So, in case I haven't mentioned it before, me and some NYC people are killing time until school starts by hitting the road and traversing the tiny state of Connecticut to get to Boston for the season opener. Boston is also the home of Loretta8, so I'm gonna try to find him at some point. Boston is also where I hear a lot of you punks will be. I'm not sure what the tailgating plans are - our planned schedule right now is "5 a.m., leave NYC, 9-12, drink, 12-3, watch game, 3-whenever, find things to do and maybe find a place to sleep, eventually, return to NYC" - but tailgating will be done. But if you're in Boston and want to come say hello to your site overlord(s), well, we should figure that out. I have a twitter if you need me.
So! Originally my plan was to a) make Sippin' on Purple t-shirts b) offer them for sale c) post a weekly road trip photo safari d) give the person who accumulated the most points via posting pictures on the SoP Facebook page got a t-shirt for doing the most dumb stuff in opposing territory. But I never made said t-shirts, so, instead we have this: a list of things to do in Boston.
Having had an older brother who went to Boston University, played in a jazz band that had a yearly contest in Boston, and once done Model UN (it was required for a class and I slept through practically the entire thing taking occasional breaks from sleeping to watch Youtube videos and make the pages deliver anonymous hate mail to the dudes representing Monaco and Liechtenstein), I've been to Boston give or take two dozen times. I know my way around decently. This means I have a built-up wish-list of things that need doing. Now, do I intend on doing most of these things? No. In fact, I intend on doing almost none of them. (I think you'll be able to tell which ones I don't intend on doing.) As previously noted, my weekend plan is hazy. But it's a series of suggestions, and your photo evidence of complying with as many of them as possible will be appreciated.
Five points: Wear Northwestern gear around Harvard's campus: One thing I've never understood is a extant minority of people who wear other college gear around Northwestern. Foremost among these is the guy wearing a Harvard sweatshirt on Sheridan Road. EVERYBODY KNOWS YOU DON'T GO TO HARVARD. YOU'RE AT NORTHWESTERN. I want to strike back, one Northwestern hoodie at a time.
Five Points: Get into a legit argument with anyone with a really, really thick Boston accent: Obviously, you can't provide photo evidence of this - I'll just have to take your word for it. If you can tailor your argument so that they can say one of the following words, you get bonus points:
- .5 points, words angry Bostonians might use anyway "Wicked", "cawk", "Boston", "queeah", "fack", "retarded"
- Three points, Boston sports terms, "Sawx", "Welker", "Papelbon"
- Five points, words related to Boston that probably don't come up that often: "Harvard" (Double bonus for Harvard Yard), "Departed", "Marky Mark"
- 15 points, Relatively esoteric words that you will have to have extremely specific arguments to get: "archery","Darfur", "marzipan", "Gargamel", "harlequin", "swiss chard", "barley", "parchment",
- 25 points: Words that will not only be extremely hilarious in a Boston accent but also extremely difficult to bring up in the course of a confrontation: "aardvark", "Charazard"
- Free rein of the site for a day: if they bring up "Arthur the Aardvark".
Drink, three points: Sam Adams. Is it a copout to go with a nationally famous beer in a category I would generally choose to highlight local breweries or drinks to go with the largest American-owned brewery, a brand you can buy in stores anywhere? Yes. But Sam Adams is Bostonian as all hell, and irrepressably dope.
Food item, three points: clam chowder. I don't see me and my broke road trip homies going to Legal Sea Foods, or really downing soup at any time during the weekend, which is unfortunate because clam chowder is pretty damn unmessable with as far as soup goes. Also, the tomato-based stuff called Manhattan clam chowder is gross. I don't consider it an offense to my hometown to say this about Manhattan clam chowder, mainly because when I was first told of the concept of Manhattan clam chowder walking down the canned soup aisle in a grocery store with my moms, I immediately pictured a dude trying to excavate clams from the East River on 20th Street near my house, where there is a place where seaplanes land, a gas station, and a bunch of big concrete buildings. I've since learned that the name doesn't imply the clams actually come from Manhattan, still, I swear that stuff off. The creamy stuff is where it's at, pause.
Five points: General obnoxious Yankees fandom/paraphernalia: I have my interlocking NY cap, am thinking about purchasing a coozy and much more. You people come into my city and wear your Red Sox hats with no inhibitions, and I don't curse at you. I don't taunt you about how many more times the Yankees have won the World Series, because that's insufferable and annoying. I frequently dislike my fellow Yankees fans and despise many elements of the Yankees organization, despite rooting for the team. That said, being a Yankees fan in Boston is pure glee. One of the first times I was in Boston, when I was 13, a middle-aged lady drove up in the car next to mine, saw that I was wearing a Yankees cap, and rolled down her window to call me a faggot. This was around the same time we were all being told that as Americans, we need to keep living our lifestyles because its why the terrorists hate us, if we stopped, the terrorists would win. It was also around the same time Aaron Boone hit a walk-off home run in Game 7 of the ALCS. Much as I was being told a bunch of scraggly bearded dudes in caves wanted to blow up my city because we have sugary breakfast cereals and treat women nicely, I pictured the entire New England region, with their t-shirts saying they rooted for the Red Sox as much as whoever played the Yankees, hating us because we were beautiful and had a bunch of shiny trophies. They seemed to hate me as much as they loved their own team, and they seemed morally corrupt. At the time baseball was my favorite sport, my passion for the game and my favorite team have since waned dramatically. But my passion for trolling the city of Boston and its people remains as high as ever. I expect to be called horrible things this weekend for the clothing I wear. Before you call me a dick for wearing Yankees gear to Boston to generate responses, think about how depressing it is that it's going to work.
15 points: Pissing on Fenway Park: No, not into the troughs inside Fenway.
If I had to chart public urination in my life, there would be peaks and troughs. My freshman year, stumbling back from - GARNETT? ARE YOU SURE WE'RE ON GARNETT? ISN'T IT GARRETT? - I ended up utilizing the back streets of Evanston more often than real bathrooms on late weekend nights. Now, considering I do all my socializing, eating, and sleeping in the same building, and we have working bathrooms, it's not as big an issue. Necessity rarely sees me caught without a pot to piss in.
I was much like this my sophomore year of high school. Never having really partaken, I hadn't been exposed to public urination - it seemed a petty offense, like stealing a coke from the corner store which I also never did because I was a good, uncorrupted child. So on the bus ride to Boston for our class trip, the concept of urinating on Fenway Park seemed exotic, like the biggest slap in the face a building could ever receive, whereas I genuinely have nothing against all those people who live on Sherman Ave. (still not named after me.) (yet.) So with me as the guide, a bunch of dumb New York kids in Yankees hats and shirts ended up walking down Landsdowne Street. We didn't need to pee, we just wanted to. We didn't have any reason to go to the park, it was a nippy February evening where baseball had no business even being thought of. All we had were hate in our hearts, Chien-Ming Wang t-shirts on our backs, and a need to be back in our hotel room by midnight.
Like Wrigley Field, Fenway Park is very obviously built within the confines of a city block, hence the extremely high, short wall in left field where the stadium runs into space issues. On the interior, it's the Green Monster. On the exterior, there is a brick wall with green support beams jutting out about four feet into the sidewalk. For a public urinator, it's heaven. On the opposing side of the street is a parking lot mainly used for baseball. On the other side, the stadium, which lays dormant all but 81 days a year. There's bars and restaurants on either side of the street, but in terms of foot traffic, little reason to walk down, leaving you free to urinate in peace. Even if a cop car did stroll by - and at this point, when public urination seemed a legit crime and not a lifestyle choice, this was my major concern - the supporting beams holding up the seats could hide all but the most morbidly obese of public urinators. Standing in front of the beam, I couldn't even feel the wind ripping away at my fingers. I felt as a young Michelangelo must have felt, for the first time presented with a large block of marble, salivating over the prospect of turning unformed potential into complex beauty.
The next year and the year after that, I did the same thing. I look forward to my return, although the Red Sox actually playing this weekend might throw a crimp into my style.
25 points: Stage a historically accurate reenactment of one of the following events: Paul Revere's ride (requirements: horse), Boston Tea Party (requirements: a boat of any sort, crates filled with tea), the Boston Massacre (costumes, muskets), Battle of Bunker Hill (thousands of British troops, several regiments of ragtag militia)
Five points: Go the entire time without hearing "Shipping Up to Boston": My ears bleed.
These is my half-assed list of Boston-y things. Enjoy - it's gonna be dope.