Labor Day in Boston

Finally I got a chance to finish this, but it was written right after Labor Day.

What do you call a city full of white people? Utopia? No sorry, the correct answer is Boston. I spent this past weekend in Beantown, here is a recap of my trip to the United States' most obnoxious city.

We leave Saturday at 7:30 AM, and make it to Boston in a record 3 hours and 20 minutes. Usually takes closer to 4 hours good start to the weekend. When you approach Boston from the New York area, you drive from the West on the Massachusetts turnpike and the first thing you see when crossing into the Boston city line is that Green Monstracity called Fenway Park. I drive by in disgust, I really want to go up to Yawkey Way and try and put a hex on the team. We get into town and decide to park off Newbury street. For those of you who haven't been to Boston, Newbury Street is a long street filled with restaurants and stores, nothing special just something to do. After walking for a while and finding nothing but thousands of people wearing the Red Sox T-Shirt Jerseys and we decide to go to the Cheers bar for lunch and meet up with my sister also visiting in town for the weekend. Okay here is the catch...There is a Cheers bar where the outside is filmed, there is a replica Cheers bar in another district and then there is the original Cheers bar somewhere else in town. It's pathetic… Boston is just soaking up the publicity a mediocre at best TV Show from the 1990’s. Yes New Jersey did the same thing with the Sopranos but at least that show was great. Nonetheless we eat at the bar where they filmed the outside at. Food was okay, nothing special just like this whole town.


Finally decide to head to the Hotel and check in. We are staying at the Westin on the Boston Harbor. Supposedly it's a nice area, on the water, it's away from where everything is at in town but that should be okay (little did we know it wouldn't be). So we start to drive and as we head further away from where we want to be the GPS says we are getting closer. We cross a mini bridge that says, Welcome to South Boston. Hmmmm, Southie, right that's exactly where I do not want to be. If you have ever watched The Departed that is where South Boston is. At least the hotel was extremely nice and it was still on the nice part of town but literally a two minute drive past we were I was expecting Frank Costello and Billy Costigan to be waiting for me. Right as we pull into the hotel my car starts acting up, I mean deep trouble type shit. I cannot accelerate from a stop position it literally takes 5 seconds to get going. This doesn’t bode well for getting home on Monday.

We arrive at the hotel standing in the lobby waiting to check in, and I'm wearing a t-shirt and my Yankee hat. Yes I'm that guy. In New York we see people all the time wearing Red Sox gear and unless you are at the stadium no one really says anything. We have more respect and dignity to verbally assault someone because after all this is life outside of baseball. But of course some drunken 60 year old mick bastard mutters something under his breath followed by a Yankees suck. Classy, simply the class of Boston showing it's colors within the first few hours of arrival. I ask the concierge to help me find a repair shop or dealer to take my car into and get fixed. After all his job is to help people find things in a city they are unfamiliar with. This no talent ass clown, takes a look up and my cap, looks back down and replies, “There is a gas station about two blocks further. That’s about all that’s open around here.” Wow, thanks for the help kind master of bullshit. I should have went back later and made him do research on a bunch of touristy stuff but to have me say thanks but no thanks I changed my mind.

After a nap and a shower, we head to Quincy Market which is one of the popular night areas in the city. It has an open air market type feel with a ton of stores, restaurants and bars. You know that preppy kind of East Coast feel. The Abercrombie and Fitch flag ship store is there, giant Urban Outfitters, Banana Republic, etc. It was kinda cool don't get me wrong but I felt out of place. I always joked about the Massachusett's uniform but I never saw it in person.

Home Uniform: Light Blue Oxford Shirt tucked into khaki pants with loafer type dock shoes and canvas hat.

Road Uniform: Cape Cod Red Oxford Shirt (Pink) tucked into khaki pants with sandals.

Alternate Uniform: Pastel Colored Polo (must look like an Easter Egg) with blue jeans and sandals.

Me however in my black Lacoste polo, 7 Jeans and Black Converse All-Stars was the anti-Boston uniform.

Next morning, we get up and go downstairs. It's amazing having a Starbucks in your hotel it changes your life. Granted it was more expensive, about a dollar more than a normal Starbucks but I guess you are paying for convenience. After we get our drink, some Irish guy started complaining about his drink. Saying, that there shouldn't be water in his Americana. Literally raising his voice stating the fact that he was a frequent coffee drinker. Never get between a man and his coffee, ever. I would have rather told him that Tom Brady was a closet fairy and I think that reaction would have been less intense than telling him an Americana has water in it.

For the afternoon adventures we decide to go back to where we were last night and explore what it has to offer during the day. The woman wanted to go into A&F to which I cringed. The loud awful music, the chic wanna be teenagers who make minimum wage with zero commission and have to spend the majority of their salary on the new seasonal items because the company mandates it. Gotta love fascist companies like that. Not to mention the half naked models out in the entrance to which Asian tourists feel obliged to take a picture with. It’s not the Hollywood sign people, move along.


Then we go walk around the North End aka Little Italy. I'm talking Guido Heaven. There is an Italian restaurant every other store, literally the same menu at every place but all with a different name: Guisseppe's, Luigi's, Mario's, Tony D's. Take any Italian name and they had a restaurant. And they all had a picture of the Italy National Soccer Team in the window from their World Cup victory. After getting lost in a Guidoville we stumbled upon the Old North Church and Paul Revere's House. Not gonna lie the house was pretty much shit, not really good location. Maybe 200 years ago Revere might have had value from that real estate but I wouldn’t pay more than $10,000 for that pile of crap.

After having lunch by the aquarium we wanted to take a taxi back to the hotel.

HUGE NOTE: If you ever get into a taxi with a navigation system you are in for trouble. If a cabby needs GPS he is new and has no clue where things are. So I tell him where we need to go, literally should be a 5 minute drive, approx 7 bucks or so to get back. Well this moron starts to take us to the other hotel in the opposite side of town, after yelling at him that he is going the wrong way we finally get back to the place we got picked up. Yes $8 later we were back to square one. Finally made it to the hotel with a fare of $17, I hand the guy a $5, tell him the rest can come out of his pay, he doesn't argue and idiot cabby #1 goes on his way.

The late Afternoon activity is to go over to the Cambridge area and walk around Harvard Square and the campus. Let me tell you something about Harvard, the East Coast may be known for being conservative, the Ivy league schools may have a feel of being stuffy and rich in tradition but going to Harvard I know see it as a liberal rag. Harvard Square was full of coffee stores, diversity restaurants, a bunch of Anti-Bush protesters, someone wearing a V for Vendetta Mask with a sign that said ‘SAY NO TO SCIENTOLOGY’. It wasn't as bad as Berkeley or places like that but wow I was disappointed. I was thinking more Good Will Hunting where everyone is walking around in tweed jackets and suede patches. There also was a park area surrounded by about 3 different coffee shops. There were tons of people just sitting in the park, not reading or playing just kinda sitting there and loitering. One nut job had F-U-C-K tattooed on his knuckles.

The biggest mistake of the night was heading back to Little Italy for dinner. The place was jam packed, I have never seen so many people on such a narrow street trying to eat pasta and wine. Some restaurants had 2 hour waits while some had people lined up around the block, literally. We finally found a place that was pretty damn good but that night was St. Anthony's Feast aka an Italian festival with drunk Itali’s, drunk College Kids, old People brown bagging it, homeless people with signs asking for beer money and cops doing not a damn thing. There was some kid, most likely a freshmen at his first weekend away from home, who was plastered and couldn't stand up and his friends were dragging him through the streets, shirtless with no dignity. Douche Award goes to this kid. Keep up the good fight plastered douchebag.


To live in Boston you need to either be: Irish, Drunk Irish, Belligerent Irish or Italian. There is no other way around it. It's the truth. I now know why Kevin Garnett made those comments about being a young black athlete in Boston. It makes perfect sense and anyone that gave him crap needs to spend a few days up there.

Finally it's time to leave and couldn't have come fast enough. And just like coming in, the last thing you see on the way out is Fenway Park. My car actually made it home despite getting fixed, turned out my car was starting in 3rd gear hence why I couldn’t get going. So that was a lovely $600 repair. Another trip to Boston, my disdain for that city grows deeper. There isn't much I can say about the Red Sox or Celtics this year as they both beat my teams this year. But the last 4 years doesn't change the 86 before that. There is always next year....