Remember that guide to Boston for London people I wrote a while back for Platform? I updated it for college kids coming to the city for their first year in the Phoenix's Student Guide. It's got 35% new jokes! Plus the same old ones you loved from the good old days. The illustrations are pretty rad too. So, you're welcome, fuckos.
Welcome to Boston, college kids. Despite all of the things we say every summer behind your backs about how great the city is when you're not here, we're actually really happy to have you. Mostly because all of the schools you attend give us a reason to feign civic pride when we're arguing with friends from New York.
As you get further acclimated to your new city, a lot of questions are probably going to come up. Like, "Why is the Phoenix running this college guide halfway through the school year?" And, "Just how slowly should I walk in front of traffic on Comm Ave on my way to class?" Fortunately, we're here to help you figure out the city with this comprehensive A-to-Z guide to everything that I could think of to make jokes about.
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AMERICA As you probably didn't learn in high school, we invented that shit here in Boston. I'm not going to get into a whole thing about it like those Tea Party jerkoffs 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 history 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 there by all the other shit that no one who lives here has ever seen. (Like the harbor.)
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AEROSMITH The geriatric soundtrack to our dads getting dry hand jobs in high school.
AFFLECK, BEN A filmmaker that we pretend still lives here.
ALLSTON A hipster enclave noted for its dive bars and sidewalk puke.
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BEANTOWN Do people call it "Beantown" in whatever weird state you're from? Because no one here does. 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. Whoops. 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, bonus history lesson: 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.
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BOSTON BRUINS The favored sports team of guys with goatees who wear cargo shorts in the winter.
BOSTON UNIVERSITY You probably go here! The luxury high-rise dorms are nicer than the palaces of some Saudi princes. Hell, those princes probably go here, so you can ask them yourself.
BOSTON COLLEGE The safety school for white kids from Connecticut who are pretty sure Jesus would have totally ripped bong hits and played corn-hole if he was kicking it at this tailgate.
BANK OF AMERICA Not just a convenient means of withdrawing your parents' money. If you pass one, it's an easy shorthand for knowing when you've covered a span of one city block. Whichever one you go to used to be the most amazing bar or rock club or hamburger joint of all time. Grab the first old person you see and they'll talk at you about it for an hour.
BEACON HILL Home to the State House, tons of overpriced brownstones you'll never get inside, and the historic neighborhood that invented the concept of the snooty, entitled Boston prick.
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THE CELTICS Pay close enough attention and you'll probably find that the guy named Steve-o who's punching you in the tits outside the bar right now is wearing a Celtics jersey. It's actually our local basketball team, famous for its lengthy history of NBA championships and equally lengthy history of being the adopted bandwagon team of insecure white guys all over the country.
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CENTRAL SQUARE Cambridge is Boston's Brooklyn. Central Square is Boston's Brooklyn's Williamsburg. It's a great place to see a band or DJ, or get knifed by an insane person.
CATHOLIC CHURCH A prominent group of real-estate speculators and pedophiles. Also the answer to the question, "Why are people from Boston so angry all the time?"
CHARLES STREET One of the ritziest streets in the city, it's renowned for its high-end antiquing — think about that one for a second — gourmet groceries, art galleries, and cute little cafes so precious you could snap them in half with an ill-timed boner.
COOLIDGE CORNER Largely Jewish (am I allowed to use that word?) neighborhood, home to old people, and, like, a vibrator factory or something. Also has a movie theater you'll probably end up at one night trying to impress some loser from your film-studies class.
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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.
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DUNKIN DONUTS Starbucks for people who drive trucks to work, or else really wish they did. If you don't see a Dunkies nearby, you've wandered too far from home, and you're probably about to get mugged. Good luck!
DORCHESTER Like Ireland World at Epcot Center, but with a lot more drunk house painters.
DIG, THE BIG In ancient history, Bostonians dug giant holes in the ground meant to move cars more efficiently from one side of the city to another, and to more efficiently remove billions in cash from taxpayers' pockets. We got a nice stretch of grass over on the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway out of it, though, so call it even?
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EUROTRASH Pretty sure they have these folks everywhere else, too, but this place is crawling with the fuckers. Our advice: avoid standing downwind of their BO-and-cologne-cocktail clouds. Look, someone needs to pay $60,000 a year to go to Boston University and purchase bottle service at the shitty downtown clubs, so thanks for coming, I guess. Wait, is European a race? Because in Boston we're only allowed to talk about race in the privacy of our own parlors and dive bars and sports-radio stations, so I don't want to offend anyone.
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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.
EMMANUEL COLLEGE Some sort of institute of higher learning, I'm guessing? Hard to say for sure.
E LINE How Northeastern kids would get around the city if they ever wanted to leave. (They don't.) And how poor people would get to the MFA if people who took the T ever actually went to the MFA. (They don't.)
FENWAY PARK Hot news tip here: this is where the Boston Red Sox baseball team plays. Sports is all anyone in Boston cares about. Even your most clichéd hipster pussies are sweating this game, and the game is always on, at every bar or club you will ever go to. If you're from Long Island and a big Yankees fan, you should get drunk at the bar and let everyone know that. It's a good way to meet new people.
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FANEUIL HALL Some boor you know is going to insist you check out this tourist trap/shopping mall/historical re-enactment plaza, or go drinking in one of its many cattle-staging areas for date rape and bro-fighting. Unsubscribe that person from your face.
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GREEN LINE This MBTA subway line is the oldest in North America. It was invented in the 1890s to ferry drunk teenagers to their dorms.
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GOOD WILL HUNTING Documentary about all of our blue-collar math geniuses.
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HARVARD Harvard is like the Harvard of Boston universities. Harvard. People talk about Harvard a lot here. Harvard. Two things to note: 1) The surprising amount of totally bangable chicks they've got going on over there, and 2) How clueless most of these idiots 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.
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HOSPITALS The ones here are some of the best in the world, Good news for you: if you fall and break your face, you'll be sorted out in no time.
IRISH 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 or another. That's because — and don't quote me on this — I'm pretty sure there are more Irish people in Boston than in 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.
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INSTITUTE OF CONTEMPORARY ART Here's another insider scoop: the famous contemporary-art museum in a big city has interesting art. Shepard Fairey farted out some of his phony bullshit here recently before getting arrested for sucking. I mean tagging.
INMAN SQUARE Inman is like what would happen if Harvard and Central squares had a baby, but they didn't really want it and were sort of dicks about the whole thing.
JFK Like everyone else that 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 in Boston, 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.
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JAMAICA PLAIN Come to think of it, JP is really Boston's Brooklyn, although instead of taking the L train to get there, you need a fucking jetpack or a helicopter, because this place is far away from everywhere. It's even far away from JP. Cute bars and restaurants here brush up against some for-real shady parts, though, so don't get tricked into thinking you're in the clear simply because you just spent the night wilding out at a queer-friendly dance party with all your girls from the gender-theory seminar.
KHED A catchall Bostonian townie classification that doesn't discriminate by age, gender, or sexuality. For example, "Let's pre-game at yowah apahtment befawr the facking Sawx game, khed" is what someone in Boston would say if they were asking their grandmother if they could come over for dinner.
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LEGALIZE IT Possession of under an ounce of marijuana is now just a civil violation in Massachusetts, 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.
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LANSDOWNE STREET About a dozen different clubs and bars here, including the House of Blues, which is nowhere near as awful as you might think and gets a lot of cool national acts. Everything else here is pretty much for tourists and college students, so . . . oh, right.
LESLEY UNIVERSITY It's right near Harvard! That's a thing.
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MIDDLESEX LOUNGE and MIDDLE EAST, THE 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, respectively. See the entry on Central Square for more info because this thing is getting pretty long and I'm running out of jokes.
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MURPHYS, DROPKICK Sounds like getting smashed in the teeth with a bagpipe. That's Boston in a nutshell right there.
MOLLY You're probably fucked up on this right now!
MIT Ladies, please don't underestimate the awesome douche-power of some east-Asian engineering genius with his first taste of boner autonomy. Dudes are not afraid to dance awkwardly in your private zone, and normal social cues like "Get away from me" won't necessarily work.
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NEWBURY STREET The schmanciest street in the city, with all the precious shoe stores and high-end salons in which people pay $500 to get their hair cut. Unfortunately, no one has figured out how to pass a law yet that makes the 20-year-old panhandlers at one end and essentially all of your moms hanging out on the other end invisible. NEWBURY COMICS is here. It's a store that used to be a record shop, which is a thing that used to exist. Now it sells youth-culture-related kitsch.
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NATIVE AMERICANS Just kidding, we've got no Native Americans — they were all killed a long time ago. But in exchange, they got some streets named after them.
NORTH END More cute little cafes and tiny, candle-lit Italian restaurants than you, or anyone else, will ever need. A new one just opened up as you were reading that sentence.
OPPRESSIVE WEATHER We've got two seasons here in Massachusetts. It's either gonna be humid and 90 or snowing up to your balls. You'll want to stock up on both snow boots and swim trunks when you move in, although there's really nowhere non-syphilisy to swim. Barring that, size-XXXL sports jerseys, cargo shorts, and flip flops seems to be the hot styles this (and every other) year, so if you want to blend in, you might have to suck it up on that one.
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PATRIOTS, THE The only thing that really matters in the world more than Tom Brady or Wes Welker, is the combined force of Tom Brady and Wes Welker. The fact that they lost to the Jets in the playoffs doesn't really change that, aside from the fact that I jumped off the Zakim Bridge and these are the last words you'll ever read from me. Tell my mother I loved her or whatever.
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PRUDENTIAL CENTER The streets of the city are laid out like they just looked at the tracks some horse wandered down 300 years ago and said, "Yeah, that'll do for a street." The point is, the Pru is one of the only really tall buildings around, so you can use it as a sort of landmark when you inevitably get lost.
QUINCY Commonly known as the city of presidents, if by "presidents" you mean meth dealers who are roommates with their uncle.
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RACISM Back in the '70s, the courts ordered desegregation of schools and started busing kids from one neighborhood to the next, causing riots and at least one attempted impaling with an American flag. In the '80s, some dude killed his wife and blamed "a black guy," and everyone went apeshit again. And last year, police in Cambridge arrested a black faculty member at Harvard for walking into his own house, but that one's cool because then he got to have a beer with President Obama. Actually, maybe we deserve the bad rep.
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REVERE BEACH Seems like a good idea for a day trip, until you realize that Revere Beach makes the Jersey Shore look like the Jersey Shore.
RIDING A BIKE Another seemingly good idea, and some of the streets here (especially in hippie-ravaged Cambridge) are zoned for bike lanes, but there is roughly a 100-percent chance that you are going to get doored by some clueless idiot blundering out of his car, so take it slow. Also, I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to fly through red lights riding with no hands and talking on your cell phone. Someone should look into that.
ROXBURY You're never going to go here, so don't worry about it. (See: "Segregation," unless the racists made us take it out.)
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 Fluffernutter lattes and fair-trade scones. 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 frat-douche-friendly Davis Square, I suppose. You might die of knife-poisoning elsewhere, though.
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STATE STREET The gateway to the city's cavernous downtown financial district you have no reason to go near, but also a state of mind for those of you who are majoring in economics or business and plan on spending the rest of your twenties wearing one of those blue fleece vests and punching your bros in the nuts for being fags.
STUDENT LOANS Just a minor technicality that you should be able to pay off in no time, given that fancy new bachelor's in fine arts you just got. I wouldn't bother paying them for another couple years if I were you.
SOUTHIE This is the neighborhood people in the rest of the country are talking about when they're talking about Boston: provincial, violent, racist, and segregated.
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 Harvard or MIT or one of the 50 other colleges around here. You probably know this firsthand. After most of you nerds graduate, you go to work for one of the many evil-scientist technology labs scattered around Kendall Square (don't bother going if you don't have to), where they perform biological experiments on babies and try to invent time machines.
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THE T A cute little subway system that stops running at like 4:30 in the afternoon, which means everyone who goes out to the bars has to drive. Moral of the story: don't be on the road after last call.
TED KENNEDY The late senator from Massachusetts was beloved 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. Bostonians also loved him because we all have the same giant pumpkin head and red gin-blossom face he popularized.
TUFTS One of the most expensive schools in the country, for some reason no one can really explain. It's located in Medford, which is where you're going to move if you're still here by age 30 and have given up on having fun.
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UNDERAGE I don't condone breaking the law (except when I do, like right now in these words I am typing), but smaller bars and restaurants are more likely to need your business and not care that you can't grow a mustache yet, so try drinking there like it's no thing. Not rolling in 10-deep, in a giant swarm of barely post-pubescent awkwardness, will help you keep your cover. That being said, your chances of getting served here before you're 21 are slim — yet another reason to curse the Puritans.
VELVET ROPE We don't really have too many posh nightclubs here where you, like, stand outside and the bouncer looks you over and lets you in if you're hot. That's mostly because no one here is hot. If you absolutely must seek out a place like this, then try the Alley down by the Boston Common, or the Financial or Theater District clubs. I'd write more about these types of places, but I have good taste, so I don't have any firsthand experience.
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WICKED Har har, this is a thing people here say. How quaint. Don't fuck it up if you're trying to fit in, though. 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."
YAWKEY WAY A good street on which to drink expensive beer out of plastic cups next to dozens of Boston cops and thousands of people from Norton, Framingham, and Billerica who hoofed it down for the facking game, khed.
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ZZZZZZ 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.
A version of this originally appeared at readplatform.com. Luke O'Neil can be reached at .
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10 comments:
Dresden Dolls = Insane Clown Posse for art fags.
Possibly the best thing I've ever read on here.
Thanks mate. Funny cause it's true innit?
(I'm British now.)
Verily.
(I'm British in 1650 now)
hillar+tru
Yes. KHED A catchall Bostonian townie classification that doesn't discriminate by age, gender, or sexuality. For example, "Let's pre-game at yowah apahtment befawr the facking Sawx game, khed" is what someone in Boston would say if they were asking their grandmother if they could come over for dinner.
Dresden Dolls suck. BU kids suck. Quincy kids deal heroin and OC's not meth.
Everything else is spot on.
I love the boston accent. I can even go as far as saying it's a turn on. Does that make me wicked retahdid?
<33333333333
No, it makes you fackin kweeyah though.
dood. this made me wicked fackin homesick, bruthahhhhhh. signed, the girl who used to live in medford post-degree but then skipped to san fran.
Come on back! ONE OF US ONE OF US
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