Step in the arena (and shut the fuck up)

Remember that thing a few years ago, where everywhere you went, you would see a million girls fronting like they were Karen O, and you wanted to say to the 99.99% that were not Karen O, "Hey, girlfriend, you are not Karen O, so quit fronting like you are"? Well, it's the same thing, except it's just Bill Simmons doing the fronting, and he's fronting like he's Jane Jacobs instead of Karen O.

Certainly, with its near-limitless resources, ESPN could afford to hire a lackey whose job it is to slam the laptop shut on the Sports Guy's hands whenever he gets a notion to write about the cities where the events he attends take place. The New Orleans column was bad enough, but the return-to-Boston column is a work of such stupendous narcissism and jackassery that I cannot let it pass without comment. The recap of the game is fine, the account of how pro athletes from other Boston franchises turn up at Celts games was nice, though the reference to the "three relevant franchises" (ie not the Bruins) suggests that Simmons has imbibed the frontrunning habits of the worst of the LA fans he claims to despise.

But when Simmons steps out of the arena is when the screen should come down on the knuckles. I do not read Simmons regularly, but in the wake of the New Orleans "things looked fine on the way from the hotel to the arena" story, I was interested to see what he had to say about his return to my hometown. The sociological method based on a walk from the hotel to the arena holds true here, and Simmons does not disappoint.

What I learned:

1) The Big Dig rendered Boston "impotent" and assumed the status of an existential fact of life, rather than a construction project. (If your tenure in Boston coincides exactly with the project, maybe.)

2) One of the primary benefits of the considerable transformations wrought by the Big Dig is that they shoot Bruce Willis movies in Boston now. 

3) Best of all:

The dramatic shift in fortunes is symbolized by one piece of turf in Beacon Hill, right next to the Storrow Drive West ramp, about a block from the top of Charles Street, formerly the home of Buzzy's Roast Beef. For the uninitiated, Buzzy's was the 24-hour place you went after a night of drinking for some unhealthy food; if you were lucky, you might run into a couple of girls there and strike up a conversation, only there was nowhere to go because the bars closed at 2 a.m., and besides, both parties were covered in cheese and barbecue sauce, so nothing would have happened, anyway. It was located right next to the Charles Street jail and Mass General Hospital, in a stretch of Beacon Hill that always seemed to have stabbings and muggings.* As the old adage went, it was OK to stumble out of the Beacon Hill Pub and walk straight to Buzzy's, as long as you never took a right.
Where's Buzzy's now? It's in Roast Beef Heaven. The jail has been turned into a boutique hotel called The Liberty that happens to have the hottest bar in town, a place called Alibi that's unlike any Boston scene I can remember. There's a doorman, valets, celebrities, $12 drinks and dressed-up women hoping to hook up with rich guys, as well as an extensive line just to get into the hotel to drink upstairs in the Bar That Nobody Really Wants To Be At Because They'd Rather Be At Alibi.

On the Planet of the Sports Guy, gentrification = renaissance. In addition to soaking up the Zima in Simmons' belly after a long night at the pub, Buzzy's was  also the place where people with loved ones at Mass General Hospital could take a little break from watching somebody die and get a roast beef sandwich. Somehow, a $12 Cosmopolitan does not fill that niche.

Make no mistake. There are many things I am nostalgic for that are no longer part of Boston -- four dollar bleachers, Romagnoli's Table, Cam Neely, and the Channel to name but a few, but the Central Artery ain't one of them. But for a kid from the suburbs, who spent a few years in the sliver of the city that functions as a post-collegiate playpen, and who returns on an expense account to watch a couple of basketball to presume to speak for the experience of living in Boston pre or post dig, is someone who his taking his journalistic cues from this lady.
*Spoken like a kid from Connecticut!

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Comments

[Rose's Lime]

I didn't find as much to despise in Bill's piece as you do. If you deny a columnist the right to tell his personal narrative what's left? This is Page2 after all. It's like Rupert Murdoch faulting the center column of the WSJ for not having anything to do with business or news (which, my sources say he has).

And if we demanded he make a fair sampling of late night eateries, we'd find:
The Tasty - Gone
Nemo's, Three Aces, pretty much any place in Kenmore - Gone
Riley's Roast Beef - now a BBQ place that I'm guessing is just as nasty.

I read a lot more equivocation and naivite into Bill's comumn... his wistfulness for an age when a Suburban kid could visit one of the city's wealthier neighborhoods and feel the thrill of urban bogeymen... or a city with one block of elevated subway lines (as opposed to most of Chicago, Brooklyn & Queens).

Oh, and the film shoots, it's nice to think tax breaks bring in business, but breaking up the Providence mob had a little something to do with it.

For me, it's nice that he skipped over the trite "this aint the garden, it's a sanitized, media-enhanced, disneyfied, made for TV, FleetBankofAmericaTDBankNorthCMGI Garden" angle. Though truth be told, in my opinion, that's what's wrong with the whole NBA and why I barely follow the sport anymore.

Oh, and I'm rooting for the Lakers because I likes the Celtics like Charles Barkley likes cottage cheese.

[The Gurgling Cod]

I suspect being born and raised in a Boston that is very different than the one that exists now had an impact on how I read the Simmons piece. Go Celtics!

[BK]

Still, I hope he's right about there being a "roast beef heaven." Mmm, roast beef....

P.S. I ran into Cameron M's wife a few years ago at another place what's now gone to heaven -- Fresh Pond Seafood. I would never say anything to cross Mr. Neely in the slightest, but suffice to say, he has excellent taste in both women and seafood.

[The Gurgling Cod]

No more Fresh Pond Seafood? Crap! I remember a harrowing trip to the Fresh Pond Whole Foods, realizing at the rotary that I'd forgotten to buy the lemon I needed, remembered that they would likely have them at Fresh Pond Seafood, and when I ran in, and raised eyebrows buy buying just a lemon, they refused to take my money.