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Boston, MA (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter eoMMan
- Start date
wikkidpissah
Footballguy
better to be from than in
Underachievers
Footballguy
Cliff Clavin
JuniorGong
Footballguy
I was just up there this past weekend and lived there over a decade ago. City has really transformed in the last 10+ years. Economy is booming, high rises going up all over the city and tons of really cool places to eat and socialize. While the Big Dig hasn’t improved traffic at all (actually far worse now) it did wonders for the city as neighborhoods flow much better now. It is getting pricey as hell though.
Bossman
Footballguy
POS: Best sports town evah
NEG: most unattractive fan base.
Honestly ... look at the fans when the camera pans the crowd during the baseball game tonight or Pats game Sunday night.
Sure, you can pick out one or two attractive people ... but the majority ... looks like the Elephant man and Julia Child spawned the population.
Hard to explain. Maybe the salt air? Winters taking their toll?
Conversely, look at the fan base of any team down south or out west. A couple of mutts but mostly beautiful women. Looking forward to those Astros games in HOU coming up.
NEG: most unattractive fan base.
Honestly ... look at the fans when the camera pans the crowd during the baseball game tonight or Pats game Sunday night.
Sure, you can pick out one or two attractive people ... but the majority ... looks like the Elephant man and Julia Child spawned the population.
Hard to explain. Maybe the salt air? Winters taking their toll?
Conversely, look at the fan base of any team down south or out west. A couple of mutts but mostly beautiful women. Looking forward to those Astros games in HOU coming up.
Mike Damone
Footballguy
Great beer
wikkidpissah
Footballguy
Time for one of my favorite ol' timey Boston stories, because it's relevant to today:
I worked for a Boston radio station, WCOZ, from 1975-7, first producing commercials, then writing blackouts for DJs who heard the 'alternative' commercials i'd produce making fun of the ones i canned for my lameass clients, then reading the news. I asked my boss if i could expand the news a little, do stories & he said i could do one on spec and if he liked it, he'd solicit more (as it is now, there's no money in radio except at the very top). i did a series on a bunch of old vaudevillians from the legendary Howard Theater who, long after Scollay Sq was torn down to build Govt Center, still got together one Thursday a month at the Oriental Tea Company (it's the Staaahbucks with the giant tea kettle in front of it now, for you noobs) to tell stories. My boss liked the stories (they actually ended up being nominated for an award) but was not forthcoming with dough or a full-time news job, so i hadda do more to impress.
A buddy of mine who was very political tells me he's started volunteering for a guy trying to run for President the next year by, months ahead of everyone else that fall (it was bad manners then to begin one's campaign before the actual election year, if you can believe it) going to coffee klatches all around New Hampshire trying to get the housewives to chat him up to their hubbies. He was actually starting to make headway in the polls, so i ask my pal if he can get me an interview. So, somewhere in a vault @ WHDH - if it made it thru all the relocations - is a 45-minute tape of me interviewing President Jimmy Carter with all the respect of any other goofball wannabe.
This gets my boss excited (i had a really good editor) so we're negotiating a real job for me when, one night, i get a call that one of the 13 candidates for the Democratic nomination, Gov Terry Sanford, had a heart attack on the campaign trail in Salem, where i lived, and ABC (i didn't even know we were an affiliate) wanted someone out there to send in a report. Salem Hosp's like four blocks away, so i am the first electronic media representative out there. I scramble for info, call in a report and vroomp, my voice is ringing out on ABC radio stations throughout the country with this breaking news.
Well, now the boss has gotta hire me and he calls me to tell me and says the network called to say thx and 'anything we can do for you?'. I tell him i would love (and could do a better job for him with) a national press credential. Boom, it arrives a few days later. Boy, did i have a blast widdat thang. '76 was a fabulous year to have one - presidential campaigns, bicentennial stuff all over the northeast, the Olympics in Montreal, i went to cover Princess Margaret qualifying for the Olympics equestrian events at Myopia Hunt Club and met a coupla BBC reporters my age who taught me how to get into anything and got me into some aristocratic soirees that were pervier than anything i'd seen on tour with rock bands.
The great thing about this story? I ain't even told it yet - that was just the set up. So, i'm on the press train in NH now, with a buncha McLaughlin Report type guys, even cut my hair to look more legit cuz now i got an "in" with the Georgia gov who just might turn over the apple cart when the party's guy, Sen Scoop Jackson, was as huge a frontrunner as Hillary was before she took Obama on. And boom he does it, and the rest is history. Allow me to mention that the famous segregationist, George Wallace, got barely 1% of the vote in NH, cuz he's the star of the story.
Unlike now, The Mass primary was only a coupla wks later and Boston was beginning to earn its rep as the most racist city in the North because of their reaction to the newly-imposed forced bussing within city limits. Wallace had showed up in Southie the month before and the whole place went nuts for him, so he decided to raise his profile by working some northern votes there. Now, Boston's liberal cuz it's a big labor town and Scoop Jackson was a labor candidate (he won the primary) but Wallace's advance people noticed that the whistlestop in Southie was peopled by lotsa guys in haahdhats (no doubt, the fathers of today's red-faced, skin-headed, long-chinwhiskered, black-on-black-w-wallet-chain-wearing, heavy metal bigots so pwapulah around Beantown now), so they rented the Orpheum Theater in Boston for a rally and issued cheapo hardhats at the door.
Now one thing Southerners are great at is excluding strangers & potential enemies and a LOT of reporters (including the guy who had turned me on to Carter) who even began to look like leftists were turned away at the door. But ol' Communist Party USA member me, with the national press credential and the fresh haircut so i could talk to Jack Germond & RWApple on the press train, got right on thru.
Couple guys come onstage and work the crowd up and they almost lost the hype cuz they took so long putting up ramps & security apparatus for the wheelchair-bound segregationist, but i watched John Bonham do a bare-handed drum solo in front of 20,000 people and i aint never heard a crowd so loud as when Governor George Wallace hit the stage that day. He worked the bussing thang like a $2 whore screwing the ghost of Jeff Davis and they went nuts but, after a while, he motioned for everyone to settle down and it got real quiet and he got as intimate with the crowd as someone encased in plexiglass bullet deflectors could and said (i'll try to remember from my notes best i can):
"Y'all ain't votin' for me cuz i'm the smartest man in the room, like summa these fellas. Y'all are gonna vote for me cuz i know the truth and speak the truth. Let them smahtypants do all their fussing and fidgeting and let us do the stupid work of running this country right. (Raising his volume with that of the crowd). All them Hahvid boys will do what they will and call you stupid & ignorant but, as your President, i will do what's right because i am precisely as STOOPIT AND IGNORANT AS YOU!!!! Wallace finished 3rd, beating Jimmy Carter, in the Massachusetts primary.
Tape wasn't allowed and, even showing my notes (my writing does get bad when i write that fast) i could not get a single one of my leftist cohorts to believe Wallace said it and the thundering Hitler rally vehemence of the reaction. Jack Germond did not report it, RWApple did not report it but, if i'm lyin' i'm dyin, George Wallace rallied the stupid & angry to take over and skeered the livin' #### out of me doing so. I reported what i thought wouldn't get me fired and quit news soon after to do a comedy show for them @ 11pm Saturdays (people were staying home to watch SNL and we wanted to be part of the party), but i'll never forget that afternoon.
There being over 30 years til i saw its like in this country again, the memory had faded significantly. When i saw the first Sarah Palin rally, however, your humble servant gulped in recognition. And this weren't no couple thousand hard-hatted Irish bigots - this was 'Mer'ca with the most-watched public affairs network on television putting its entire weight behind it. And if the stock market hadn't crashed & McCain hadn't handled that so badly, President Palin would be stumping candidates for her second mid-term election as we speak. Trump is just the next best thing. nufced
I worked for a Boston radio station, WCOZ, from 1975-7, first producing commercials, then writing blackouts for DJs who heard the 'alternative' commercials i'd produce making fun of the ones i canned for my lameass clients, then reading the news. I asked my boss if i could expand the news a little, do stories & he said i could do one on spec and if he liked it, he'd solicit more (as it is now, there's no money in radio except at the very top). i did a series on a bunch of old vaudevillians from the legendary Howard Theater who, long after Scollay Sq was torn down to build Govt Center, still got together one Thursday a month at the Oriental Tea Company (it's the Staaahbucks with the giant tea kettle in front of it now, for you noobs) to tell stories. My boss liked the stories (they actually ended up being nominated for an award) but was not forthcoming with dough or a full-time news job, so i hadda do more to impress.
A buddy of mine who was very political tells me he's started volunteering for a guy trying to run for President the next year by, months ahead of everyone else that fall (it was bad manners then to begin one's campaign before the actual election year, if you can believe it) going to coffee klatches all around New Hampshire trying to get the housewives to chat him up to their hubbies. He was actually starting to make headway in the polls, so i ask my pal if he can get me an interview. So, somewhere in a vault @ WHDH - if it made it thru all the relocations - is a 45-minute tape of me interviewing President Jimmy Carter with all the respect of any other goofball wannabe.
This gets my boss excited (i had a really good editor) so we're negotiating a real job for me when, one night, i get a call that one of the 13 candidates for the Democratic nomination, Gov Terry Sanford, had a heart attack on the campaign trail in Salem, where i lived, and ABC (i didn't even know we were an affiliate) wanted someone out there to send in a report. Salem Hosp's like four blocks away, so i am the first electronic media representative out there. I scramble for info, call in a report and vroomp, my voice is ringing out on ABC radio stations throughout the country with this breaking news.
Well, now the boss has gotta hire me and he calls me to tell me and says the network called to say thx and 'anything we can do for you?'. I tell him i would love (and could do a better job for him with) a national press credential. Boom, it arrives a few days later. Boy, did i have a blast widdat thang. '76 was a fabulous year to have one - presidential campaigns, bicentennial stuff all over the northeast, the Olympics in Montreal, i went to cover Princess Margaret qualifying for the Olympics equestrian events at Myopia Hunt Club and met a coupla BBC reporters my age who taught me how to get into anything and got me into some aristocratic soirees that were pervier than anything i'd seen on tour with rock bands.
The great thing about this story? I ain't even told it yet - that was just the set up. So, i'm on the press train in NH now, with a buncha McLaughlin Report type guys, even cut my hair to look more legit cuz now i got an "in" with the Georgia gov who just might turn over the apple cart when the party's guy, Sen Scoop Jackson, was as huge a frontrunner as Hillary was before she took Obama on. And boom he does it, and the rest is history. Allow me to mention that the famous segregationist, George Wallace, got barely 1% of the vote in NH, cuz he's the star of the story.
Unlike now, The Mass primary was only a coupla wks later and Boston was beginning to earn its rep as the most racist city in the North because of their reaction to the newly-imposed forced bussing within city limits. Wallace had showed up in Southie the month before and the whole place went nuts for him, so he decided to raise his profile by working some northern votes there. Now, Boston's liberal cuz it's a big labor town and Scoop Jackson was a labor candidate (he won the primary) but Wallace's advance people noticed that the whistlestop in Southie was peopled by lotsa guys in haahdhats (no doubt, the fathers of today's red-faced, skin-headed, long-chinwhiskered, black-on-black-w-wallet-chain-wearing, heavy metal bigots so pwapulah around Beantown now), so they rented the Orpheum Theater in Boston for a rally and issued cheapo hardhats at the door.
Now one thing Southerners are great at is excluding strangers & potential enemies and a LOT of reporters (including the guy who had turned me on to Carter) who even began to look like leftists were turned away at the door. But ol' Communist Party USA member me, with the national press credential and the fresh haircut so i could talk to Jack Germond & RWApple on the press train, got right on thru.
Couple guys come onstage and work the crowd up and they almost lost the hype cuz they took so long putting up ramps & security apparatus for the wheelchair-bound segregationist, but i watched John Bonham do a bare-handed drum solo in front of 20,000 people and i aint never heard a crowd so loud as when Governor George Wallace hit the stage that day. He worked the bussing thang like a $2 whore screwing the ghost of Jeff Davis and they went nuts but, after a while, he motioned for everyone to settle down and it got real quiet and he got as intimate with the crowd as someone encased in plexiglass bullet deflectors could and said (i'll try to remember from my notes best i can):
"Y'all ain't votin' for me cuz i'm the smartest man in the room, like summa these fellas. Y'all are gonna vote for me cuz i know the truth and speak the truth. Let them smahtypants do all their fussing and fidgeting and let us do the stupid work of running this country right. (Raising his volume with that of the crowd). All them Hahvid boys will do what they will and call you stupid & ignorant but, as your President, i will do what's right because i am precisely as STOOPIT AND IGNORANT AS YOU!!!! Wallace finished 3rd, beating Jimmy Carter, in the Massachusetts primary.
Tape wasn't allowed and, even showing my notes (my writing does get bad when i write that fast) i could not get a single one of my leftist cohorts to believe Wallace said it and the thundering Hitler rally vehemence of the reaction. Jack Germond did not report it, RWApple did not report it but, if i'm lyin' i'm dyin, George Wallace rallied the stupid & angry to take over and skeered the livin' #### out of me doing so. I reported what i thought wouldn't get me fired and quit news soon after to do a comedy show for them @ 11pm Saturdays (people were staying home to watch SNL and we wanted to be part of the party), but i'll never forget that afternoon.
There being over 30 years til i saw its like in this country again, the memory had faded significantly. When i saw the first Sarah Palin rally, however, your humble servant gulped in recognition. And this weren't no couple thousand hard-hatted Irish bigots - this was 'Mer'ca with the most-watched public affairs network on television putting its entire weight behind it. And if the stock market hadn't crashed & McCain hadn't handled that so badly, President Palin would be stumping candidates for her second mid-term election as we speak. Trump is just the next best thing. nufced
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wikkidpissah
Footballguy
My initial reactions after visiting Boston (and Salem):
Rent seems silly high. My friend has a small 1 BR apartment to himself and he's paying twice what my mortgage is in FL for a 3/2 stand alone house (not a big house though).
Do the wages in Boston really make up for the increased housing costs?
Not many fat people in Boston. I think this is from all the walking people do, both willingly and unwillingly.
Very diverse population. People seemed nice and fairly clean. Our Russian uber driver said that Boston's rats are smaller and cleaner than the ones in NYC due the NYC ones getting fat from eating trash.
Haven't heard too much of that accent (park da kar!!!). Most people speak normal.
Traffic is insane. I can understand why some people don't bother having cars.
We took two different trains to Salem and it was smooth.
Between the Bruins, Celtics, Red Sox, and Patriots....Boston is very blessed.
Very cold in Boston. Low 40s in mid October....pass.
Closest casino to Boston?
Rent seems silly high. My friend has a small 1 BR apartment to himself and he's paying twice what my mortgage is in FL for a 3/2 stand alone house (not a big house though).
Do the wages in Boston really make up for the increased housing costs?
Not many fat people in Boston. I think this is from all the walking people do, both willingly and unwillingly.
Very diverse population. People seemed nice and fairly clean. Our Russian uber driver said that Boston's rats are smaller and cleaner than the ones in NYC due the NYC ones getting fat from eating trash.
Haven't heard too much of that accent (park da kar!!!). Most people speak normal.
Traffic is insane. I can understand why some people don't bother having cars.
We took two different trains to Salem and it was smooth.
Between the Bruins, Celtics, Red Sox, and Patriots....Boston is very blessed.
Very cold in Boston. Low 40s in mid October....pass.
Closest casino to Boston?
JuniorGong
Footballguy
Wages never totally make up for increased housing costs in high cost living areas.
They are building a huge casino just outside of Boston, not exactly sure when it is slated to open but it will be no more than 15 minutes from most areas of the city.
AAABatteries
Footballguy
I’ve heard the winters are brutal so it’s a hard pass for me. Snow sucks.
Skipdog77
Footballguy
Mike Damone
Footballguy
You couldn’t get there in 15 minutes from Everett city hall. That whole area is always gridlocked
Mr. Ected
Footballguy
TL
R - I just caught the bits with the call letters. Grew up in Boston suburbs in late 70s - 80s. WCOZ was a great station, but WBCN was my favorite. Loved listening to Charles Laquidara and "The Big Mattress" morning show.
NewlyRetired
Footballguy
I feel like one of the older guys on here and I was still in early elementary school in 75 (second grade I think).
Mr. Ected
Footballguy
dgreen
Footballguy
I always tell people that I love Boston and all the other places I've been in New England. Then I also tell them that I've only been there during Summer.
wikkidpissah
Footballguy
COZ's Laquidara was Naked Bobby Desiderio, who i believe joined WBCN after i left town. Pretty sure Robert wouldn't appreciate the Naked Bobby moniker (and he did not do his late-night show naked as Laquidara often did his) but he was caught in sartorial disrepair with fine young ladies in his booth waaaay too often to not be called that. The hook on this is that Desiderio became Gary of Olde Towne Tavern in the "bar wars" episodes of CheersTL
ETA: You wouldnt have been old enough to stay up & listen to my show, Zero Hour, then. It began @ Sunday midnight (hence the name) in spring of '76 and was moved to 11p, Saturday (and syndicated to a half dozen northeastern markets and flat-out given to many college stations) to take advantage of SNL parties in the fall. I had the proud distinction of having one of my sketches - The Gary Gilmore Christmas Special - stolen by SNL that season (Jim Downey confirmed this to me when i auditioned for the 2nd cast in 1980). One of the writers heard it on a SUNY station while driving upstate and wrote his own version
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wikkidpissah
Footballguy
Well, thx. Who doesnt love to hear sum'n like that?! Dramatically or documentarily?I would watch a Netflix series based on your life
Skipdog77
Footballguy
Either...or how's 'bout even a fictionalized "based-on" buddy-comedy series with you and @Evilgrin 72?
massraider
Footballguy
Fall is the best. I'm sure it's as great in places like Michigan, Wisconsin and Oregon as it is in the Northeast.
If you grew up in Del Boca Vista, good for you, you never had to shovel. I also feel bad for you like I would for a kid who never had a bike.
If you grew up in Del Boca Vista, good for you, you never had to shovel. I also feel bad for you like I would for a kid who never had a bike.
WampusCat43
Footballguy
Lived there while working a project in the Pru from '99-'01. Rented an apt. on Comm Ave ($3K a month for an attic) right around the corner from Cheers (tourist trap!). It was a 10-block walk to work and every morning during the winter the wind would howl in my face the whole way. Perversely, going home at night the wind would shift off the ocean and hit me in the face again, just 'cause I talk with a hillbilly accent.
Good times, though. Loved the Back Bay area.
Good times, though. Loved the Back Bay area.
Joe Mammy
Footballguy
So the wife and I are having the daily special in Bell in Hand Tavern this past June- a shot of Tullamore Dew and the house amber draft. When who walks in but Liam Neeson dressed up as a Redcoat complete with white tights and a tricorn hat. He bellies up next to us at the bar.
At first we really thought it was ole Liam for this guy was a dead ringer. I asked him if he dressed up like that for fun. He looked at me like I just escaped from Bellview and said quite loudly, "no you bloody tourist, I'm a Freedom Trail tour guide and I just got off work."
After he downed a couple of Tullys he was a little more amicable and asked us if we walked the Freedom Trail. We had in fact done it the day before and told him so. Did you go on a tour? I just shook my head and admitted we had the app in my phone and just followed along with it leading the way. Now he got really loud, "OH, the fooking APP! I bet it could answer all of your questions?"
We bottomed up and left.
At first we really thought it was ole Liam for this guy was a dead ringer. I asked him if he dressed up like that for fun. He looked at me like I just escaped from Bellview and said quite loudly, "no you bloody tourist, I'm a Freedom Trail tour guide and I just got off work."
After he downed a couple of Tullys he was a little more amicable and asked us if we walked the Freedom Trail. We had in fact done it the day before and told him so. Did you go on a tour? I just shook my head and admitted we had the app in my phone and just followed along with it leading the way. Now he got really loud, "OH, the fooking APP! I bet it could answer all of your questions?"
We bottomed up and left.
Mr. Ected
Footballguy
My wife worked in 111 Huntington (? - the tall round building right next to the Pru) at that same time. I remember working from home and freaking out on Sept 11, because everyone was sure those buildings would be hit.
WampusCat43
Footballguy
They were building that thing while I was in the Pru. Every now and then, we'd be in a conference room on the 34th floor, and suddenly a steelworker would go sailing by on a beam right outside the window.
One of my co-workers was on the plane from Boston that went into the WTC. I'd left Boston by that time.
Officer Pete Malloy
Footballguy
Look, you're my best friend, so don't take this the wrong way. In twenty years, if you're still livin' here, comin' over to my house to watch the Patriots games, still workin' construction, I'll ####in' kill you. That's not a threat. Now, that's a fact. I'll ####in' kill you.
wikkidpissah
Footballguy
cosjobs
Footballguy
Officer Pete Malloy
Footballguy
fantasycurse42
Footballguy Jr.
Only popular city I dislike more than Boston is San Francisco...
Bossman
Footballguy
I'm almost positive that I still have a WCOZ pin.
Back then it was cool to have pins of your favorite bands and such on your Levi's jean jacket.
Pretty sure that was 94.5 before they went disco.
I live 40 mins from Boston and avoid it like the plague. Traffic mainly ... but personally I just don't like city life.
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AAABatteries
Footballguy
SaintsInDome2006
Footballguy
I love it. Great town, great people.
SaintsInDome2006
Footballguy
Hey @HellToupeeI can't remember you Boston? Providence? Mass? I love Boston, I used to go there for work, spent a spring and summer going up and down the Ma / RI coast and got in-state to Wooster at one point.
After all this bull#### is over I'm going to get back there.
What are your favorite churches and pubs? Let's start there. Hell I'll take ballparks and museums, whatever you got. Genuinely interested to kill some time in this bizarre epic we're going through.
After all this bull#### is over I'm going to get back there.
What are your favorite churches and pubs? Let's start there. Hell I'll take ballparks and museums, whatever you got. Genuinely interested to kill some time in this bizarre epic we're going through.
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HellToupee
Footballguy
Will do later tonight, work is a real mess right now , only check during the day for a minute or 2
Mr. Ected
Footballguy
FYI Wooster is in Ohio!
Our town is spelled Worcester, and pronounced Wuss-tah! 
Grew up just south of Boston in a town called Hingham, founded in 1635, (6th town after Plymouth) and there is a small church there called The Old Ship Church. One of the (if not the) oldest continuously used churches in the country, built in 1681. Once this all ends, you can have a tour, you justness to contact the church ahead of time for them to arrange a tour guide.
Let me know if you have other questions!!
wilked
Footballguy
Thought Hingham was 9th oldest?FYI Wooster is in Ohio!
Grew up just south of Boston in a town called Hingham, founded in 1635, (6th town after Plymouth) and there is a small church there called The Old Ship Church. One of the (if not the) oldest continuously used churches in the country, built in 1681. Once this all ends, you can have a tour, you justness to contact the church ahead of time for them to arrange a tour guide.
Let me know if you have other questions!!
SaintsInDome2006
Footballguy
Lol, I blew it.FYI Wooster is in Ohio!
SaintsInDome2006
Footballguy
I really have to think about it or research but there was a famous church on the Freedom Trail that I went to and it absolutely amazed my Catholic mind that there were those boxes and the gallery where people sat. Very different, very sort of clean, rigid and right thinking just by the feel of it, remarkable.
I hope I get to the Old Ship Church, I will give it a shot the next time I am up there.
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Sounds like King's Chapel. If you want to see a cool Catholic Church check out the Mission Church, then walk up the street to Penguin Pizza for a slice and a beer.
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Mr. Ected
Footballguy
Judge Smails
Footballguy
Bunch of arrogant Patriot fans who work for me keep telling me how Boston bar pizza is the best in the world. I don’t buy it. But if so - how do you rank ‘em? Tried Town Spa but it didn’t ship well
rockaction
Footballguy
I grew up in Northern Connecticut/Western Mass. I've never, ever heard of Boston pizza. New Haven, CT pizza, yes. New York pizza, yes. Boston pizza?
Did they send you on a snipe hunt?
