The Honorable Rick Scott

Governor of Florida

State House

Tallahassee, Florida

 

Dear Governor Scott:

My deepest apologies for taking so long in getting back to you. I read with interest your letter suggesting I would find the “climate” in Florida more suitable for growing my business than the climate here in Massachusetts. I certainly agree your tax rate and weather conditions (barring hurricanes) would be a welcome relief after the cold winters of The Bay State and the deaf ears of its political community. But I must correct you on one important point: it’s not the taxes that are souring the business climate in Massachusetts, it’s the gridlock.

Yes, the gridlock! The reason it’s taken me so long to answer your letter is that I just haven’t had the time. I spend so much time in my car these days, stuck on the state’s roads and highways that I haven’t a moment to spare when I finally arrive mid-morning at the office, or when I return home to my family late at night after another hellish rush hour commute.

I don’t know about Florida, Rick, but here our politicians refuse to fully fund public transportation. They can’t seem to accept that the only way anything will improve on the highways is by reducing the number of cars. In large numbers. And the only way that will happen is if they vote the money to make public transportation a better alternative than sitting for hours in traffic.

Rick, your letter would have been much more accurate and effective if it had compared state statistics for nervous breakdowns and road rage incidents instead of tax rates and 70 degree days. The only reason I’m able, at last, to respond to your letter is because I finally smartened up two days ago and transformed my car into a portable Auto-Office. Now, I can blithely read my emails, answer letters, and catch up on a thousand previously neglected facets of my business while I’m stuck in traffic. Doesn’t matter if I’m stuck on Route 93,the Mass Pike or Route 95; doesn’t matter if I’m stuck north, south, or west of the city! Do I have concerns about safety, you might ask? Not a one. The traffic rarely moves fast enough to create a hazardous situation.

Thanks to my new Auto-Office I can now find time to consider your attractive proposal. I’ve also found time to begin scratching out a new career—as a lyricist, of all things! Look below this letter for a song I wrote yesterday while driving two tedious miles from Central Square in Cambridge to Commonwealth Avenue in Boston. Not bad for lyrics written in just two short hours, don’t you think?

Anyway, Rick, I promise to talk over your attractive invitation with my management team, once I get enough of them assembled to have a quorum. Between broken buses, overloaded trains and gridlocked highways, it’s a miracle when even half my staff makes it to the office.

Yours perpetually in first gear,

 

Paul

 

Paul Steven Stone

CEO and President

Blind Elephant Press

c/o Mass Turnpike Extension, Newton

 

 

AND NO ONE GIVES A DAMN

(Sung to the tune of “The Sidewalks of New York”)

by Paul Steven Stone

 

East side, West side, you can’t get through the town

The roads are jammed with traffic, and no one has a plan

Boys and girls together, me I’m stuck in a jam.

I left my home three hours ago and no one gives a damn.

 

East side, West side, you can’t get through the town

The subway’s packed with bodies, the buses half broke down

Boys and girls together, me I’m jammed in the T

I left my home three hours ago and, God, I need to pee.

 

East side, West side, you can’t get through the town

Tell my wife and kids I love them, I’ll see them when I can

Boys and girls on Beacon Hill can’t come up with a plan

I’ve had three nervous breakdowns and nobody gives a damn.