8th Annual Motorcycle Mania August 14th, 2013 Main Street

 Middletown's 8th annual Motorcycle Mania will be held Wednesday night from 5 pm to 9 pm on Main Street.Thousands of  custom and vintage bikes will be on display. The festivities includes awards, vendors, food and entertainment. 

http://www.midtownmcmania.com/

Downtown Cruise Night June 12

16th annual Cruise Night on Main Wednesday, June 12 from 4:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.

 On display are hundreds of antique and classic vehicles, and thousands of spectators. Live music and food vendors will participate, and awards will be given at 8 p.m.Proceeds from the cruise night this year will benefit Middletown youth programs

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Guest blog: Spittoons On the Downtown Middletown Sidewalk's A Necessity, Not a Luxury - Also a Revenue Generator?

Guest blog by one of our favorites Fred Carrol.
Guest blog pieces do not necessarily reflect those of the Middletown Inside and are published as a courtesy for readers.
 Although this guest blog was written before the Middletown Patch article by Cassandra Day having to do with Mayor Drew asking City personnel on ways the City could make more money in revenue,  Carrol has thought up some create ways the City that could not only clean up the streets downtown, something he feels very passionate about, but  coincidentally also fill City coffer's.
 Probably not Carroll's original intent, but we think ticketing spitter's is as splendid an idea as any combat depleting municipal funds.

Scary thing is, it is only February, and with the additions to the BOE budget that call for a 2.4 mil tax hike, just about monthly requests for appropriations from City Departments for various items not included in the Mayor's  budget, the City budget that would raise taxes at least another 1 mils, the grand list decreasing by $11 million, the Serracrat's Spendacratic tendencies,  and Mayor Drew's unsuccessful trip to China to sell the Aetna property (no one saw that coming, year right)
Mayor Drew is already apparently is looking for more ways to squeeze money out of tax payers! 

Read the article from  Middletown Patch here where Mayor Drew asks personnel for ideas on ways to increase City Revenue! That's money from your pocket!: http://middletown-ct.patch.com/articles/get-creative-middletown-how-can-city-fill-its-coffers

In Carroll's own words:

Spittoons On The Downtown Middletown Sidewalk's-A necessity, Not A Luxury

    It was brought to my attention once that an upturned soda bottle cap is "more dangerous than a banana peel", well, how stupid would you feel if your foot went out from under you consequent to stepping in a glomn of some inconsiderate dopes "lung butter"? Pardon me, but exactly what are we talking about here? Look, and you'll see it, listen, and you'll hear it....the sound of expectoration......especially the dopes you see standing around all day who eat some hydro oily, high fructosey, dairy rich diets, but most folks if I'm not mistaken, eat a highly "mucus forming" diet, and while not everyone expectorates recklessly on the ground, a hell of a lot of people do. Meanwhile, back at the Center For Disease Control.......don't even think about going barefoot, but what seems to not be apprehended is that one will surely track this expectorant everywhere, the precious car, the house, or "dwelling place"...so why is it a. tolerated and not ticketed, and b. not accommodated for by pertinent parties. Health Department tells Police "Ticket sidewalk spitters", right? Something.......but first install spittoons.
      
Dr. Freddy H. Carroll

Guest Blog: Loitering (Cold) War Update!

Guest Blog by the Fred J. Carrol
All guest blogs are published as a courtesy and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Insider Staff.

Below is an update to his previously published essay here: http://www.middletowninsider.com/2012/09/guest-blog-loitering-wars-update-by.html 
Many thanks Fred!

Loitering [Cold] War Update....tempered by five years 

of Bum with Brooming

.....well, let me start with right now and work my way backwards....as I walk up or down Liberty or Grand basically between High and Main streets of course I don't have to "look at" the garbage to see it, I already know it's there and can't help but see it....smell it, sense it, and not only do I not feel the same itch which prompted me to drop to my knees and start pulling weeds once upon a time back as it were in the day, before this Obama took the country completely Socialist! [sorry, I can't help myself...that's a joke....], yeah back in the day when the Doctor was a weed pullin' fool, a veritable broom swingin' savant [ I don't have to tell you what kind of savant], a leaf blower bearing bastard who didn't mind, nay verily delighted in, making a public fool of himself by energetically cleaning various types of "property", any or all of which obviously did not belong to said fool me...... so in other words what, am I crazy? What is going on here, why is this shaggy haired toothless old goofball cleaning the sidewalk, curb, steps, lawn, dumpster area, alley like he was not only getting paid, but maybe had an electric shock collar on punishing any slowing down with a few volts....Yeah, never mind "Oh no, I'm working but, alas! I am not being PAID to work...oh woe is me...woe is me..", no, never mind that, my initial Bums With Brooms endeavors had every potential to get me arrested, committed, or murdered.
Yeah it was a fairly dangerous bit, you know, just being out and all around at all hours, never mind being me, which is to say a hundred and fifty five pound long haired women's pants wearin' fifty some years old chess playing effete intellectual snob...very dangerous bit, never mind fairly. Anyway, why the hell did I want to do what I did for a solid four years, why? To answer as truthfully as possible with brevity at a premium also, I did it[wanted to do it] because I had nothing else to do, but beside that, because I enjoy blowing peoples minds...it's a sixties thing, you know....anyway.....what I started out to say is that...I don't want to clean the streets I mentioned anymore.....I feel like a plurality of the people who live there truly don't deserve clean, or, more importantly want it..... and my "artist's eye" is really developing to the point where I see litter as something which is as much as supposed to be there, as an emblem or flag of the [pardon me!] zeitgeist of a particular neighborhood, and shouldn't necessarily be disturbed......But so to bring it to loitering I honestly don't even really have anything to say about people standing around all day every day not selling drugs, or whatever it is.
My problem is when people leave their [tubercular sounding !] lung butter on the ground. That's it. And I'd bet it would take electric shock collars to get them to stop.
Fred J. Carroll

Suzio to Host Middletown Toy Drive

Guest Blog: Loitering Wars Update by Fred Carroll

Last month the Insider was privileged to get a guest blog by Fred Carroll on his take on the " Loitering Wars" he has observed taking place in Middletown. The original post is below with background information. Thank you Fred!

http://www.middletowninsider.com/2012/08/guest-blog-loitering-wars-of-middletown.html

Below is Carroll's update in his own words:

Loitering Wars Update by Fred Carroll.....I walked into the five dollar cupcake place the other day and whilst ordering an Irish Car Bomb I inquired as to whether they ever considered naming a cupcake a Mexican Standoff in honor of the ongoing Loitering War scrum, which is currently in a "cold" state, or, "Mexican standoff". They hadn't considered it. Alright, cuteness thus dispatched, I'd like to say a few words about the history and background of loitering and loitering laws. In the good ole' Puritan times if you wanted to chill under a tree for a bit, you were well advised to pick an apple tree and bring a basket along for an alibi in case one of the brethren should see you "idling", as in "the Sin of Idleness". In more recent times anti loitering law has been used very effectively to circumnavigate Abolition; that is as a legal predication for rounding up Black men and throwing them on Cool Hand Luke style chain gangs and such.....all of which has absolutely nothing to do with Middletown's current "loitering problem", which at it's core is very simply a Quality Of Life issue - that is to say chronically dysfunctional people doing their dysfunctional business every day, all day, every night, all night. Salient to said dysfunctional "business" are drug dealing, prostitution, begging, and just generally being miserable as a result of the unfair hand dealt one by Life itself .....Said dysfunctional business is carried on without any regard whatsoever for anyone else who might also want to do business in the area, even when it's just someone else wanting to do some good old fashioned, honest loitering! Like me for instance, I don't dare get in the way of The Dysfunctional One's business, oh no, you don't want "interfere" with a drug deal, Heaven forbid! So when do I get to loiter, huh? And who do I complain to in the meantime?