Author: Mickey Friedman

Jobs, Not Debt

September 1, 2013 By Mickey Friedman For the past two Sunday mornings, I’ve gotten to Fuel several minutes before seven. When I’ve seen men from the Department of Public Works emptying the trash cans on Main Street. They’re working hard…

Pity The Paranoids

August 18, 2013 By Mickey Friedman Pity the paranoids. This has not been an easy time for those who think they’re being watched. Remember when we thought paranoids had lost touch with reality. That, deluded, they had constructed a world…

Stand Your Ground

August 4, 2013 By Mickey Friedman We seem to compensate for our lack of control over the large events of life with an almost pathological need to exercise the little power we do have making others miserable. Wife beaters, bullies,…

Uzis-R-Us

July 22, 2013 By Mickey Friedman If you’ve been reading my column you know that when it comes to money I am pretty much without a clue. Which explains why Uncle Seymour has been nagging me for decades. “Get a…

Secrets and Lies

July 6, 2013 By Mickey Friedman We are human. Fraught with frailty. Our failures are manifest. So it’s hard for me to believe that most of us have nothing to hide. That, because we’re not terrorists, we should not complain…

A Most Beautiful Day

June 20, 2013 By Mickey Friedman Saturday was a most beautiful day. Summoned, I believe, by the beautiful Melissa, for her wedding to Dominic. And it was a day for us all. For the first time in weeks, I was…

Understanding Adam Levine

June 6, 2013 By Mickey Friedman I’m worried about Adam Levine. I never thought I’d ever say that. Especially because just a few months ago I had no idea who Adam Levine was. I’d seen his group, Maroon 5, on…

Edward Passetto

Monday, May 27, 2013 By Mickey Friedman Edward Passetto came down from Pittsfield to The Best Small Town in America to find some peace, to end his pain. A Marine, at war in Afghanistan, he saved two civilian victims of…

Sorry, Mother Earth

Thursday, May 23, 2013 By Mickey Friedman I got my ass kicked. Playing Democracy In Action at The Mahaiwe. You might have seen the poster advertising not the opera or the Chinese acrobats but our Annual Great Barrington Town Meeting…

Too Much With Us

April 26, 2013 By Mickey Friedman I took Peter’s advice and bought clear packing tape to patch the major cuts and bruises of my sign, then went back out to demonstrate this past weekend. Peter, as he often does, took…

Just Say No, Thanks

April 11, 2013 By Mickey Friedman Will loves Simon and Garfunkel and Simon without Garfunkel and Bob Dylan and Van Morrison. So when Will opens Fuel at seven, he tells Pandora to sing the 1960s. Which means early mornings at…

Treason

April 4, 2013 By Mickey Friedman My “Support The Troops / It’s Time To Come Home” sign has seen better days. I’ve taped and re-taped it; stapled and re-stapled it. This Saturday a big wind blew it and me several…