WORDS: LUKE O’NEIL

I just got done doing an imaginary interview with the director of tourism in the mayor’s office here in Boston, and while she couldn’t give me exact numbers, she estimated that anywhere between a shit load and a deluge of Londoners turn up here every year to come look at our historical architecture and not tip our waitresses and bartenders. Most tourists who go anywhere are clueless, but come on you guys, Boston is basically London, the sequel. With that in mind, here’s a few things you’ll need to know before you come (AKA everything that I could think of to make jokes about on short notice).

AMERICA
We invented that shit here in Boston. I’m not going to get into a whole thing about it like those Tea Party cunts who love freedom and believe Jesus is the president of the clouds. But if you’re coming here, you’re probably going to get douched in the face with this nonsense everywhere you go. Go see the spot of the real Tea Party if you want (you don’t). It’s right in the harbor over by all the other shit no one who lives here has ever seen (like the harbor).

See also: Aerosmith, the geriatric soundtrack to our dads getting dry handjobs in high school; Affleck, Ben, a filmmaker who we pretend still lives here; Allston, a hipster enclave noted for its clubs and sidewalk puke.

BEANTOWN
Do people call it Beantown over there? Because no one does here. Unless you’re being ironic, and then you know how that goes: starts out as a joke, then turns into the way you actually talk. Woops. So I guess I was lying, we do call it that. Hip hop heads call it Beantown a lot too, now that I think of it, but pretty much the only thing they have to rap about besides their own personal name is the name of place they live. Anyway, back in the day we used to eat a lot of beans with molasses here, and there was this thing known as the triangular trade system. Slaves in the Caribbean harvested sugar cane, which was sent to Boston and turned into rum. The rum was sent to Africa to buy slaves to send to the Caribbean. That means everyone who drinks rum is racist.

See also: Boston Bruins, the favored sports team of guys who wear cargo shorts and goatees in the winter; Bodega Girls, electro party jamz that fuck you real slow-like, then call you the next day.

CELTICS, THE
The guy named Steve-o who’s punching you in the face outside the bar is wearing a Celtics jersey. You’re probably familiar with the general concept from hanging around Scottish football fans. It’s actually our beloved local basketball squad, famous for being adopted by insecure white guys everywhere.

See also: Central Square, Cambridge, Boston’s Brooklyn. Central Square is Boston’s Brooklyn’s Williamsburg or like your Shoreditch or wherever you East London fashion turds hang out now. It’s a great place to see a band or DJ, or get knifed by an insane person; Catholic Church, a notable group of real-estate speculators and pedophiles.

DRESDEN DOLLS
This punk cabaret duo / performance art project were basically Insane Clown Posse for art fags, but, you know, good. Singer Amanda Palmer is the closest thing we have to a rock star these days, which is great because it makes all the dad-rockers still haunting the clubs here pissed off.

See also: Dunkin Donuts, Starbucks for people who drive trucks to work; Dorchester, Irish Disney World.

EUROTRASH
Pretty sure you have these over there too, but this place is crawling with the fuckers, who you can avoid easily by heading downwind of the B.O. and cologne cocktail clouds. Someone needs to pay $60,000 a year to go to Boston University and buy bottle service at the shitty downtown clubs though, so thanks for coming, I guess. Wait, London doesn’t count as Europe, right?

See also: Esplanade, a gorgeous stretch of parks along the Charles River. Great for jogging, biking or cruising for blow jobs in the bushes; Emerson College, where creative kids who didn’t get into NYU go to major in coke and girl jeans.

FENWAY PARK
The Wembley Stadium of Boston — except we didn’t sell out and build a make-pretend new version of it. This is where the Boston Red Sox baseball team plays, and if you think I’m talking a lot about sports it’s because that’s all anyone here cares about. Even your most cliched hipster pussies are sweating the game, which is always on, at every club. Good story, bro. It’s got a point though. The point is, Sports.

See also: “Fucking retahded,” just rolls off the tongue; Faneuil Hall, some asshole you come here with is going to insist you check out this tourist trap. Tell that person to fuck off.

GANG STARR
I used to think Manchester was the greatest musical city in the world up until about five minutes ago when I started writing these dumb jokes, but then I remembered Gang Starr and the Pixies and Dinosaur Jr. and… actually, Manchester still wins. But nice try anyway, Boston. Guru is from Roxbury, kehd, which is an area of Boston you will never visit, so don’t worry about it.

See also: Green Line, subway line on the T system that is the oldest in North America, invented in the 1890s to ferry drunk teenagers of the future back to their dorms; Good Will Hunting, documentary about all of our blue collar math geniuses.

HARVARD
Harvard is like the Harvard of Boston universities. Harvard. People talk about Harvard a lot here. Harvard. Two things to note here: 1) the surprising amount of totally bangable chicks they’ve got going on over there; 2) how clueless most of these retards are. It’s hard enough picturing some of these future Hollywood agents and hedge fund criminals piloting their goofy feet around a pigeon turd on the sidewalk, never mind ruling the universe some day. And yet here we are.

See also: Hospitals, the ones here are some of the best in the world. Good news for you: If you fall and break your tits you’ll be sorted out in no time. Make sure to bring the deed to your parent’s house though.

IRISH, THE
You can’t puke Magners out your nose around here without splashing that shit all over the bright red walls of some faux Irish pub. That’s because, and don’t quote me on this, I’m pretty sure there are more Irish people in Boston than all of Ireland. That means every day is like St. Patrick’s Day here, which is great because it combines three cool ideas: religion, national pride and drinking like a homeless street fighter. The only way any of that could be worse is if we had a day dedicated to celebrating the Italians. No offense to Italians.

See also: Institute of Contemporary Art, here’s an insider scoop: The famous contemporary art museum in a big city has interesting art. Sheppard Fairey farted out some of his phoney bullshit here recently before getting arrested for sucking — I mean tagging.

JFK
Like everyone else who was ever important in American history, the 35th president of the United States was born here. No one will ever let you forget about this dude here, so get used to drinking under posters of the deadest president saint. That’s like not turning over the picture of your mom and dad on the dresser while you’re fucking, BTW.

See also: Jerry’s Kids, a seminal Boston hardcore band that people pretend to like because it sounds authentic. Only snag there is that hardcore is gayer than a pink boner.

LEGALIZE IT
Possession of under an ounce of marijuana is now a civil violation, so it’s like getting a speeding ticket. “What about dudes who are holding over an ounce?,” you might ask? Those people are fucking stupid, that’s what. Pot is for fat people anyway, so never mind.

See also: Lansdowne Street, about a dozen different clubs and bars here, including the House of Blues where you can see, like, Crystal Castles after you slept on them last time and get bummed out by the size of the crowd.

MIDDLESEX LOUNGE AND THE MIDDLE EAST
Two clubs you’ll be fine wandering into on any random night of the week to see something hot, whether it’s electronic or indie rock. See the bit on Central Square above for more info because this thing is getting pretty long and I’m running out of jokes.

See also: Murphy’s, Dropkick, sounds like getting smashed in the teeth with a bagpipe, so… that’s Boston in a nutshell right there; Mystery Roar Sounds, like getting smashed in the vagina with a lubricated synthesizer.

NEWBURY STREET
This is like our Bond Street with all the precious shoe stores and high-end salons. But unfortunately they haven’t figured out how to pass a law yet that makes the crusty punks hanging out here invisible. Newbury Comics is here, a store that used to be a record shop. Now it sells youth culture-related kitsch.

See also: Native Americans, just kidding, they killed all those people here, but in exchange they got some streets named after them.

OPPRESSIVE WEATHER
We’ve got two seasons here basically, which blows — but it’s one more than you’ve got, so don’t judge. It’s either gonna be humid and 90 or snow up to your balls. You’ll want to pack both snow boots and swim trunks. Although there’s nowhere non-syphilisy to swim.

See also: Old People, not as bad as you’ve got it there, but our old people are fucking pissed about one thing or another all the time. Try not to be so young and laid and fucked up in their faces if you can help it because it reminds them of the brutality of an indifferent universe.

PRUDENTIAL CENTER
The streets of the city are laid out like they just looked at the tracks some horse wandered down three hundred years ago and said, “Yeah, that’ll do for a street.” (That’s actually what they did.) The point is, the Pru is one of the only really tall buildings around, so you can use it as a sort of compass when you inevitably get lost.

See also: The Pill, our Brit indie dance night is one of the best in the city. Probably the same shit you had going over there at Trash; The Phoenix, a newspaper I write for that covers shit you might actually care about. Like my interview with Marina this week.

RACISM
Back in the ’80s some dude killed his wife and blamed “a black guy” and everyone went ape shit. Before that in the ’70s there were riots when the courts ordered desegregation of schools and started bussing kids from one neighborhood to the next, which, holeee shit, that was in the ’70s, dude. Then they tried to impale black people on American flags.

Oh, then last year the cops arrested a black faculty member at Harvard for walking into his own house — but it’s cool because then he got to have a beer with Obama. Maybe we deserve the bad rep actually.

SOMERVILLE
The city adjacent to Boston and Cambridge was primarily a working class enclave until assholes like me moved in and decided we wanted a place to spend $15 on a coffee and fair-trade scones, or whatever. Still has some of its grit though, on account of, shit, what are they called again? Oh right, the South American drug gangs. You won’t die of boredom in lesbian and college douche friendly Davis Square over here, I suppose. You might die of knife-poisoning elsewhere though.

See also: Sheila Divine, anthemic, screamy rock trio from Boston that should have been world famous. They didn’t take into account how bad everyone’s taste is though.

TECHNOLOGY
Aside from drunk Catholics, disenfranchised minorities and swarms of hipster pussies, the other thing we’ve got a lot of in Boston and Cambridge is fucking nerds, all of whom go to either Harvard or MIT or one of the other 50 colleges around here when they can’t get into either of those. After they graduate they go to work for one of the many evil scientist technology labs that are around MIT in Kendall Square (don’t bother) where they perform biological experiments on babies and try to invent time machines. (Hurry the fuck up on that one, please.)

See also: The T, a cute little subway system that stops running at like 11 P.M., which means everyone who goes out to the bars has to drive. In other words, don’t be on the road around 1:30. Don’t ride a bike either because you will get dead fast.; Ted Kennedy, the late Senator from Massachusetts was beloved here for decades because he didn’t think poor people should be legally compelled to die, which is what passes for a radical left wing agenda in this awful country now. Boston actually loved him because we all have the same giant pumpkin head and red gin blossom face he popularized.

UNDERAGE
Sorry, but if you’re under 21, you are shit out of luck here when it comes to drinking most places. There are the occasional 18+ clubs like the Middle East and 18+ dance nights like Throwed, where the kids go apeshit. Smaller bars are more likely to need your business and not care that you can’t grow a mustache yet.

WICKED
Think we stole this one from you guys, so you get the idea. But instead of just saying “wicked,” you have to use it to modify something else. For example “I am wicked fucked up and having a blast right now because I read this amazing guide to Boston.”

See also: Weekly Dig, another local arts weekly which you should pick up as soon as you get here to find out where to go to increase your odds of convincing someone with the same taste in music as you to trade genital sweat later that night.

ZZZZZ
I got to go, this is getting way too long. There’s probably some shit to do for the other letters I skipped, but I’m not gonna plan everything for you, dude. I’m not your fucking dad. As far as I know.

-PLATFORM

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