Squid Fry 05.12.16: Wayback Machine…

WAYBACK MACHINE… Squid has been on a nostalgic bent lately. Maybe it’s these push button cars – and colleagues revealing they’ve never popped a clutch (or even heard the phrase) – making Squid long for the old column-shifter Chevrolet Squid learned to drive on. Or it’s these political speeches that have Squid aching for times when politicians worked together and said things that were true (or at least sane) because they feared backlash.

Then, suddenly, some reprieve, like a commencement talk from future First Husband Bill Clinton that Squid’s colleague was bubbling up about after returning from a graduation ceremony at Loyola Marymount in L.A. Apparently Clinton told the graduates – after saying “I am well aware that the least important part of the ceremony is my talk” – that “they are entering the most interdependent age ever, whether with each other, the nation or the world.” The points were pretty clear from there, even for Squid’s intellect (and attention span): 1) “Whether we like it or not, the rest of our lives what happens to you will be determined by what happens to other people.” 2) “We can expand the idea of usand shrink the idea of them… what we have in common is infinitely more important than our admittedly fascinating differences.” And 3) “You can set the future on fire with your imagination or your matches.”

Whodathunkit. A message to our future leaders about our current circumstance makes Squid nostalgic for the past. And ready to play some pinball and eat a chocolate malted.

GOODBYE BEIGE… While Squid doesn’t have many enemies – other than adorably fuzzy yet dastardly mean sea otters – Squid loves to see adversaries go at it, in a reality TV kind of way.

The Monterey City Council, under guidance of Mayor Clyde Roberson, embodies the color Monterey beige: nothing exciting, no rocking the boat.

That’s what makes the emerging grudge match between former Occupy Monterey activist/current Councilman Timothy Barrett and former Monterey cop Councilman Ed Smith so entertaining. After indirectly putting each other down for the better part of a year, the gloves have come off.

At a Feb. 16 meeting, Barrett called Smith out for being in the pocket of Fisherman’s Wharf business interests. At a March 23 meeting, Smith called out Barrett for coordinating with community groups through the Planning Commission to amend the city’s housing element to address the rental stock in a city working people can barely afford to live in.

Barrett claimed Smith coordinated with a few good ol’ boys to speak against him publicly, and at the May 3 meeting, Barrett aired his grievances. Roberson had to remind them to keep the peace: beige guys, think beige. Squid hopes everyone shows up in living color at the next meet