lobster

MASSACHUSETTS
Wendy's
"Vaterland"

 lobster

Massachusetts  [Connecticut] [Maine] [New Hampshire] [Rhode Island] [Vermont]

I lived there for so long, I hardly know where to begin! Do I cover my home town or take you to a Red Sox game? Maybe we should drive down the Mass Pike together and experience the wonders of political pork. Ooops, that'd be the Big Dig.

Know about that? Basically the state and the federal government are pouring about a zillion dollars into this enormous pork project designed to, I guess, relieve traffic in downtown Boston. They're sinking some arteries, adding on a bunch of new ramps, building tunnels, all this incredible stuff. Meanwhile they could have rebuilt a new, improved, or expanded T (that's the mass transit system) for about five percent of that cost -- and solved a lot of the traffic problems. Massachusetts is rife with pork like that. But to move on...

Boston is a great city. It's not as big as a New York or as full of "fun" as Orlando (a place I've never wanted to visit), but it's a classic for sure. Really the key to Boston is that it's incredibly European. The streets are narrow and winding, kinda confusing really. A lot of the buildings are old and crooked. Oh, and did I mention all the history hanging out there? Boston Tea Party, Old North Church, Paul Revere, all that? If you're one of those Revolutionary War buffs, you could do a lot worse than coming to Boston. But it'd be a nice city anyway. The T takes you around town for only 85 cents a ride and usually you can just walk wherever you want to go anyway. The Public Garden is gorgeous. Boston has several impressive museums, including the Museum of Fine Arts, The Museum of Science, and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum...

Whoah! But wait! That's for a tourist guide to tell you! Boston, to me, is a swinging place, a place to go shopping (Newbury Street), or, in your dreams, rent a brownstone and spend your nights reading at local bookstores. There are several big theaters and tons of food to be had. Other perks: If you're college student, you're in charge because colleges run the town. There are about three million schools in or near town -- from M.I.T. to Bunker Hill Community College -- and as a result, students outnumber regular old adults in some areas.

Another perk: If you're gay, Boston is like nirvana! Besides the clubs, the cruising spots (Newbury Street, anyone?), and the bookstores, Boston has got gays, queens, dykes, etc., in such abundance it makes you gasp. Sound good? Then go! Sound like your worst nightmare? Ah, jeez, live a little. Like the old slogan said, "Gay is Good."

Speaking of "sexual deviants," let's move out of Boston to where I spent my first three years at college. Yes, I'm speaking of the Pioneer (a.k.a. Happy) Valley. I went to UMass Amherst. I met many hippies and lot of people who think pot constitutes the fifth food group. Mind you, I'm not knocking pot (in fact I am in favor of legalization), but let me just say that it's a different world out there. In the Northampton-Amherst area, people are camped out on the liberal left, sometimes the radical left. Walk around there, hang out in the coffeehouses, and you'll meet communists pinkos, queers, feminazis, and nationalistic "PRs" galore. Everyone's an activist. UMass is plastered with political posters. There are rallies all the time. This March a huge coalition of students took over the financial offices to protest UMass' serious anti-minority-and-poor-people attitude and force them to be more inclusive and bring down costs. They actually got a lot of what they wanted. Last year this guy we called "Masked Man" gave Unabomber-like rants every day at 2:30 out by the Student Union. He was anonymous but he was awesome.

Other features of the valley include tobacco farms, gadzillions of bookstores, tons of professors, at least four other colleges besides UMass (those being Hampshire, Smith, Mount Holyoke, and Amherst), plus miles and miles and miles of hiking, biking, and rollerblading space. There's a great greenway going from Amherst to Northampton. An old railroad bridge takes you across the Connecticut River. Oh, and one more thing: check out the 26-story red brick UMass library. It's the Eighth Wonder of the World, I swear to God. Somebody has to knock it down!

Ai, yai, yai, where to go from the Happy Valley... I know! The TV news! Massachusetts, particularly the Boston area, is the most news saturated place you can imagine as far as TV goes. Coverage goes 5 a.m. to 9 a.m., 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., 5 to 8 p.m., and 10 p.m. to midnight. There's news on channels 2, 4, 5, 7, 11, 25, 38, 44, 56, and 68 -- and that's not even counting cable!

So there's a lot of news. What else? Well, these newspeople are really, really crazy. Boston is the slickest news town there is. Every show has a fancy set, promotional commercials, private traffic copters, theme music, everything. Every show also has something I think is really unique: the ability to overplay weather conditions to the max! Say you've got a regular snowstorm, something that drops around six inches. This is a normal, regular thing in Boston. You'd never know it on TV, though, what with their 48-hour Red Alert News Coverage.

It's ungodly how they overplay these things. It'll be snowing and you'll be stuck in front of the TV going, "How much longer can they go on about this?" You're so mesmerized you forget to actually shovel the driveway. You just think, "Oh, God, this snow must be toxic. It must be made of lead." What else could explain all the attention it's getting? Come on, it's just snow! So you're watching TV and this one channel has this poor old woman they always send out to stand on the beaches. She's all coddled in this fluffy, downy parka, wearing earmuffs, gloves, etc., and she's just screaming about this storm. The waves are crashing behind her and she's practically getting blown off screen. Basically all she ever says is, "It's so cold out! And it's snowing! Oh, my!" Is this news?

Alright, there's one more thing I have to tell you about Massachusetts. Now, remember your history lessons about the Industrial Revolution hit America in the nineteenth century? Well, Massachusetts is one of the big places where that saga occurred. Businessmen came in and built mills on all the rivers. They brought in farm girls, then, eventually, immigrants. Places like Lowell and Lawrence were known all over Europe, they were recruiting so much. Cloth all over the country was coming from places like that, plus North Adams, New Bedford, Northampton, and dozens more.

What's going on now? Well, mostly nothing. There are lots and lots of big, empty mills in these towns. In North Adams, one of them has been converted into a huge contemporary art museum. In Lowell there's a big state park that teaches people about mill history. In Lawrence a whole bunch of mills have been converted to outlet stores or furniture warehouses. Lawrence is also lucky enough to have Malden Mills, a factory that employs thousands to make the Polartec so coveted by outdoor explorers and the above-mentioned L.L. Bean-loving yuppies (see Maine). A lot of these towns have become depressing shadows of their former selves. North Adams is empty. Lowell is still besieged by immigrants -- many from Asia and Central America -- only now there aren't jobs for them. So shed a tear for those mill towns.

That's all I have to say for now. Eventually I come up with some more, but at the moment all I have left to offer are the links. Enjoy: