A Little Ditty About Sal and Deval

Boston Daily understands that relationships are hard. They involve compromise, communication, and lots of sex. As we learn in this month’s issue of Boston magazine, sometimes that sex is had with lots of different people. (On newsstands now!)

While we know that Gov. Deval Patrick and House Speaker Sal DiMasi aren’t, you know, lovers, their relationship is still fascinating. One minute they’re feuding, the next they’re posing for pictures together. They’re like Blair and Serena on Gossip Girl, but with fewer cute outfits.

In today’s Globe, Matt Viser reports on the relationship between the two men.

Their differences stem in large part from their backgrounds: Patrick, a former corporate lawyer and newcomer to state government who generated enormous excitement as a reformer, versus DiMasi, a tough and wily inside player steeped in the culture of Massachusetts politics.

Never has there been a tale of more woe since the Montagues and the Capulets were brawling in fair Verona. Unlike those Elizabethan Hatfields and McCoys, Patrick and DiMasi are trying to work out their differences.

Asked about. . . barbs from the speaker on a monthly radio show he hosts on WTKK-AM, Patrick attempted to shrug off the speaker’s remarks.

Contrary to the public posturing, he added, “We usually giggle about it when we’re together.”

“Giggle“? We’re pretty sure Barack Obama won’t poach that rhetoric for his campaign.

We certainly wouldn’t be laughing if our fr-enemy did this at a St. Patrick’s Day Breakfast in front of all of our friends. (Find out why we should save it in this month’s Contrarian! We swear, we’re almost done with the shameless self-promotion.)

[DiMasi] went from Captain & Tennille’s “Love will Keep Us Together,” to Frank Sinatra’s “My Way,” and then Brenda Lee’s “I’m Sorry.” The last song he played was Celine Dion singing “All By Myself.”

This is the part of a Gossip Girl episode where Serena storms off in a fit because Blair did something insensitive. But in much the same way the characters on that teen drama work it out, DiMasi and Patrick struggle to make their relationship flourish.

“The speaker and I, and the Senate president have been building a relationship for the last 13 months,” Patrick told reporters after DiMasi agreed to move a life-sciences bill. “It is every day more candid and more constructive, and we’re all trying to drive in the same direction.”

Aww. You crazy kids just might make it.