Friends and I tend to meet up at the Pushcart in the North End every Thursday night. My NE boozer of choice used to be the Different Drummer, way back when, but that building was sold 2 years ago and now resembles the Parthenon. It’s yuppie bait. This neighborhood is being snapped up and developed quicker than you can say ‘gentrification’ – but the compensation is enormous. These buildings are lottery tickets, hold-outs are cashing in and post-Big Dig Boston’s downtown is about to become an incredibly beautiful and therefore yuppified place to live. The neighborhood flips every century or so. Ira gave it up to Seamus, Seamus split when Anthony arrived and now Anthony is passing the torch to Biff and Bunny.
As the affluent yutes move in, and the demographic collides like a gas truck into a Girls Gone Wild tour bus – there are bound to be oil and water type problems in the 02113. Never was that more apparent to me than last year when I wrote about a community meeting I attended which was called due to excessive late noise by the aforementioned yutes. But there’s actually a lot of yute-on-yute crime, which doesn’t involve the natives, that’s just as disturbing.
I saw what was perhaps the worst, silliest, non-fight I’ve ever witnessed 10 minutes ago as I was walking back from the Pushcart (awesome pizza, by the way) on the corner of Prince and Salem. A tall skinny white kid with longish hair was screaming at another 20-something on the opposite end of the as equally skinny street. “Do you know where I live? Do you know where I live?” The abusee responded “Why are you flipping out on me man?” To which hockey hair replied “Do you know where I live?”
Maybe he was lost, in retrospect. But just in case – can I jump in here?
Jerktown? A Wu Tang Clan video your older brother let you watch when you were 10? OK I give up. Where do you live? Let me guess – Brooklyn? Fuck off. As I walked away from the ‘fight’ I chuckled, remembering my 20s in Canada where knock down, drag out slugfests would start in front of a Slush Puppy machine over the last squirt of blue raspberry syrup. And that was the gay bar. I swear I just went in to use the ATM.
People who don’t want to fight make a lot of noise in hopes of getting a post-bravado smile from a passing skunt. People who really will fight will just walk up and pop you with little to no ado about anything. And I love watching that two second moment of facial realization before head meets concrete when the two worlds collide. Especially when it isn’t my face.
This is a great place to live. Don’t drag this late night pseudo toughguy horseshit into it. If you’re going to call someone out, hit the mutherfucker. I’d gladly grab a Buffalo chicken calzone and stick around to watch. Otherwise, let us get some sleep you silly Laguna Beach watching bastards. You ain’t gonna do a goddamn thing.

