Is this level of technology really necessary?

The GoFan app, which is the only way
for fans to get tournament tickets.

The following memo was circulated to schools all over the state last week by the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association:

“Beginning with the Round of 16 Tournament Playoff Games, all tickets must be purchased online via GoFan. Online tickets will be the only mode of entry for these events. Please download the GoFan app in your app store to be ready.”

GoFan is owned and operated by a company called Huddle Tickets LLC, and claims to have sold more than 20 million tickets to high school events since its founding in 2001. Right now, it claims to have operating agreements with 37 state high school athletic associations, of which the MIAA is apparently the most recent. 

To attend high school events in this year's tournament, you must either have an Apple smartphone on which you can load the GoFan app, or access the GoFan website on the Internet. If you have an Android smartphone, you're out of luck when it comes to apps. One way or the other, you have to follow the ticketing procedure and show the ticket-takers at the event that you have a big green checkmark next to the event's listing in order to be allowed access.

And you thought the lines were long before this.

I'll admit, it's not much of a concern for me. I haven't paid to attend a high school sporting event in probably a half-century. Even now in my quasi-retirement, I am still waved through the gates (even with wallet in hand) if I'm not actually working because of my long service to the Fourth Estate over that time. And by the way, I really appreciate the generosity of the schools, including those I didn't cover on a regular basis during my 40-plus years as a print reporter.

But I'm fortunate. Others aren't. They just want to go to a high school game for fun and relaxation or to support a family member or relative, and they don't think twice about reaching into their wallets for a Five (or maybe more in the tournaments, as the MIAA needs to wet its beak) to go to the game.

But now it all has be be done through technology, just like at the Patriots' games -- although, for the life of me, I can't understand why.

The Patriots went to a fully cash-less ticketing procedure as a means of exerting tighter control over ticketing. Computerized control over access cuts down significantly on ticket fraud, which becomes an even greater threat as the playoffs begin. Indeed, you can't even get a beer at Gillette Stadium with cold, hard cash these days. You have to take your greenbacks and stick them into a reverse ATM machine, which spits out a hunk of plastic that you can use at the concession stands. 

See how much technology has changed our lives? By forcing you to take two steps to accomplish one, high tech has managed to convince everybody that it's made our lives easier.

But why must a computerized process be necessary at high school games?

At most events, there isn't assigned seating. Many people don't sit at all. They go to the game and stand on the sidelines or mill about as they see fit, and all for the same $10 the ticket-takers would have gotten in cash. Indeed, I'm told that the GoFan app adds a "convenience fee" to the cost of a ticket, which just adds to the argument that the school games already cost too much to attend.

I'm also seriously concerned about those that don't fall into the tech-savvy category.

You see them at practically every sporting event ... the elders who want to support a grandchild, or just want to see an entertaining game because they enjoy the environment outside the home. Many of them are in their 70s or beyond, and they might not be down with the latest iPhone. Indeed, if they even have cellular phones, they are probably the simple and easy-to-see Jitterbugs that don't have full access to web pages.

GoFan washed its hands of that possible dilemma by noting on its web site that individual schools would have control over how to resolve situations not covered by the use of the app. Clearly, I'm certain there isn't an athletic director in the area that would want to refuse access to a senior citizen because he or she might not have access to a cell phone. Many schools admit seniors for free or for a lesser price than full admission, so I'm sure accommodations will be made.

Still, there will be those that will be infuriated by this decision. The schools are putting the MIAA memo on their Twitter feeds, but my guess is that might cover about 30-40 percent of the audience that might want to attend high school tournament games without being a week-to-week fan of them. People will be surprised at the gates to learn of the restriction, so they will fumble around with their phones and try to add and learn the app in a short amount of time. The lines will grow and people will be generally pissed off as a result.

And me? I'll flash whatever media ID might be necessary for the event and I'll stroll right by. But I will have sympathy for those that are inconvenienced -- especially for those who, a few years older than I, might be less inclined to learn new technology.

It all seems like overkill to me. I can think of a lot of things the MIAA could do to make it more attractive for people to attend high school games, not more difficult. But they don't listen to me any more.

Douchebag of the Week Award.

Freedom of expression is guaranteed by the Constitution. And this guy is an ass.

The photo above is of what greeted me when I drove to Plainville this morning for a doctor’s appointment.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I had to blow up the photo quite a bit and then “flop” it, or show it reversed so the print would be readable. Yes, that big black flag being waved by the douchebag standing at the intersection of state routes 152 and 106 reads “Fuck Biden.”

The location of the flag waver is about 400 feet from an elementary school, by the way. Stay classy, Plainville.

Lest I paint the town with a broad brush, I will note that the town of Plainville voted for President Biden in the 2020 election. Yes, we’re a little more conservative in this corner of the commonwealth, but not so much that any of the communities covered by my former newspaper saw fit to vote for the other guy, the straw-haired glutton that made coarse language part of the lexicon of government during the four years of his failed presidential administration. 

I first happened upon this flag-wielding jackass at about 10:30 a.m. My appointment took about an hour, and when I returned to the intersection on my way to the nearest Starbucks, he was still there. So I looped around in the parking lot of a strip mall and sat at the stoplight for an extra turn so I could snap this photo. As I turned, I noticed that the flag-wielder was being approached by an angry middle-aged man who disagreed with his political opinion, but my need for coffee outweighed my desire for free entertainment, so I headed for the Starbucks.

I returned to the intersection one more time after getting my coffee, but by this time, our conservative town crier had disappeared. Not sure if he was encouraged to do so by the gentleman that was about to confront him at my previous turn, but at least the profane flag was gone.

And before you call me a hypocrite, yes, I have to support the flag-wielder’s right to express himself as guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States — that same Constitution that Donald Trump has never read nor felt compelled to respect or follow during his presidency. I, at the same time, am exercising my constitutionally-protected right to call the flag-wielder a complete asshole.

By the way, my eyes are fine. But I wish they hadn’t seen this goofball and his flag. I don’t like elevating my blood pressure in this fashion.

To oldly go where no man has gone before.

William Shatner (as Capt. Kirk of the USS Enterprise) heads to space today.

At 9:30 a.m. Wednesday, two worlds will collide.

That’s when a sub-orbital spaceship will launch from the west Texas launch center of Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin  commercial space flight program with four passengers aboard — including one that may be the most famous of all spacefaring humans (or at least those that have portrayed spacefaring humans). 

William Shatner, the Canadian-born actor that turned the character of James Tiberius Kirk into American science-fiction royalty, will be aboard that spacecraft when it launches for a flight that will include about 15 minutes on the edge of outer space. At 90, he will be the oldest human being to fly into space — some 65 years after the debut of the groundbreaking series “Star Trek” on NBC, and 27 years after he last portrayed the captain of the starship Enterprise on the silver screen.

Amazing? Indeed. As I said, Shatner is 90. The oldest man NASA dared to send into space was former astronaut and U.S. Senator John Glenn, who flew America’s first orbital flight in 1962 and returned to space aboard the shuttle Discovery in 1998 at the age of 77. Bezos’ privately-run program began by setting a record for “experience” by sending up 82-year-old former NASA engineer Wally Funk, who had been passed over for a flight in the Mercury program simply because she was a woman.

Shatner is still quite strapping for a man his age, but he won’t need to tell anyone to go to warp speed during his brief flight. No one aboard will need to lift a finger, in fact; Bezos’ spacecraft are completely controlled from the ground — which, as older readers will remember, was the cause of a near-revolt among the original Mercury astronauts. They were all test pilots from the military, and they rebelled at the notion of being simply passengers aboard a craft over which they had no control. As a result, NASA scientists re-designed the Mercury capsule to include controls over steering thrusters and the  re-entry rocket.

Be that as it may, while this may seem like a publicity stunt of the highest order, it’s still intriguing that the opportunity has been presented to the earth’s most famous starship captain to actually see a tiny portion of what he was bringing to our small screens for three seasons and then several movies many years later. 

Shatner was already an accomplished actor before Star Trek. He portrayed a military aide to one of the chief prosecutors (played by Spencer Tracy) at the postwar Nuremberg trials in “Judgment at Nuremberg” — the prime irony being that Shatner’s character carried the rank of captain. Shatner also had several roles on episodic TV shows in the ‘60s, including “Route 66” and “Twilight Zone,” in which he was able to develop the overacting technique that would be his trademark going forward. Perhaps that’s what Gene Roddenberry saw when he needed to recast his Star Trek pilot and replace a less emotive Jeffrey Hunter (as Capt. Christopher Pike, whose command of the Enterprise prior to James Kirk is gaining new life in newer iterations of the Star Trek franchise) with a more swashbuckling actor that would bring an emotional edge to the captain’s chair.

Even if you’re not a fan of Star Trek, you know who Capt. Kirk is. He’s bold, daring, and far too emotional for the taste of his logic-driven Vulcan first officer, Mr. Spock. He rushes into conflict while touting the peace-loving virtues of the United Federation of Planets. He frequently cites the Federation’s one unbreakable “Prime Directive,” the order not to interfere with the development of lesser-developed civilizations, then promptly violates it as the situation demands. And of course, Kirk is a randy soul whose libido explored what the galaxy had to offer in regards to the opposite sex almost more extensively than the Enterprise explored new solar systems.

The character of Kirk was developed early in the original series and rarely strayed off that course over the three seasons on NBC, the brief animated series that followed (although cleaned up a little for the younger audiences), and then seven theatrical films featuring the original cast. And that’s what made him an endearing and enduring character.

How much of the character of Kirk really was the real Shatner? Or how much has Shatner become Kirk? We may never know. But he clearly is reveling in the moment of an opportunity that is uniquely his. Given the place that Star Trek and its successor series hold in American lore, it’s just a shame that Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, James Doohan and the surviving members of the original cast couldn’t join him on this symbolic mission.

Here’s hoping that Shatner’s trip goes as planned, and it provides him with the thrill of a well-lived lifetime. But I can’t help but think back to one of the movies, “Star Trek III: The Search for Spock,” for a fitting description.

It’s just moments before Kirk, Scotty, Sulu, Chekov and McCoy board the dry-docked Enterprise against orders, preparing to reactivate the ship in order to return to the Genesis planet and search for Spock’s mortal remains. The crew escapes Starfleet headquarters in San Francisco via a little-used transporter facility where Lt. Uhura has accepted a posting as part of the plot to steal the Enterprise. As the bridge crew arrives, a junior officer on duty with Uhura is suspicious of their arrival, so Uhura draws a phaser and orders the ensign into a closet. Shocked, he says, “Have you lost all sense of reality?” 

“This isn’t reality,” Uhura responds. “This is fantasy!”

Indeed it is. Godspeed, Jim Kirk.