Boston Thoughts
I’mma take today and post a few thoughts on Boston. It’s going through a tough time right now, not the least of which is because Boston is a fairly reserved, conservative city, despite its politics. It is a place and a people with a loooooong memory. Hundreds of years. Events like this are not taken lightly.
It is a great city. But also a cold city. A troubled city. And a proud city. A torrid mixture of provincial pride, residual racism and puritan-era repression, yes. But mixed with a community of intelligence, historical reverence, and a philosophical understanding of the complexities of time.
Other American cities, cities with much shorter histories, can’t understand that yet.
That’s what makes Boston unique among American cities.
It is European but not European. American, but not noveau-American, like so many strip-mall suburban nightmares west of the Mississippi.
It is a city of paradoxes.
When I announced my plans to move to New York to attend NYU to my fellow co-workers on my summer food cart job, I was met with a mixture of indignation and rage. I was accused of betraying my people.
That kind of pride.
I’ll post a few more specific memories later today, but lets take a day to honor this strange, complex, and gloriously unique American city. You’re welcome to add to my thoughts in the comments thread.
Boston, and the whole state of Massachusetts, deserves it.
I was in Boston this past week-end and walked across the finish line on the way to dinner Sat. night. Lots of college girls in shorts despite the fact that it wasn’t exactly warm.
This whole terrorism thing sucks.
The first memory of Boston I have is the wonderful girl at the Air Canada wicket who kindly explained to my flying averse she-Jew (respect) that there was freezing rain in Montreal and we were stuck for 6 hours on our way home from NYC by way of Islip, LI or some shitty place like that. No problem, I says, what can we do? She gives us directions to go directly to the Union Oyster House so as to let the cabbie think we were local. A half hour later a friendly giant of a black man asked me for $50 before he unlocked his rear doors in front of the previously mentioned establishment.
In accordance to this site let me tell you having spent 10 years living in Boston that the talent, and by talent I mean smoking hot chicks, there is outstanding. An international bevy of year in and year out constantly rotating hotts. As DB1 so eloquently put it the other day Spring time is when the loins get fired up and the prowl begins. Strolling Newbury the sights of the female form is in full effect along with the myriad of accents one hears as they pass by intrigues the mind. Boston can be pretentious, rude, ignorant it can also be extremely warm, friendly and welcoming either way at the end of the day it’s a kick ass city unlike anywhere else and a hell of great time. Go spend a weekend there whether it’s wandering around Cambridge, eating great food in the North End, late night trolling for hotts at Daisy’s, happy hours at the Crab you can’t go wrong.
And by $50, I mean expensive 1997 USD.
Boston is where I learned about and gained my appreciation of the Latina Hott. Wealthy Venezuelan beauty queen types, Argentinean lovelies, Mexican goddess hotts, Brazilian bombshells all forever etched in my mind. Ahhh but it’s not just the Latinas there were Icelandic grad student hotts, Danish nannies in the Back Bay, spoiled, eager energetic Jewess hotts attending BU & Tufts. Late night shenanigans on carpeted floors with drunken Emerson hotts. The local girls from Winchester, Scituate, further south west they came from Darien, Westchester county, the 5 towns. Bottom line was there was something in the air and Boston had it and still has it in spades.
Bostonians have the strangest accents in America — like someone put da Bronx, Chee-KA-goe, and some Limey in a blender and out those sounds came. Like the city they reflect, those sounds have an impenetrability and charm all their own.
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.Trying to drive in Boston is the equivalent of trying to converse with a Laplander in a driving snowstorm. The streets make absolutely no sense, and you can actually throw a stone at a building without being able to find a street which leads your car to its front door.
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Boston is also the sports bar capital of the universe. I was once strolling around the Faneuil Hall/North End (in the early Fall) and found myself surrounded by a dozen bars within 50′ of each other, each packed with TVs blaring football, baseball and hockey to packed houses. It was like a horror show hall of mirrors for a non-sports fan, but business as usual for Beantown.
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.Beans (and food generally) being my speciality, I must note that Boston steadfastly refuses to jump on the haute cuisine bandwagon (with a few, fine exceptions), despite having the bounty of the sea right out its front door. Instead, it steadfastly holds on to its baked beans, brown bread, bad pot roast and scrod traditions, and, in an half-hearted attempt to escape its roots, inadvertently hatched the single, hugest douchebag chef Todd (“Behold My Chin”) English in the history of chefdom.
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But even those negatives (English excepted) have their appeal. Boston is home to America’s oldest restaurant — the Union Oyster House, est. 1826) and I have whiled away many a pleasant afternoon sipping a Sam Adams (Bostonians don’t trust anyone who knows too much about fine wine) and slurping down a few dozen bivalves whilst taking good-natured abuse from its shuckers. (Easiest way to start a conversation at any bar in Boston – oyster or otherwise – just say “How ’bout those {Celtics, Bruins, Red Sox, Patriots}?” and you’re set for an hour.
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.Let’s see: antiquated food, impossible streets and sports-crazed people with impenetrable accents….what’s not to like?
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.To quote J. J. Hunsecker (to Sidney Falco): “I love every inch of this dirty town.” ….because it’s one of a kind and a true, American original.
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.p.s. All of this reminiscing has made me hungry. Could someone please get me a Regina’s pizza?
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Meh – Like NYC did – we’re licking the wounds, cleaning up the mess (albeit on a much smaller scale) and planning the punishment for the Asswipe responsible.
Thanks for the good word All
I think there really needs to be just justice. No 18 years on death row. No nice chemicals in the arm to drift them off to sleep before their heart stops. Not even reciprocal treatment of lopping off their heads – its much too quick. I’m kinda groovin on a crucifixion fantasy – how many ever Long days hangin by nails, being pecked at by crows, getting vinegar on a sponge for refreshment. THAT would be Asswipe justice!
#1- Choad TDS, mi amigo: you know nothing of East Coast cuisine. Your exposure to the newest trends as available in the very upwardly mobile Vegas restaurant scene has rendered your taste buds , shall we say, too scattered to appreciate Boston/New England food
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New England starts with fish. The freshest fish from the most fertile fishing area in the world, The Georges Bank. NE’s proximity to the area stocks them with hundreds of choices
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As a youth, I would ride my bike to the beach and catch enough flounder , blue fish or striped bass to feed my family at dinner. I’m mean I was10-12 years old in the days when you’d leave the house in the morning without a helmet, no cell phone, 75 cents and a jack knife in your pocket with the last words from mom being, “Be home by dark!”
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When I could drive I’d take my car to low tide and dig up a peck of quahogs which my genius mother and sisters would turn into red and white chowder and baked, stuffed quahogs
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Native items like Rhode Island potatoes, sour grapes, rhubarb and real yellow corn, not the shitty white corn the Mexicans have foisted on California grew wild in our backyard, at least until my dad yelled at me to tend to it.
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Emeril Lagasse? New Bedford , MA resident.
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Sure a lot of stuff is fried, like belly claims, but if you’ve never eaten scallops pulled from the ocean this morning then opened minutes before preparation then you’ve never eaten the right way in Boston.
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Don’t get me started on pizza, Portuguese food or Italian restaurants in Providence , RI either
Roger that @VinDouchal…..but I loves me my fresh and fried clams and a good chowdah as much as anyone…..Spent many a summer on Nantucket….and though I criticize, it is with love and affection.
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.Littleneckedly yours,
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CTDS
******BREAKING NEWS**************
CNN reporting a dark-skinned male who was also described by other adjectives they won’t reveal has been arrested after facial recognition shit putting down a bag at one bombing site.
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My second fond memory of Boston after getting ripped off by the big black cabbie is the Union Oyster House and some big pink clams that I couldn’t eat raw so the Misses called me a pussy to which the shuckers and regulars around the old raw bar agreed. Then we walked around the old parts near the fish market/wharf or some shit.
The reason NYC has such a heated rivalry with Boston is because Boston is such a great city (understatement).
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Growing up in CT., I went to plenty of field trips to Boston, Lowell, etc. but it wasn’t until I was a sophomore in high school that I got to experience Boston with my buddy, a senior at BC. Let’s just say Boston opened my eyes to what partying can be. I love Boston, always will.
Santarpios Pizza, Late night burgers at The original Tasty in Harvard Square, Cold ones at the Boat House, Kelly’s Roast Beef for fried clamps, shrimp etc; Any sandwich shop run by a greek family and there are many for Gyro’s. Open face Roast Beef Sangwichs with a Guinness at the Corrib in Brighton. The Tom Tom Club at The Paradise, smoking good weed with members of The Mighty Diamonds between sets in an alley behind the Western Front, WFNX block parties on Landsdowne street listening to up and coming local & UK bands, TT The Bears catching Barrence Whitfield & The Savages tear the place down, Stevie Ray Vaughn & Double Trouble playing on the quad at Tufts for free during Spring Fling weekend. The Grateful Dead rocking the Garden for 6 nights over 7 days with a huge Steal your Face banner hanging in the rafters along with all the Celtic & Bruins banners. a young Cam Neely defining the power forward position, Raymond Bourque Taking over the “C” from #24 and winning multiple Norris Trophy’s , Rene Rancourt belting out the National Anthem like only he knows how. Kicking it in Southie with good local friends minding your manners and avoiding trouble. A packet full of you know what to fuel the late night/early morning drive down to the Cape to avoid the traffic.
One night in Boston, I was drunk and coined the term Chish & Fipps. Yeah, I probarbly wasn’t the first to achieve either of those peaks. Speaking of which, that chick with the really big tits in the previous herpster pic has fuk’n huge tatitties!
My brother-in-law said the Red Light District, circa 1975,had the most beautiful womens he ever saw.
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Greatest September collapse in baseball history.
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Emerson.
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Segregation.
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Whatevs.
#2- There is no more Jekyl/Hyde a place than Massachusetts.
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The meanest, most cynical people can be offset by the great things their society can produce.
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Acedmics are the main priority. The school system there is gearing you up for higher education from very early on. And their colleges and universities are world class
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However, unlike California where it is just another money grab, if you don’t want to go to college, they have trade schools. My buddies were the first class at Cape Cod Regional Technical High School which grew out of the vocational department at my high school.
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One of my best friends got his certification in plumbing there, then got a scolarship to an engineering school in Boston but went into business instead. He’s been a General Contractor since he was 23 years old
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I grew up around the most hateful , racist parents a kid could ever want. Not mine, I mean my friends’ parents. The things they’d say shocked/scared the shit outta me. Bullying was an everyday occurence and alcoholism started in the early teens amongst my peers
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My dad, on the other hand, had a small business and hired long haireds, black guys and his manager , the guy that bought the business off of my mom when dad died , was Portugese. My father was truly color blind
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Amongst all the ugly were things like the Cape Cod Playhouse, where my sister for years was the director for the live theatre. She even got my nervous as hell mother to say one line in a play Some people went on to soap operas and movies from there.
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My dad, WWII vet, zoot suit dancer, and one of those “Guys that can fix anything” was the most blue collar man I ever met. However, he made sure that we went to Boston to see off Broadway plays (with most of the original cast intact ) , shared season tix to the Sox with some buds (although he could only afford 6 games a year) trudging me out rain or shine to Fenway to give dirty looks to idiots that booed Yaz, and made sure when some “A List Performer” came to the Melody Tent we saw them.
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Melody Tent acts I saw as a kid: Roy Clark, Tom Jones, Barbara Streisand, Glen Campbell, Beach Boys, Carole King, Charo, Don Rickles, Three Dog Night, Grass Roots, Isley Bros, on and on, all with dad’s insistence that we go
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And lastly, 1970’s era WBCN was by far the best radio ever as we listened on our way to The Combat Zone to ogle strippers at The Naked Eye as a three piece blues band played sexy music in the corner
#3- American history 101
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When we learned about The Mayflower and Plymouth Rock , we went there
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When we learned about the Freedom Trail, we went there
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When we learned about about Paul Revere and the Old North Church, we went there
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And greatest of all, if your high school basketball or hockey team went to the state finals, you played in the fucking Boston Garden. Home of Orr, Espo, Sanderson, Cam Neely, Cousy, Russell, Havlicek and Red Auerbach
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Great place to grow up. Great place, I says
I’ve eaten at the Union Oyster House; good stuff.
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Y’all got tiny ass shrimp though.
@VIn
Charles Laquidara was the man as was Oedipus and “Nocturnal Emissions”. A lot of great musicians loved playing Boston always a good act in town it’s a shame you can’t pick a copy of The Phoenix anymore.
@DarkSock: Didn’t you know large shrimp is an oxymoron?
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.Cunning Linguists
Ian Faith: The Boston gig has been cancelled…
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David St. Hubbins: What?
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Ian Faith: Yeah. I wouldn’t worry about it though, it’s not a big college town.