Boston Stories
Okay. Not too much to bitch about today. Well, I mean, I could, but I�m not in the mood. Imagine that. Me, not in the mood to bitch. And I haven�t even popped a pin today! In an answer to many questions around here for the past few days, Aunt Flo showed up yesterday for her monthly visit. That bitch and her 8.6 pounds. And her mood swings.
So, I figure I�ll tell more stories. I�m in that kind of mode. It�s going to be stories about my crazy days hanging out in Boston, one of the bestest cities in the whole world for fun.
A slight digression for a moment: my sister in law Lily got back to me regarding U2 tickets. $225 a piece, GA floor seats. Damn that�s expensive. $450 for a show? Ugh. I�m considering it, but alas, Hub is getting his new $2800 engine for his truck (�Then I won�t have to worry about that truck for a few years� he says, to which I say, �Bullshit�. It�s a Dodge. The tranny will be the next to go, I don�t care how good he says it is. Fucking Chrysler piece of shit. I�ll take my Chevy over a Dodge any day).
Anyway, I�m still considering the blowjob route as far as seeing U2 is concerned. Or just checking the paper closer to the show for the people who MUST SELL their tickets.
So. Boston. Here goes.
Back in fall 1993, I had this girlfriend, Gail. She was a nut. We met through my cousin a year before, when I was going to school nights and babysitting days, she needed a sitter for her son who was just a few months younger than Beavis. We hit it off really well. We liked the same music and liked to party.
She was married at the time, but it was toward the end of the marriage.
Anyway, Gail and I both listened to FNX back then, which was the �alternative� station. I LOVED that station back in the 90�s (I don�t listen to it anymore on account of the fact that there is so much new music out there that I absolutely cannot stand so much that I�d rather listen to the cheesey disco station . Sad, but it plays music that�s lively and plays the least amount of tunage that irritates me). Fucking Gail liked the station so much, she eventually got a job there as a sales rep. She was so good and so persistent, they CREATED a position for her.
Anyway, fall 1993, FNX had their 10th birthday bash at a now defunct club called Venus (which is now Mama Kin�s, Aerosmith�s club, I believe) and Gail got tickets for the two of us. I can�t even remember who played, mostly locals I think. All I know is, Gail and I got pretty damn drunk.
And so we were sitting at a table across from this guy who was so drunk, he was passed out sitting up. Gail, being kind of mischievous, decided the poor guy needed to be decorated with napkins and straws. I was not so inclined, so I watched. Well, the next thing you know, this guy started giving Gail crap about what she was doing to the poor guy. �He�s a human being, you know!�. Thus started a conversation between Gail and this guy who�s name was Mark. Gail felt like a jerk and we ended up hanging with Mark, who turned out to be the lead singer of Machinery Hall , a local band. We met the two other members, Paul and Dave, as well.
Two months later, MaHa came up to play a gig in my hometown. Gail had kept in touch, so we knew they were coming and went to see them. I totally had a crush on Paul, the drummer, who was just �dreamy�. Gail had the hots for Dave, the bass player (who eventually left the band to pursue marriage, family and career). That gig began our relentless following of MaHa all over Boston and the surrounding areas. It also began Gail�s pursuit of Dave, which was also relentless (she was separated by then).
Due to our having kids, we went down a lot on weekdays because babysitting was easier to get for both of us. For the first six months of 1994, we went down to see them an easy 1 or 2 times a week. It was a joke with the band that they didn�t believe we even had kids because we were down there so often.
We were their favorite groupies. We always ended up going to the after-parties with them. Paul was never interested in me, though. =( Not beyond a little flirtation. Gail, however, was all about Dave. We went to see them in Saugus one night, and she grabbed him and took him to the band�s van and gave him head till he was dead. She was nuts.
But so was I. (Sorry, pal, I know you�ve already heard this one). This was one of those nights I should have ended up dead. It was February, and MaHa was playing at a club in the Mission Hill section of Boston called Flann O�Brien�s. Actually, it wasn�t a club but a little Irish pub. It was a rare Saturday night out for us, and we was ready for some fun. Driving down, there was a huge, orange full moon. That should�ve been a first sign that the night was going to be wacky.
I was dressed for fun. I was only about 20 lbs heavier than I am now, but I still had no problem attracting men (especially when Beavis was home tucked into bed!). I wore this huge set of jean overalls, a tight black bodysuit underneath, and had borrowed Smokey�s huge velvet 70�s hat (I had to BEG for it, too). And my favorite pair of black suede Puma sneakers.
So, we were drinking some kind of Irish beer, doing shots of Sambuca, you know, a general recipe for disaster. I was having a blast, getting hit on left and right, getting shout outs from Mark onstage. It was great.
I spotted this hot punk dude from across the bar. I always had a thing for punk guys. Not the shit that passes for punk nowadays, like Good Charlotte or that shit, I mean, the original, real punkers. The ones who were really punk and wore combat boots or Docs and t-shirts that said Misfits, Black Flag, Sex Pistols, etc. And who didn�t give a fuck. And who lived in shitty apartments. And listened to Henry Rollins spoken word stuff (remember �pillow shoes� hee hee hee) years before MTV started playing �Liar�.
Anyway, this guy was tall, redhead, spiky hair and a nose ring. Cutie pie with an attitude. We struck up a conversation.
After that, my evening goes black. Totally. All I know from Gail�s account is that I was talking to him one minute, and gone the next. Of course, she admitted to being all shitty too, so it could have been more than a minute.
All I know is, I woke up naked next to him (also naked) on a couch in a major punk rock apartment in Roxbury. With the hangover from hell. He wasn�t so bad, he drove me home. Which is not a short ride. I was so sick, I didn�t talk much. I didn�t even remember his name, which I think was Doug, but he went down in history as Punk Nose Ring Guy.
Another night, MaHa was playing at TT the Bears, which is a popular rock club in Boston. I decided to stay sober this particular evening. Gail did not take that option. She got shitfaced.
She was such a bitch sometimes. There was another band playing before MaHa, and the singer was a fucking hunny. I remarked about it to Gail, not that I wanted to hook up with him, but just that he was hot. After they got done playing, I saw Gail talking to him and pointing at me. I knew she was up to something.
So, hot singer guy comes up to me. �Your friend� he said, �says I need to kiss you�. I was like, �My friend needs to lay off the sauce for a bit�. I apologized for her, but he was cool. �Let�s humor her� he said, so we kissed. We hung out for the rest of the night, and he gave me a tape of their songs, which I still have buried somewhere.
Gail ended up hooking up with a dude we�d met a few times before, �Mike�. After the bar closed, the three of us went to Mike�s place. I sat in the living room and smoked dope while Gail was upstairs in his loft (as in NO DOOR TO CLOSE) and got herself fucked but good. I heard the whole thing. Man, that chick was wild. I don�t think Mike knew what hit him.
When it was time to leave, I had to drive. Gail passed out the second she got into the car. Which posed a slight problem. I had no idea where we were. No clue. So, I had no idea how the fuck to get out of there. But, I�m always up for giving it the old college try.
So I tried. And tried. And couldn�t find anything familiar. I was getting so aggravated, I tried to wake Gail up. Not happening. I was like, �Gail, you fucking drunk ass bitch, wake the fuck up!� and nothing.
I was going under the Prudential building so often that I was saying, �Look kids! Big Ben! Parliament!� over and over. Finally, I decided to say �fuck it� to one of Boston�s lovely �No left Turn� signs and turned left. Voila! The sign I was looking for: �93 North�. Whoo! We made it home before the kids woke up.
One night in May, MaHa was playing up in Portland, Maine (another wicked cool city) at a club called Granny Killiam�s. Gail and I made arrangements to stay up there overnight and come back the next afternoon. We had another MaHa groupie, Kristen, with us as well.
Well, I ended up meeting the absolute hottest guy ever, Caleb. Caleb was my age, tall, long, blonde hair, and looked a lot like Kurt Cobain, but way better looking. He was beautiful. We met because he commented on my shoes, my black suede Pumas. He was from Colorado, in town for a wedding. After talking for a bit, I asked if he would be my boyfriend for the night. He happily obliged.
We got invited to a party up the street after the club closed. The perks of being �with the band� were fucking great. Caleb abandoned his friends and came with us. We made out like crazy at the party. Girls kept commenting to me how hot he was. I was all like, �I know and tonight he�s MINE!�. We couldn�t even wait for the end of the party. We left and defiled Gail�s car (a fucking Cabriolet, btw) like it had never been before. We parted ways, and I had to do the walk of shame up to the room at the inn we�d had for the night. That was definitely a night that went down in history.
I know this is getting long. I haven�t even touched the iceberg of the craziness we wreaked when we were with the band. One more story. Not involving sex or boys. Just pot.
This club was called Local 186, and MaHa was playing there in July of 94. It was in the Allston section of Boston. It was one of those two floor clubs, bands played upstairs and a quieter lounge area was downstairs. MaHa wasn�t going to be on for a while, so Gail, Kristen, me and some dude we were talking to went downstairs for some quiet. It was still early in the evening, so it wasn�t too packed downstairs. We found this room that looked like a big living room, with couches and lamp tables and stuff.
We sat down and shot the shit. This guy walks in and sits in a big easy chair by himself. He pulled out a bag of weed and started rolling one up right on the table next to him. I was like in shock. I looked at the guy we were talking to and was like, �Uh, do you see what he�s doing?�. The guy said, �Um, yeah, this is the smoking room. Wait a while, this room will fill up with people puffing away�. I said, �Oh my god, this is my favorite club EVER!�. I spent the entire evening in that room. And it did fill up. It was one big cloud of pot smoke. Never in my life had I ever been in a club like that, with a smoking room.
Local 186 was not open for much longer after that, btw. Hm. Wonder why?
Anyway, enough is enough. I could go on forever. Like the time MaHa was playing at Brown University in RI with Buffalo Tom and the Violent Femmes for an afternoon show, and we decided to take the boys. Beavis (who was almost 3) always had an attraction to skaters and punks and weird people in general and we sat next to a dude with blue hair. Beavis took one look at him and said, �Hey! That guy has blue hair! I WANT BLUE HAIR!�.
Or the time I met Beck at Axis on Lansdowne St. Or the night I got thrown into the pit at Avalon (also on Lansdowne St) when we were watching Heretix. Or the night I took Smokey down with us to some bar on Comm Ave, and he disappeared on us.
Yeah, I could go on and on. But I must cease and desist. Four pages in Word is quite long enough. Oh yeah, and I got to take care of the kids.
For all you weekday d-landers, have a great weekend. And make sure you watch the Pats beat the Eagles ass on Sunday!!!! I got me an interesting wager on that game, very interesting. But that�s between me and Imadad2 .
Adios, amigos y amigos!