the Specials.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
Okay, that's just open lines. That's fine to bring up.
Go ahead, make your case for the Specials.
Speaker 8 (15:41):
Oh, they were my favorite bands since nineteen seventy eight.
And yeah, Terry Hall, the lead singer and writer, passed
away last year pancreatic cancer. And do you know that
he wrote or lits or sealed? I did not, And yeah,
he was hanging out with Belinda Carlisle from the Go
Gos and I guess you better for her or a band.
(16:02):
But he was really talented and one of my favorite
performers and songwriters. But uh huh, I mean, I'll let
it go there broadly, and you and everybody thirty eight states,
you all have a wonderful new year, and and thank
you for taking my call.
Speaker 7 (16:17):
Man.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
Of course, David so he brings up the fact that
he believes the band The Specials should have been included
in our pantheon of punk bands that we addressed the
other day. We I talked with Jim Sullivan music, former
music writer for the Boston Globe and author of a
music book about what was uh, you know, what were
(16:42):
the good punk bands and what really the most important
part is the definition of what a punk band is.
And I made and I maintain solidly that Incubus should
not be on any punk rock band lists. That just
doesn't fly. And further, the Green Day should not be
on any punk list. There are a number of reasons,
(17:04):
but I don't even really need to get into the
length of the songs, or the attitude of self destruction
and snihilism that I associate with punk bands mostly, or
the kind of living in desperate situations. You can't I
don't think you can be a rich punk band, and
(17:25):
once you got money, you're not punk anymore. That's my definition.
But there's kind of a slam dunk thing in this
music genres. There was punk rock and a lot of
you you know this is you grew up with stuff
you call punk rock punk rock, and then came post punk,
(17:47):
and the fact there was a genre called post punk
means punk was over, So for me, you had to
be in a certain time frame, maybe seventy five till
the time post punk music became popular because post punk
means after punk, which means punk is over. Let's take
(18:11):
a look at the phrase post war. What does that mean?
It means the war is over. Post anything means that
thing is over, postpartum, partum is over. So by definition,
(18:34):
anybody that came late doesn't count as punk. And now
let me address that. The Specials, I'd have to qualify
them as a ska band, and some some bands are
like half punk and half ska. But ska was a definite,
(18:56):
a very finite thing, and they were in the center
of that. And I don't consider skah a subset of punk.
I think of it as separate. So that's why I
wouldn't include them. But I did love the Specials and
select Her played them all the time, and actually went
to the Middle East one time and saw a kind
(19:16):
of supergroup made up of surviving or remaining members of
both of those bands. Number one top of the Pile
Clash Pistols, Ramos, Clash Boom Boom Boom, And there are
those out there that say you just can't play too
much clash and I would agree. My favorite rock video
(19:37):
is the Clash London Calling. So back to New Year's
Thanks for bringing that up, David, appreciate it. Open lines,
I said, you can talk about anything you like, say hello,
ask a question, hang out. You know, while everybody else
is getting hammered, you're you're hanging out, hanging in, being comfortable.
You've done that, You've been there. He decided, Nah, I'm
(20:01):
going to hang in here, not get a hangover. I
might as well begin my stories. I guess my worst
New Year's Eve ever, and it was quite bad. It
was in very very young, just over drinking age. And
(20:25):
in my when I grew up in New Hampshire, there
was a while the drinking age was eighteen, it was
twenty one, then it became eighteen exactly when I became eighteen,
and then kind of changed back kind of exactly when
I was twenty one. So in my early years the
drinking age was eighteen. And I remember one New Year's Eve,
(20:47):
a girl that I was sweet on said, Hey, I'm
babysitting for so and so, why don't you come over?
And of course that's a that's a red a red
banner idea. I think that's a fantastic idea. Absolutely, as
(21:09):
you know when you're when you're young, at least when
I was young, I was a nerd. I was outcast
in high school. I came from a small town outside.
We carpooled. I was one of those carpool losers. We
didn't we didn't belong to any of the cliques because
we didn't know anybody in junior high in that town.
(21:31):
Because we were we went to our own little elementary
school while they were forming their clicks. I was, you know,
I was in the in the country. I was a bumpkin.
So when I got there, I didn't know how to dress.
I didn't know that Levi's jeans were mandatory. I was
wearing my J. C. Penny mustard colored plaid slacks thinking
(21:55):
they were cool. Nope, they were not cool, not at
the time. So I the fact that someone that was
I was attracted to asked me nerd boy to come
over for New Year's while the while the parents of
the kid child had gone out, was like, WHOA, Absolutely, well,
(22:21):
I get over here. I don't know pretty early, I
guess it was dark, maybe seven was she this young
woman started raising the liquor cabinet a little too. She
was also legal of legal age, started overdoing it. I guess,
(22:45):
I don't know. She didn't seem to have much experience
of drinking because she was drinking too much. I was not,
but she drank too much and just went to sleep.
We'll call it sleep. Someone call it pass out. I'll
call it sleep out of mercy. Well, you want to
know what happened, then well you're just going to have
(23:06):
to stick around till after this break on WBZ.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
Night Side, filmed with Dan Ray on WBZ Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
No, I hope you have an accountable New Year, New
Year's Eve, I should say, and I hope you have
a good New year. Twenty twenty five was for me.
Was was a good year. I mean, obviously, the number
one best thing that happened in the year, besides the
fact that I can still see, I can still walk,
I can still talk, I can still live life, is
(23:41):
that I was. You know, I'm now back with the
wb Z family, whom I love, and that's a huge
deal for me. So that's that's red letter year. And
I was, uh, you know, telling you could. I'd love
to hear your stories about your best New year and
Astoria new Year's, not so great, your worst New Year's.
(24:03):
And I was in the middle of my worst New
Year's story, and I'll finish that up. Then we'll get
the kneel in Watertown number six one seven two to
share anything you like. It's open lines, but that's certainly
a topic idea best worth New Year's. So when we
left off before the break had been invited over, I
(24:23):
was eighteen, the legal drinking age at the time in
New Hampshire, with someone that invited me over, also legal
in every way, and uh, she drank too much and
went to sleep. And there I am in the house
(24:46):
and I just said, this is no good. I'm getting
out of here, and did. But living ten miles away
on a cold, cold night, I just couldn't go home.
I didn't have anywhere to go. Could it jack home?
But too cold? Really, I would have been ten miles
at night, you know, late at night. I had done that,
(25:09):
I've done it a number of times, but I think
it was too cold that night, So what could I do?
I just had to kill time all night until day
in some place and there was only one place available,
and that was Dunkin Donuts. The Dunkin Donuts in Rochester,
(25:29):
New Hampshire was open all night, so I sat at
a stool back then they had stools and a counter
at the Dunkin Donuts for maybe ten hours, you know,
like eight, nine, ten, eleven, eight to six in the morning,
(25:53):
eight to eight, eight to six in the morning, something
like that. And you would not believe how slow time
can go in that situation. There's this clock right there,
right up there, talk tick and I had money for coffee.
I had money for donuts at all. And it was warm,
so there's that. But man, you have no idea how
(26:15):
long that stretch was. And then finally the sun came
up and warmed up a little bit and I didn't
manage to hit tik. So that was I guess that
was the worst one. I have three really good ones
that I'll share, but I'd really rather hear yours, And
of course, open lines, you can talk about anything as well.
(26:38):
I may actually pop up a couple of a couple
of items that wouldn't really justify an entire hour, but
this is a good time to bring up and you
can do that as well. Let's talk to Kneel and
Watertown on wb Z.
Speaker 5 (26:51):
Hello me, Hello Bradley. I hope this isn't too much
of a stretch. But green Day, what's the name of
the lead man, lead singer, Billy Joe, Billy Joel. All right,
So the reason I know about him is because he
and Norah Jones and twenty thirteen they did a full We'll.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
Stop you there and just explain why you're calling just
a moment ago, I made a big deal out of
saying green Day is not a real punk fan.
Speaker 5 (27:20):
Oh no, I'm not challenging that at all.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
All right, but that's why you're talking about green Day.
That's how it happened.
Speaker 5 (27:26):
It's just the fact that it's green Day. Okay, so
as I so, I hope this is germane. But he
and Norah Jones twenty thirteen, they did a full copy
of the Everly Brothers album from nineteen fifty eight, Songs
Are Daddy Taught Us. I was very surprised at that,
and he said he just found it and he did it,
(27:48):
and it's really that's their masterpiece album from nineteen fifty eight.
And so that's why I have a place for Billy
Joel in my mind.
Speaker 2 (27:58):
So don't get me wrong, I'm not I don't dislike
them or or Billy Joe, but they just don't fit
in the bud. But that's cool, that's nice that you
called about that.
Speaker 5 (28:10):
Well, you said open lines.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
Oh, you're totally right. You're totally right. Do you have
any recollection of a particularly good or it's particularly bad
New Year's Eve?
Speaker 5 (28:21):
No, I'm sorry.
Speaker 2 (28:23):
I tell you, all the hundreds of years that you've lived,
you you can't even think of one good New Year's
Eve or one bad one?
Speaker 5 (28:31):
Can I tell you this? If it's if it's irrelevant,
I apologize, no problem. Give me January first, eighteen fifty two.
You know Robert Browning a great poet. He made a
New Year's resolution that he wanted to write a poem
every day. So he had to be looking at king
Lear where it's a long star. But Edgar potends he's mad,
(28:55):
and he says, child roll into the dark tower came.
So he wrote a poem. He had that as his
last line of the poem, thirty seven stanzas, and he
finished it that day. My first thought was he lied
in every word that's the first line, and went on
for thirty seven stanzas, and he said he didn't really
know what it was about, but it's it's really a
(29:15):
very interesting poeman, my master writer. So thanks for sh
Sorry it's irrelevant.
Speaker 2 (29:23):
Nothing is irrelevant now open lines, and I appreciate it.
Hey Bob, and Woolburn wants to chime in here. Hello Bob,
thanks for being on with me on Nightside with Us.
Speaker 7 (29:36):
Hey Bradley, nice to talk to you. So I'm kind
of a history buff and I'm going to be at
the Prospect Hill tomorrow. It's kind of a big celebration.
It's the first time the Grand Union Flag was raised
on American soil, and it's the turn in fiftieth anniversary tomorrow.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
So I think guess Bob Allison was talking about that
they're raised on the flag the Prospect Till. Is that
Somerville and some of it Prospect Hill Park. Yeah, that's
a big deal. Tell us a little more about that event.
Speaker 7 (30:13):
So I've been to it a couple of times, and
the idea is that they're going to have some speakers there.
There's a guy, John Coopman who kind of re enacts
George Washington. He's going to be there on his horse.
That they're going to have a little parade from City
Hall right up the Prospect Hill. And it was really
(30:33):
an act of defiance where they said, you know, all right,
we've got the Grand Union Flag. This was before Betsy
Ross and all that kind of stuff, but they said,
you know, we want to really claim this. And it
was a big hill, so it's something when they raised
it up on this fort. There's a nice fort there
that's thirty forty feet high. You could see it really
(30:54):
all throughout Boston, Roxbury, Dorchester, pretty high hill back in
the day.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
So is the fort still there?
Speaker 4 (31:00):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (31:01):
Is the original fort?
Speaker 7 (31:03):
No, it's probably built up a little bit. It's it's
more of tradition kind of thing, but you can climb
up it. It's it's forty feet I it's it's almost
like a well, you know, made of rocks and all
that kind of stuff, and like it castle. Yeah, more
of a castle kind of thing. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
And can you talk about this Grand Union flag? What
it looked like.
Speaker 7 (31:29):
Yeah, it was there's some stars on it. They had.
Let me see if I can look at a picture
of it. So it was some stripes. There was right
red and white stripes and then they had almost like
a British cross, so you know where the these stars
(31:55):
are nowadays. There was kind of an accent and the
tea was red and then part of it was blue
and part of it was white. So it was kind
of a Grand Union flag that they had for a while.
In seventeen seventy seven, I think is when Betsy Ross's
flag came in, but they call it the Continental Union
(32:16):
flag or the Grand Union Flag. You'll see some pictures
of that if you look at some history in the
seventeen seventy five, seventeen seventy six. But tomorrow it's gonna
be the tourn in fiftieth anniversary.
Speaker 2 (32:31):
So what other parts of history do you like? Just
a revolution or others.
Speaker 7 (32:38):
Well, I've actually been Captain Isaac Hall in a couple
events where Paul Revere gets on his horse and goes
from Charlestown to Medford. So mostly it's mostly what I've
done is the Revolutionary War. I've got a chance to
meet some of the guys that shoot the guns when
they score the touchdowns at the Gillette Stadium, and a
(32:59):
lot of those guys were that Revolutionary Patriotic militia kind
of uniform and they said, hey, when you retire, maybe
you can kind of help us out promoting it. And
so I've showed up a couple of their events and
and I'll be there tomorrow. I'm not doing anything formal.
I'm just kind of there that kind of promote that
we're putting up a statue of a woman in Medford
(33:20):
in April, of a woman that was known as the
mother of the Boston Tea Party, Sarah Bradley. Sarah Bradley Fulton.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
That's the mother. So explain how how she's the mother
of the tea party.
Speaker 7 (33:34):
Yeah. So her brother Nathaniel, his home was right on
Griffin's Wharf. So as they were discussing whether or not
they were going to send the tea back to London
and back to England, and they decided, we're not going
to dump it back. I mean, we're not going to
ship it back. We're going to dump it. A lot
(33:54):
of the people that decided that, you know, Samuel Adams
and the Sons of Liberty and the Grand Mason's and
all that kind of stuff, they said, well, if we
get on the boat, we're going to have to disguise
ourselves because if the British know who we are, we're
going to be trouble. You know. They could tower feathers,
they could do some damage to us. They could burn
a house down. So Sarah happened to be there and said,
come on over to my brother's house that's in yours house,
(34:16):
and I'll put some makeup on you and you won't
be able to tell who's who. I'll just put some
soyr on you and some ash on your face, and
we'll put some feathers in your and you kind of
grab some some rags and stuff and some stuff like
making you look like a mohawk Indian and just go
in there. And there's about thirty of them that she
dressed up, and the British didn't know what to do.
(34:37):
They're not going to mess with these Indians, you know.
So the next thing, you know, all these Indians they
were all synchronized. They went down the bottom and you
stay in the bottom, you hook it up to me
your second floor, third floor, and they had the full
synchronized thing. They dumped three hundred and forty buckets of
tea into the Harborn just a couple hours and then
they ran into the crowd because the crowd was cheering
(34:58):
them the whole time, and Sarah got some soap and
washed it all off with her sisters and a few
other people, and they dispersed. And the people that were
part of this Mohawk Indian disguise, they were sworn to secrecy,
and a lot of them didn't tell anyone that they
were actually on the ship until twenty thirty, forty fifty
years later.
Speaker 2 (35:18):
Oh, thanks for I didn't realize that. Well, thank you
very much, Bob. I got I got to go now,
but thanks for the call. Appreciate it. We'll go to
Ohio after this and then hand over.
Speaker 4 (35:31):
I have.
Speaker 2 (35:32):
I've told you my sad New Year's story. I have
a couple of good New Year's stories, fun, upbeat. I'd
love to hear your you're not so good at New
Year and your best New Year and anything else you
want to talk about. Opening lines here on WBZ.
Speaker 1 (35:48):
You're on Night Side with Dan Ray on WBZY, Boston's
news Radio.
Speaker 2 (35:54):
Brad J for Dan tonight, Happy New Year's Eve, and
hope you have a pleasant tomorrow as well. It's interesting
about celebrating New Year's It's always anticlimactic after for me.
Ten nine, eight, seven, six, five four three to one.
(36:16):
Yay now, what you know, that was always a problem
for me, that the aftermath was a downer. That then
that kind of I think that was, you know, when
I realized that, that's when I stopped really partying on
(36:36):
New Year's as much. After that it became a more
chill event for me. Open lines. You want to talk
about your best or worst New Year's it's great. Anything
else is fine. Six, one, seven, two, five, ten thirties
Craig and Ohio. Hello, Craig, how you doing.
Speaker 4 (36:52):
I'm gonna chime in on punk rock music. Sure, it
was seventy eight as in Amsterdam, and it seemed to
be exploding around then. I don't know for sure, but
I remember Johnny Rod and the sex Pistols was a
big thing. And then I was at a club called
(37:14):
the Paradisio his old church that turned into a rock
and roll club, and I was kind of freaked out,
you know. I remember as Sandy Vix's girl, she had
safety pins going from her cheek to her ear lobe,
and I was partaking in things that were available there,
(37:37):
and uh it was I asked the girl, what's the
name of the band, and she goes, She's from New
York and it was Blondie. Oh yeah, I'm talking. I
was five feet from the stage, so.
Speaker 2 (37:55):
You must have been impressed by Blondie. The band was
pretty good.
Speaker 4 (38:00):
Well, yeah, you know it was. But I was just
kind of like, wow, what the heck is going on
around the Blondie was you know, here's this you know,
beautiful blonde girl you know on the stage is singing.
I couldn't tell you one song to tell you the truth,
you know, its a long time ago, but uh, I
(38:23):
just never you know. And that's when the guys with
the big spikes in their hair, yes, I guess girls too,
And I was asking about I said, what's that all about?
And I said, well, they go to a job interview
like that. They know they're not going to get a job,
so they you know, so I guess they got more
(38:44):
government money or some government money or whatever. But uh so,
let me ask.
Speaker 2 (38:49):
You, how did you end up there? And that, you know,
you being you? How did you end up in that environment.
Speaker 4 (38:59):
You meaning Amsterdam, in Amsterdam and.
Speaker 2 (39:02):
Even more particularly that particular club.
Speaker 4 (39:05):
Well, I was, you know, as a young guy, I
was trying to look for, you know, some cool places
to go, and uh, you know, I was kind of
bored with everything else. And then you know, they told
me about the Paradisio and uh. As a matter of fact,
I remember one guy, I went downstairs and you've shown
me posters of uh the who played there and some
(39:28):
other bands, proco harm and stuff like that. I was like, Wow,
must be a cool place, you.
Speaker 2 (39:36):
Know, in Amsterdam.
Speaker 4 (39:39):
I was in the Navy and I took a train
from Rotterdam to Amsterdam.
Speaker 2 (39:44):
Wow. And there must have been some eye opening stuff
there for you in Amsterdam.
Speaker 4 (39:51):
Oh yeah, yeah, it was definitely different, you know, as wild,
you know, but you know, walking up and down the street,
women in the windows and stuff and.
Speaker 9 (40:03):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (40:04):
But uh, you know, I never got the punk rock music.
I just never got it, Bradley, you know, I a
lot of.
Speaker 2 (40:12):
It I didn't like either, So I liked some of it.
I love the clash And I was never a big
sex Pistols fan, to tay the truth, and I kind
of admit, don't tell anybody I was never a giant
Ramos fan either. Craig, I gotta go because I gotta
make time, make time for Harold in Hanover before the
top of Harold, what's going on?
Speaker 9 (40:33):
Hey, how you doing Bradley. We're talk to him quite
a while. Yeah, I know, we used to talk quite
a bit about your love for Bowie. Yes, I love
to act. I think you know. Given he died to Lily,
he didn't live longer here. He was dabbling another types
of music before he died. He listened to his last
(40:57):
I think, but not quite. No one could betish greative.
Speaker 4 (41:02):
You know what.
Speaker 2 (41:03):
I had to let you go because your phone is
breaking up, but I do I feel bad about that
after the break. If you can get a better phone,
we can continue or a better location. But it was inaudible,
couldn't really make out what you were saying. But he
didn't talk about David Bowie and his last album, which
is called Black Star, which he made Wiley was dying
(41:25):
and it turns out to be a masterpiece. It's actually
a jazz album. Love to have you on board. I'm
very thankful for all you. I'm glad that you call.
It's good that you have a voice on WBZ and
the community. I know you can feel that community. I
do have a question whenever happened to Joe Anne and Walfam.
I pray that she's okay. Well, if anybody knows her.
(41:49):
I suppose it's late to call her up, but I
hope joe Anne's okay, and maybe if she's listening, she'll call.
Tell me about your best New Year, your worst New Year,
New Year, or anything else here on WBZ
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