*** TYPICAL HN PHOTOS OF HYANNIS DOWNTOWN *** Before the young...

“Oh, he’s very popular Ed. The sportos, the motorheads, geeks, sluts, bloods, wastoids, dweebies, dickheads – they all adore him. They think he’s a righteous dude.”
—Grace, from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off

HYANNIS – [HN NOTES & MULLINGS ON THE MATTER] – And it’s indeed true when also talking about downtown Hyannis, the sportos, motorheads, geeks, sluts, bloods, wastoids, dweebies, dickheads, and other human-beans from all walks of life have all also adored my hometown and lifelong stomping ground for as long as I can remember – which is now approaching six decades – without all this new gun violence nonsense. In fact, people from the Cape and all around the world have been partaking in the “Downtown Hyannis Dream,” family fun and shopping during the day, adult fun and adventures during the night, without hardly ever having to worry about being shot at by young ‘gangsta’ punks. Hyannis has always been relatively safe. Sure, there are the occasional fisticuffs and stabbings, usually attributed to rowdy bar patrons during the late nights, but certainly never-ever any daytime “gunplay,” that I can remember, right in the middle of an ordinarily quiet Sunday.

Do I have to spell out what the real problem is? In short, we’ve become a culture that has normalized and enabled idiotic violent behaviors. Oh sure, one can blame the judges, the system, the politicians – which probably has some validity to a certain point… blame, blame, blame… but this goes much deeper, in my humble opinion. This is all-inclusive dysfunction. And I’m sure the blame game will most certainly continue as sure as matters will continue to descend into more and more violence, whether it be here on the Cape, or on any Main Street across America. I’ll say it again, we have become a culture that has normalized and enabled violence. And I’m sure everyone reading this has their own unique ways they would fix all this… but I’m not sure there is any readily available panacea or remedy that will fix everything in the short-run at this point. But, however, I am sure things will become worse and worse if we continue to enable these behaviors.

But enough of what I think. After all, I’m just an old photojournalist who knows the streets of Hyannis as well as anyone. And I have my own ideas and remedies, just as everyone else does. But a couple of weeks ago I received a rude email from a young man in his twenties, basically telling me (in the common street vernacular) to shut up, and that my job is to take pictures and report the news. According to this sagacious young man, I needed to keep my mouth shut! So, I looked at his Facebook page of course, and he appeared to be one of these young, aspiring rapper/gangsta types. You know, the stacks of hundreds, guns, finger gestures and the stacking of gangsta signs, pointing gats at the camera… all the unoriginal, overdone, cliche and boring poses. But, you know the old saying, if it walks like a duck, talks like a duck… well, this kid looked like duck! And the last thing I want to do is piss off a duck!

Quack, quack…

So, here ya go my fine-feathered, slim-shady friend… here’s some recent random street photos of the downtown area, some “good,” some “bad”… but all without any explanation. (and your refund for my services is in the muthafukkin’ mail, playah… 😉 )

Quack, quack, muthafukkin’ quack!