Boston -- Classic or Dirty Water?

The real golden stretch is Mass Ave in Cambridge between Central Square and Harvard Square, at least as far as used record store searching goes.

Thanks, Dan.

Also I would like to revise my prior post:

BOSNOT U HAVE NO CHANCE

EAT DICK FAGTOGS

Also, this isn't true. I've been to four clubs in DC and at least two of them were better than the Middle East. Of course being as we're discussing personal preferences in barhopping and shopping, IT'S ALL PRETTY GODDAMN SUBJECTIVE INNIT. The Middle East is one of the most overrated places I've ever been! Dan Perry OTM about how a lot of these things entirely depend on your mood at that exact moment; the apparent-spirograph-cobblestone-road-system in Boston tends to put me in a mood to hate every single store I've ever set foot in there, for example.

FWIW, Kim's puts me into fits as well. Tourist. Trap. For. Hipsters. But then again I hate indie record stores to begin with so your like supposed indie record store mecca isn't really a pulling point for me to decide to suddenly like Boston, kephm.

yeah, true that. like life itself. yes , it is confusing as hell to get around. I still get confused sometimes when in a car...
ive seen hundreds of good shows at the middle east. its sort of a dive, but some of us don't mind.

i was responding to tombot. he doesnt know what he is talking about.

goto Berks shoes in harvrd square to escape the indyfication

oonas is a good vintage(clothing) shop outside of hrvrd square...

Also, PHO PASTEUR! (Avoid the evil one in the Theatre District with the radically overpriced menu, though.)

My worst experience in Boston was trying to get to...the Sheraton? I think? My sister was staying there. We could see it but could find no conceivable way via roads, even using our Mapquest directions and a huge atlas map, to actually GET to the Sheraton. It appeared to be dead center in a labrynth. It would've been easier to get out of the car and just walk two miles or whatever to get to it. It was insane! I was certain it was a magic trick?

xpost: ts: "you don't know what you're talking about" vs "you have different expectations for a city than I do". The hysterical "stupid tourists!" approach is just kind of proving the Bostonites as bitter, chip on shoulder defensive assholes stereotype right which is unfortunate.

You guys should go to Bartley's Burger Cottage!!!! (if it's still as awesome as I remember)

Or Harvard Donut in Central Square)?? BEST FUCKIN MUFFINS EVER

It's not my thing; I expected different from what I received and wasn't entirely into the crowd there. Diviness or not had nothing to do with it.

I haven't been to Bartley's in years, but DAMN their burgers rock. Also, ANNA'S TAQUERIA!

you peeps jsut need to follow around geeta. (from her post way upthread) she knows her stuff.

So anyway when we all come to Boston you guys can all chauffer us touristas around and show us all the cool shit while I stand there disgusted by the fact that you boys's idea of "cool shit" is not "shoe store" and then we'll go to good restaurant and then we will get plastered then we will retire to my hotel room and then set fire to the curtains?

"Also, dim sum at Chow Chow city is U+K."

(Berk's in Harvard Square is an excellent shoe store, by the by.)

Whatever. he doesnt know what he is talking about. who am i talking to here anyways? you are taking what i was saying to him and following it up with what i said to you...

I JUST mentioned Berks two posts ago XPOST
: P

Bsoton is a small city. there is plenty to do. it is not nyc.
seems simple enough.

maybe my response to tombot was what you mean by "so boston". but if you have reads any of my other posts then you might know better.

(ooh I just remembered: Changsho on Mass Ave near Porter Square. They had the coolest matchboxes ever made!!)

yes, there are many preppie yuppie snotty people that are prolly rude to you when you visit. & you hate them. I DO TOO. but there are plenty of artists, writers, songwriters....nice people.

i am an artist, i dont equate my ego with my city. save that for superfans maybe. boston can be mega-rude. so can nyc. any us city i would think.

dont forget , there is more to do in nyc than boston. brilliant!
go bears

xpost: yeah man` twin city donuts is still around

Oh xpost, kephm finally figured out just what was so goddamned offensive about his fucking tone, hurrrrrrah.

um , yeah- tombot was nothing but charm in his list of points. riiiiiiight. so if you are bostonian you cant get angry? only if you are from DC. i get it.

xpost: ally- i do own a pickuptruck and i have lived out in the woods.

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I find these criticisms interesting, because so many of them are like...seeing Oxford Street and coming to the conclusion that London sucks, or going to Fifth Avenue and deciding that NYC sucks. Why bother listening to "Jamn 94.5" bullshit commercial radio when there are so many great college radio stations here? Turn that dial leftward! We've got some of the greatest college radio stations in the country--WMBR, WZBC, and WHRB, to name but a few.
First off, I've been living here going on five years now. I've never lived in "Boston" proper--I lived in Cambridge for 4 years (MIT), and now I work on documentary films for WGBH (the Boston PBS affiliate) and live in Somerville. I think in order to love/hate this place fully, you've got to experience all the parts of it.

Of course most of Boston--the rich, snotty parts, like the Back Bay--suck. Avoid them like the plague. Yes, Central Square (which is in Cambridge, not Boston) has become more gentrified..but look beyond Central; explore the outer edges..Jamaica Plain, Brighton, Allston, Somerville. South Boston. The parts of Cambridge that aren't directly on the T but still within walking distance. The parts that are less traveled.

There is beauty here; you just have to find it. And as much as I sometimes think I hate living here, I find myself getting defensive about it. Today in Central Square I ran into a group of kids from Berkeley. They were walking down Mass Ave, and one of them said "Dude, this is nothing like Telegraph." Of course it's not.. keep your alterna-hippies to yourself, I say. Sure, we don't have Amoeba Records, but we do have some fucking good record stores here! I live a stone's throw away from Other Music, Planet Records, Disc Diggers, Twisted Village, and Nuggets, to name but a few of the great independently- minded music shops around here.

So I found myself walking these Berkeley kids around Central Square, pointing at things and saying "See this bank? This used to be an anarchist bookstore. See this Gap and this Starbucks? This block used to be full of great independent coffeehouses." I felt terrible, and cheesy, a back-in-the-day geezer even though I'm in my 20s. But this small-town city is a part of me. Then I pointed them out to some interesting places that they should go. I cheer for the little independents around the city that are still thriving, and support them as much as I can. Central Square still does have things going for it. The Middle East, for one, (with many great & cheap shows this year!), Harvest, 1369 Coffeehouse, etc. I live near Davis Square now, which has got a good amount of independent coffeeshops, bookstores, and bars...good restaurants, and its own modest little art scene that isn't New York in scale but doesn't try to be. Everything here is in miniature, but there's something odd and wonderful about that sometimes.

Sometimes I feel like I'm living on a sinking ship--like this place has had it's day and now it's over. But that's like crying and saying that you'll never listen to an other band after the Pixies broke up, because they were the best band ever. (Mind you, I did this.) You've got to keep looking around for the interesting bits of life. And when I move out of here for good in August for grad school, I think I will miss it sorely, because for as many faults as Cambridge/Somerville/ Boston/etc have, they've still got a lot of good, and a lot that we take for granted.

And hey, if anyone is visiting the Boston area, send me an email and I'd be glad to show you around to all the glorious weird bits that still lie below the surface.

-- geeta (geet...), February 24th, 2002.

Asshole. Writing a nasty post about how someone else is "dense" while calling them a "motherfucking redneck" is just about the stupidest, contradictory thing I've seen anyone do in a long while round here and this place is full of overwrought jackasses (hello GANGS OF ILX) so a winner is YOU.

* lest anyone get confused, I'm not advocating this point of view.

he was an ass. i was an ass. the difference being, he doesnt know what he is talking about when he talks of what to do (or not to do) in boston. i might of jumped all over him, but if you read all of the posts about boston, people shit all over this place. and that sort of bums me out.
i picked out tombot cause it was the last offending post on the thread.

nyc is a small pond? in what universe?