Music, Music

As I've said, the only North End music I've heard has been that of thumping bass and accordions (which could be a killer techno tune) but I saw this guy at Faneuil hall. I would rather here this guy through my floor at 1 am than any of the shit I do here. Pipe Dreams.

Owen Plant.

The World According to the Window on the Left

This is a picture of a Sunflower on my window ledge. Hopefully warding away miserable, elderly Italian men with its happiness. It's the view from the left window of my apartment. This image is so beautiful I wish I had a poem or caption to go with this picture. I'll write one now.

"Reflection: a haiku"
Flower do you see
There are two of you. Act'chly
three, if you count the reflection, right?


"Another Haiku For Serious This Time: a haiku"
You look like a sun
or wait, no, what is it? an
anus with petals

Jokes That Never Get Old

I realized my last post wasn't truly about the North End. It happened in the North End, but excuses, excuses.

Here is an adventure I had about a year ago in Mike's Pastry. I had taken pictures, but never developed them from my disposable camera.
Mike's Pastry is a pastry shop with Italian pastries of the delicious varietal. It's always very busy. Lines out the door.

This is a picture of a cake my friend Adam and I bought when we were blasted.
As we purchased the Boston Cream, the woman at the counter said, "what do you want on it?"
To which we looked at her, looked at each other, and Adam said, "chocolate."
She didn't mean chocolate.
"What do you mean?" I said to lady.
"We write something on it."
"How much does that cost?"
"It's free."
Adam and I consulted each other.
just a dick. just a dick. Haha. No way. something inappropriate but won't get us in trouble.
"POOP!" I screamed.
"Pardon me?"
"Poop," I clarified for the woman, "I want it to say poop."
"Can you write that down."

I wrote "POOP". Adam conceded however that there should be a "!"
"I agree."



Poop we wanted, and so it did say.

I think I just wrote a cheesy, educational video

I'm going to include you all in what I'm doing because every time I talk to my mother she tells me, "Communication is the key, Nathan. Communication is everything."
Regardless of what were discussing. Her advice on relationships, school, life, blablabla - always "Communication".
For all I know, her endless talk about it could have been the catalyst that piqued my interest in the subject, leading to my choice of Major in college, which will subsequently lead to a lifetime of being broke, without a marketable skill to my name. So when I'm a waiter at T.G.I.Fridays in 1o years, I'll know who to thank...ma.
Communicate on that.

Anyway, without a job, a lot of time, and an unquenchable thirst for knowledge (though mostly with a lot of time) I decided to teach myself Organic Chemistry and Spherical Trigonometry.

I wanted to include you all in my learning experience. I found a free book online teaching spherical trigonometry! How fucking excited are you?!
So find your balls, whip out your protractors, and lets find the right angle. Hey yo!

Also, let's keep this under wraps because if there was ever a reason for a high school jock to beat you up. This is it. Don't go trying to find the circumference of his sports equipment. And if you do, don't tell him that you just needed to measure his balls... especially while he's kicking your ass. That is no time for communication.

Thank you


A Brief Illustration of Spheres



Metal testicular implants.




Behold...the future.




The spirit of a generation.*


*P.s. I tried to blot out the non-spherical portion of this man's anatomy, hopefully making it less inappropriate. It turned out looking like he came all over her hand, making it doubly as inappropriate.

The North End can stick it up its South End.

I was caught red-handed.
I had distributed chowder among guests at Legal Sea Foods without making them pay for it. The managers do it, why shouldn't I?
"Meet me downstairs," my manager sternly told me in the middle of my shift.
"We are very disappointed. Where is that check for the table with chowder?"
"There isn't a check. It's chowder."
"Stealing is stealing, Nathan. We fire people for things like this. It would be a shame to have to fire you over chowder."
Yes, I thought, it would also look like poor management.
"You're suspended for three days. We'll see you Wednesday at 9 am. We'll see whether you still have a job here or not."

Wednesday morning came. I woke up at 7. I pressed my pants, my shirt, and cleaned my dress shoes. I arrived 10 minutes early to give the impression I care. At which point, 25 minutes later, at 9:15, my manager sat me down.
"I think you saw this coming. At this juncture I think we'll be parting ways."
I wasn't sure if I was fired or if he was sending me on vacation. I looked down at my clothes. Everything was clean and pressed. If I had foresaw my termination, wouldn't I have chosen anything else? Gym shorts and flip flops, maybe?
No, he was firing me. Over chowder. But he didn't even fire me. We were just parting ways. Like old friends who move to different parts of the country.

More North End updates include, but are not limited to:

1.) Drive by Drunken water bottle fights. Never fuck with the North End Gang.
Yes, there's a gang. Fighting for creamier cannolis and bigger pizza slices worldwide. "North End" is tattooed lengthwise down their for arm. Like this:
N
O
R
T
H
(space)
E
N
D

2.) Self- destructive watermelons. Have you ever seen a watermelon spontaneously explode? It's cause you don't live with me.
This is what it looked like after I was forced to dispose of the ticking time bomb, which was only after it hissed and foamed at us.



You can see where it was foaming right above the watermelons heart which was projected onto the oven pan.

3.) Patty works at Galleria 33. She's really nice and almost 60 years old.

Miss me?

I know I've been removed from our blogging world.
But I've been busy trying to bring you the best of whatever. (which would make a great album name... perhaps a Ben Folds greatest hits.)
In any case I have only one event to report today as the rest of my life is poorly recorded.

I have evidence of Boston's best Erhu player in action.
This feat was particularly difficult as his crazy, probing eyes look like they can see everything at once. So I inconspicuously took out my phone as if to make a call, pointed in different directions as if I was trying to find reception, and snapped the photo in motion.

The gentlemen isn't really moving wildly like the picture makes it seem.

The pancakes, Tony. Where are they?

Where can a man find a short stack of pancakes around here?
Are you telling me Don Antonio-Alvaressi III, mob boss extraordinaire doesn't enjoy a simple diner classic?
I know this town is over run by twisted politics and murderous mobsters out for blood, but why do they get the last say as to who can put a pancake house in the spot of ANOTHER fancy Italian restaurant.

I'll tell you, boy, this town has another thing coming if they think they can take breakfast away from me.

NEWS BULLETIN: Hasselhoff-ollage!

I will be updating you on how my mail prank unfolds. I have printed out 50 labels return addressed to Villa Francesca and have bought the envelopes. I've been working on what to put inside.
Thus far I have the aforementioned Hasselhoff picture with a message,

Viva la Villa Francesca!
- Hasselhoff

What do you think? What else could I write?

I think I'm going to begin by sending one letter the first day, then 2 the next day, then 10, and then the rest. Similar to Harry Potter, how he receives his Hogwarts letters through the chimney. You remember! Don't play dumb.
What would you do with 50 pictures of Hasselhoff falling from your chimney?

Hasselhoff collage?

Hasselhoff-ollage?

D@ddy$ l!ttle g!rL!!!!!!!

I get many emails from a variety of people. A lot of them are really good friends.
Sometimes I don't even know how good of a friend.
Many are sincerely looking out for my well being.
"Your Fone wasn't working!" my BFFL Mary Williams said, "I wanted too tell U how I RefreshMyLifeWithViagraPro!"
and Maria Taylor told me all about, "GrandpaFu_ckingSome Sl_ut inth Ebutt!"
I'm glad I have such good friends. It's like Christmas everyday.

At work today I folded linens. I fold really particularly. I am very exact.
A gentleman (a douche bag) told me I was being a woman.
I said, "No. I'm just really anal."
I then quoted a good friend's mother, "Better to be anal then get it."

P.S. I drank in the middle of the day.
Unfortunately I'm of the stereotypical Caucasian population who get tired when they drink.
It gets better.
I'm listening to Paul Simon, eating mayonnaise, and hating on minorities.
Could I get any whiter?

P.P.S. I'm not doing two of those things. Can you guess which ones? (I'll give you hint. I don't like mayonnaise.)

Immaturity in action

This does lead me to my next order of business -
Tell me of your most successful pranks.
I'm on the search for pranks I can feasibly execute in and around the North End vicinity.
I'm looking to mail one hundred envelopes addressed to a fake place. All of them will subsequently be returned to the return address - Villa Francesca! All one hundred envelopes will be stuffed with flyers such as, "You've been Hasselhoffed".
What else should be inside these envelopes? Bologna? Mayo filled condoms?



A God among men?

Bane

Feel free to prank call this number as willy nilly as you feel.
(617) 367 2948

This is the number to the restaurant below me. They play music really loud until one in the morning every night.
If you want to call and leave the phone off the hook for a while, that's cool.
If you want to ask them if their refrigerator is running, be my guest.
If I had a gun, would I shoot the douche bag owner with the greasy hair?

Suckling the Cash Cow: Plenty of teats for everyone.

You're being hustled. This may come as a shock to you, but I have the facts on my side.

I know you think I'm lying because what good are facts nowadays, when cold, hard propaganda works twice as well? I'll tell you because I love you and I know I don't tell you that often but it's called hard love. Learn to love it. Learn to hard love it.

Sometimes I peruse the North End website looking for interesting trivia about my place of residence, namely to see if the North End was created as a tourist trap, like an amusement park where there are no roller coasters, only expensive snacks, lost tourists and long lines for the bathroom. To my surprise it was not created for that, the fact that it is now is only coincidence. Here are actual photos posted on their website of which this reproduction and distribution is probably illegal.













We have architectural structures. Walls included.


North End's best male burlesque dancers. They piss raw meat.


The camera dropped accidentally.

Here we have Secret Tours of the North End. Just kidding. Here we have Secret Tours of the North End.

For just $30 you can see the North End as it should be seen. Secret Tours advertise as "Unofficial, Unauthorized and Unconventional." All these words mean only one thing, "probably a scam". It's titled "Secret" leading me to believe it's secret for a reason. Either the tour group is itself very stealth like and inconspicuous, or the tour is pretty boring. For example you can, "Re-live the Great Molasses Flood of 1919."
...Many people died. They're not living anymore, never mind doing it again. That's just inconsiderate.

In conclusion I'm starting my own North End Tour Group truly reminiscent of the attitude of the North End. It'll start in my apartment where we'll take shots of cheap vodka and everyone has to put $5 in. We'll play music way too loud (no, not Frank Sinatra! Did Revere listen to Franky?) and piss off the lady with the heavy Italian accent across the street. Someone will start a rumor that the cops are coming and then we'll run to Bova's Bakery at 2 a.m. "BOVA'S!!" We'll stumble out and a paid actor will puke in the middle of the sidewalk, where Paul Revere once rode his horse! Eventually we'll end up in a penguin-like huddle in front of some apartment where the rent is totally not worth what you pay, smoking an entire pack of cigarettes. Just in time for someone to realize it's minutes before the last T.

Political Incorrectness as its Best (Worst?)

I live above a restaurant for those who do not know. It is an awful restaurant with awful management. In any case, I've started playing this game where I count the Japanese tourists who take pictures of the "Villa Francesca" sign below my window. I'm at 5 in just the last hour.
My bed sits in front of the window. I am in many Japanese photo albums.

I'm going to take this opportunity to further my political incorrectness and describe my work at Legal Sea Food's in relation to Japanese tourists. Take notes those who are thinking about becoming waiters.

It starts when I see a Japanese gentleman, woman, family, etc. seated at one of my tables.
Firstly, they don't speak English, unless there are 4 or more in which case one will speak broken English knowing a minimal vocabulary, words like "ketchup" and "fork". Before you judge, I know which ones are visiting from Japan and which ones are Americans because the Americans are not carrying cameras. A table of Japanese tourists will have a digital camera per individual and at least one video camera on the table.
Anyway, even before I get to the table, they've stopped at least 2 other waiters and asked them about "robstahs!"
Oh they love the robstah. And by damn I will give them robstah.
In any case, I take their order (Cram chowda and robstah for everyone. Except the old lady who has the robstah row). I leave and they start laughing about something. I have no idea what is so humorous about lobster, except when you pronounce it robstah. In any case they start taking pictures of each other laughing. Then they start taking pictures of each other taking pictures. Until it's one big clusterfuck of flashes and laughing.
I bring over their lobster crackers and bib and they laugh because robstah bibs are hilarious. Then, and here's the part that gets me every time, they take a picture of the lobster cracker and bib.

I couldn't imagine going over my friends house after their trip and looking at their pictures. "Here's one of the sidewalk! and here's the robstah! HAHAHA ROBSTAH! and the silverware! and here's a picture of Hisatayako taking a picture of me taking a picture of him! HAHAHA!"
I would hate my friends.

Let there be drinking!!

...and God did speak and he did say "There shall be a place minors can achieve alcohol." He spake from the clouds unto mine ears and spoke like so, "Child of mine! Desperate son of the North End! You have been patient in your quest. Take this farcical identification and be 21!"

So I did. And again he spake unto me.

"You have been successful, child. What was your first purchase?"

The label did glow.

"Blue Moon. Nice choice. You can really taste the orange."

"Yea, it's smoother than most beers."

"No, totally. I know what you mean..."

God did look upon me as he spoke. And I looked at him. And he did nod. I did nod at him. And in that moment it was kind of awkward.

"Son! You have done good by the hands of God. I do declare that you shall take this path and drink thine brewski. You shall take the bottle in its entirety to thine own face. And the rest shall follow until you cannot walk straight and have lost control of thine bladder."

I did hear the words of God and obeyed. He turned to me and I raised mine bottle in a toast. And he did say,
"I am SO drunk right now!"

Spring has sprung and so have I

Boston's winter is miserable. Winter is a frigid, castrating bitch, tapping your soul, draining all joy straight from your marrow.

Melodramatic maybe, but entirely non-fiction.

Unfortunately it is because of days like today that I don't feel justified in shitting all over Boston, discussing her flaws, etc. Because spring in Boston is beautiful. I get an erection just thinking about the beauty.

The Bros are out to play ultimate frisbee, the Hos are out to display cleavage, the hobos are always out being crazy, etc. How can you get enough? You just can't. Though I must say, Bag Pipe Lady...you have to stop. How many notes did you hit? I think all of them.

I'm going to do a piece on musicians of Boston. Let's see, there's the schizophrenic Accordion player of Hanover, the Old Man Accordion player of Caffe something-or-other (both of whom only play the Godfather theme). Then there's "Boston's Best Erhu Player 2008!" That's the Chinese gentlemen who sits in the Park Street T stop. The one playing off-key. The wide-eyed one who looks like he hasn't slept in days. Then there's the elderly gentleman who sings Beatles tunes at Government Center. Oh God, the list goes on!

That's enough for now. Long and short of it, spring in Boston is way better than Winter. El Fin.

First Order Of Business

I have good news and bad news.
Good news: every Monday night there is free pizza at the Pushcart Cafe on Salem St. Seriously. Buy yourself a $2 soda and tip well and you're in broke college student paradise.
Bad News: You are not allowed to eat free pizza.

It was a sad state of affairs. While attending the much celebrated free pizza Mondays for 4 weeks straight, my roommates and I had been in Italian delicacy bliss until the last fateful evening when we were told to not return for a year. A whole year!
The fat gentleman who made the pizzas was often uncomfortable and hovered a lot, but we disregarded him as we had free pizza in our hands. We realized only later that this man was deathly serious and was out for blood.

I challenge you to attend free pizza night successfully for more than 4 weeks in a row without being excommunicated. What harm could come of it? Nothing, but free pizza. (Girls with large breasts are excluded from this contest as they are guaranteed at least an extra two weeks of free pizza due to the attractiveness of their mammary glands.)

The North End of the World

Oh, the North End. I live in you but I would never call you home.

The North End is at all times swarming with two types of people: tourists, and cranky, stone-faced, territorial old Italians. If you're a tourist you're probably wondering how to get to Paul Revere's House. Don't bother, it's not cool.

Stories are written every goddamed minute here, and it would be irresponsible not to document the characters and plots that unfold ceaselessly.

I will do my best to capture these images and stories and relay them to you in the most entertaining way possible.

Please comment if there is anything specific you think should be discussed.