When I was in college I used to love reading the MBTA Yelp! Reviews instead of doing my homework.  The T has a grand total of 2.5 stars, and the best thing about the Yelp! page is that its existence seems solely for people in Boston who want to bitch about the T.  Every once in a while a tourist comes through and gives it 4 stars because it gets them to Science Park in one piece, but if there is no other common thread among Bostonians it is this:  We LOVE exchanging T woes.

“One entrance and exit on a train?  It’s fucking ludicrous!  And, if I ever hear another fucking conductor get on the PA system and yell “Move towards the back, there’s room in the back”  I might actually go postal.  They can’t see if there’s room in the back.  There isn’t room in the back, you idiot.  We all do a pretty good  job of moving to the back even though we know that your one-door-opening ass is going to make it a pain to get out again.”

“I’ve seen somone pee on the bus. And that should, you would think, be the grossest thing I’ve seen on the MBTA in 9 years of living in Boston. But it’s not. Because I’ve also seen someone poop on the bus.”

“I have my own bike. Damn MBTA. I am forced to ride it in the winter. Every day I question where humanity is going.”

“My major issues with the T are that it shuts down too early and the express trains can make you really friggin’ irritated if you have to be somewhere. I swear some of those bitches on the train even polish smug looks as they blaze past your station without stopping.”

“I believe this is the oldest subway in the country? That explains a lot.”

“I am putting myself in a foul mood writing this review. I am going to stop now. Bottom Line: usually easier and faster to walk.”

“Most of the time I just walk an extra ten minutes to the Orange Line, because it’s reasonably on time. The downside? The thing is fetid. It smells like a combination of BO, urine, and death. It could choke a sewer rat.”

“It’s like Space Mountain for adults, sometimes.”

“Or I just about make it to the door, and wham, they slam it shut in your face. Don’t tell me that this never happened to you. If it’s not happening to me, I’m watching it happen to you. It’s like the conductors live to do this.”

“They have stupidly short operating hours and not nearly enough stops. You’re pretty much screwed if you’re in, say, Union Square. How could it get any worse?

update: JUST HORRIBLE. REALLY REALLY HORRIBLE.”

“Every time I take the T I am reminded why I ride a bike. Its never on time and everyone you talk to seems like they would rather stab you than take you 2 minutes down the line. Why pay to stand around and be late?”

“Thanks to “police activity” at Ruggles…
An “emergency stop” at Chinatown…
And “traffic” at Downtown Crossing…

…I am 30 minutes late to work.

THEY DON’T EVEN WRITE ABOUT THIS SHIT IN THE BIBLE.”

“Really though? The silver line is a joke and an insult to the ‘hoods who rely on this bus (we all know its a bus) for getting around. “

…

So it’s real cool that they made these awesome maps of Davis Square so that when you’re driving along you can know where the fuck you’re going because as you can tell it’s confusing as fuck (and not to mention the fact that it’s all one way), but seriously, WHY IS THE FONT SO FUCKING SMALL?

Here is a photo of this map in action:

Can you read a damn thing on that map?  Cause I sure as hell can’t.  (Sorry to Chelsea B, didn’t mean to exploit you, you’re just the only thing that the internet has to offer re: the issue of the completely useless Davis Square maps.)  Only Boston (or, ahem, Somerville) would put money into signs that, albeit well meaning, seem to serve no other purpose than to piss off and perplex the already aggressively miserable drivers.

When you’re driving in Davis Square there is nothing more you want in the world than a sign that tells you where the fuck you’re going… but then you get next to this motherfucker and can’t read a damn thing.  Don’t worry though, because you’re already in the wrong lane and you’re gonna have to circle the neighborhood seventeen times.  Maybe you’ll even end up in Porter.  If you’re lucky.

Oh, and as an aside, there are few streets more irritating to drive on than Elm in the middle of the day.  Taxis, buses, double parkers, baby carriages — tortures of all kinds…  And as you circle this block for the fourteenth time you think to yourself, Why.

WHY DID I SUBMIT MYSELF TO THIS PAIN?

And then you remember that plan B was to take the T.

It is nice to see that you’ve all been loving and hating this blog.  Gotta be honest, I don’t know how often I will end up updating this blog, but I like to finish the things I start wherever possible.  It is hard to remember the bitterness and anger of my Boston days with quite the same clarity as when I lived there, but there is still a list of topics remaining for me to rant about in written form, and countless half-drafted entries from angst of yore.  I am here to assure you that there is much to cover and you will be seeing more soon.

For now, a teaser list of topics to come.

• Massachusetts Driving:  Pros and Cons
• Why going out in Boston is fucking terrible
• Boston’s magnetic vortex (you can check in any time you like, but you can never leave – ha ha ha!)
• Johnnie Foodmasters and other adventures in Boston Grocery Shopping
• Social codes of Boston
• Candlepin Bowling

The image that I think will stay with me as representative of Boston forever is this one:

I took the T to Government Center.  After spending 3 months traveling elsewhere in the United States the complete lack of conversation and smiling on the train, in addition to how outrageously rude people can be about getting on and off of the thing, really stood out.  Finally, I walk out of the station door and there is a man standing there, wearing Christmas colors and standing beside a donation can that reads “Sharing is Caring.”  And the look on his face is one of deep, incredible misery.  His entire posture is slouched and he is ringing a bell which he can’t even bring himself to raise an arm for, the bell merely twitches from side to side at his waist, where his arm has happened to fall.  Not a single person donates money.

It was unbearable.  I just wanted someone, somewhere in that city to smile, and they never did.

I was reminded in full force what this city is:  Cold, gloomy, self-absorbed, and almost intentionally unhelpful.  People in Boston believe adamantly that this is the way of the world, that every place is like this, and that you’re not going to find anything better outside of Boston.  They believe that this is especially true in New York City or any other major city and honestly, I’ve just never found that to be the case.  The extraordinary selfishness that seems to be culturally embedded into Boston society is something I cannot forgive.  I have no idea why it is that way, and why everyone there seems to believe that life is that way.  Here is a town of reasonable wealth, of higher education, and that has no sense of community what so ever.  People wander around in desperation and hopelessness and nobody is willing to look at their neighbor and say, “Hey, do you need help with that?”  Much less their friend.

When nobody gives, it becomes exhausting to give.  Your energy just escapes you and never comes back, it gets sucked into this black hole of a city and somehow the whole thing just makes me really, deeply angry.  There’s just no fucking reason for it.  A commenter on my last post wrote to me that I came to Boston expecting to be something it wasn’t and that Boston just doesn’t “do welcoming” and that the Northeast is a cruel horrible place that people of the faint of heart can’t tolerate.  I get the sense that a lot of people who I talk to about Boston forget that I lived here for five years, both as a working person and as a student.  Yeah, I did come to Boston expecting it to be different than it was.  But honestly, it took me a long time to figure the place out.  That Boston doesn’t “do welcoming” is frankly not an excuse.  Yeah New England doesn’t really “do welcoming,” I get that.  I grew up here.  But the rest of the country wakes up in the morning and cares about its neighbors, its coworkers, its family, its friends enough to… get off their ass and call them on the phone, enough to cut them some slack when they’re having a bad day, enough to go out of their way sometimes to help someone and not bitch about what a hindrance it was.  That’s the difference.

Your laziness, your bitterness, your self delusion does not make it okay to be a rude, self-serving asshole.  And I say that to my own shadow as well.

Don’t know what brought me here today.  Must be the fact that the sun hasn’t come out for a few days.

I used to feel uneasy about the title of this blog.  Was “hate” too strong of a word?  Did I really HATE Boston?

The whole time I lived in Boston, I thought, “I can’t possibly hate this place… my friends are good people, and maybe I’m just overblowing how much this place sucks in my mind.”  People from Boston get really angry and upset and offended when you dislike their lame-ass city for any reason and I don’t like to offend, so I thought maybe I was just being a jerk.

But then one month ago, I moved out of the Greater Boston Area at long last.  Ever since I have been traveling across the U.S. and checking out other U.S. cities along the way.  One month out, several cities in, I can now look back and say that the answer to that question is a 100%, wholehearted YES.

I hate Boston.  I fucking HATE Boston.  I hate that place with a passion I never knew I had.  And I can’t even begin to count the ways…  There is just SO much to hate.  Which is why I started this blog, really.  I still have a list about a mile long but another thing that Boston did to me while I was there is completely destroy my desire to be creative.

I am writing today because a friend of mine on Facebook just got towed in Brookline and it reminded me of how stupid Brookline is and I thought, “Well.  It is most definitely time for another blog post.”

…

Brookline parking.

Parking in Brookline is the most asinine situation possible.  For those from out-of-town Brookline is one of the many small cities surrounding Boston that is considered a part of the Metro-Boston area (note, one thing I find really stupid about Massachusetts is that anyone who lives within 3 hours of Boston says they are from Boston.  NO, you are not… but that said, the alleged “Greater Boston Area” actually covers about 30+ towns/cities).  Boston itself is REALLY REALLY tiny.  You can walk the entire perimeter in half a day.  So most people live and spend time in its surrounding towns:  Cambridge, Somerville, Jamaica Plain, Roxbury, Allston, Brookline, Brighton, so on, so on.  I would say it’s kind of like the burroughs of New York but it’s not and don’t let any Boston motherfucker who has never actually been to New York City try to tell you it is.

I lived in Brookline for almost 2 years.  I had a great apartment there and fun roommates.  It had a great back porch AND roof access, plus Brookline has tasty food and really nice parks.  In a way, I loved it.  But there is a catch.

For one, aside from the unfortunate fact that it’s on the green line and sooooooo difficult to travel to and from, Brookline is inhabited by the most UPTIGHT SNOOTY ASSHOLES in the entire city, apart from maybe Newbury Street.  These fuckers are so uptight and so snooty that they actually made a law that it is virtually ILLEGAL to park in Brookline after 6pm.  You cannot get a resident permit.  You cannot have visitors.  You just can’t park.  Period.

Well let me rewind, they DO have an option for visitors.  Because it is so fucking stupid I will tell you what it is:  In order to obtain a permit for a visitor you MUST go to city hall and request a permit at a fee of $10 per night and specify exactly which of the designated parking areas you will be parking in, how many nights you will be parking (I don’t think you can park in the same space twice), and move the car by 8 in the morning when regular parking goes into effect, otherwise your ass will be towed.  These designated parking areas are approximately 6 spaces on Beacon Street somewhere and another 12 somewhere else.  All of which are a pain in the ass distance for a driver going to any residential area.  Yeah.  You get the picture.

What is worse is that Brookline, more than any other city around Boston, has TONS of parking.  They have huuuge wide streets with lots of parallel parking and additional not-parallel parking abounds.  This kind of thing simply DOES NOT EXIST anywhere else in Boston where parking can be a major chore.  Even if you go to Brookline in the middle of the day when it’s crazily busy, you will never have trouble finding parking within 3 blocks of Coolidge Corner because there are like… thousands of parking spaces.

What kind of backwards ass fucking stupid place is this, you might ask?

Well, here is the logic, according to Brookline residents:  Brookline people HATE fun.  HATE IT.  So they think that by not allowing street parking they are somehow cutting down on crime, noise, and fun.  In other words, anyone who is not rolling in money (aka college students and artists and other heathens) and can’t afford to either buy one of the 309 parking spaces that Brookline generously offers to its residents for a fee of $100/mo or get an apartment with off-street parking, is not welcome in Brookline.  And seriously, if you think I am exaggerating, I assure you that you can check this out yourself on Brookline’s bitchy website.

And do you know what the worst part is?  Not only is parking a risk for a ticket every single time (and the tickets are pretty likely given that the cops have nothing better to do), but getting towed from Brookline is the absolute worst.  I brought my car to the city for one three day period of time while I lived in Brookline and got towed and do you know where they brought it?  BRIGHTON.  Do you know how goddamned effing hard it is to get to Brighton on the T?  I had to take the 86 bus, a bus infamous for taking two hours to drive you 20 minutes away.  After the 86 bus is a mile or more to the tow lot on GoodEnough Street, where it’s $120 — if you’re LUCKY — to get your car back.

Hell fucking no.

There are at least 8 other cities in the US that are more fun, cooler, have better weather, and nicer people than Boston by… A LOT.  Like… leaps and bounds.  And guess what?  Parking is free.  FREE.  For everybody.

So yeah, FUCK Boston.  Fuck that shit hole.  Fuck pretending that it isn’t a terrible place because it is.  And goddamnit, I will rant about it until I’ve obliterated all memory of it and praise Jesus every day that I’m free.

Nobody knows when it’s going to be fixed.

This reminds me of the time the big dig tunnel collapsed three years after it was in use.  You know, after it took them only twenty years to build it.

Yeah, right.

Like all metropolitan bus systems, the T requires passengers to request their stop by way of a pushing a button, tape, or pulling a cord right before they need to get off the bus.  You know that your request has gone through when a small “ding!” is heard, or, on most Boston buses — a thundering voice bellows “STOP REQUESTED” for all to hear and see on the electric scrolling sign at the head of the bus.

Even though the bus driver’s sole job is to drive along a prescribed bus route picking up passengers and dropping them off at a number of stops pre-determined, labeled, and announced by the automated bus announcement system, MBTA bus drivers seem to feel as if it is below them to do so.

I mean, I get zoning out on the job.  We all do it.  But if I didn’t have to scream at the bus driver to stop at my stop at least twice a week, after I requested it, stood up, made myself visible, and have been riding the same goddamned bus at the same time every single day, it just becomes gratuitous irritation added to my already aggravating commute.

The first time I encountered ticker-tape troubles in Boston was when I lived on the C line in Brookline.  For some reason, when you ride above ground on the Green Line the use of the “Stop Request” is sometimes, but not usually, necessary to get your driver’s attention.  I learned eventually that it depends on whether or not you live at an “off” stop, what time of day it is, whether you are going inbound or outbound, and how many groceries you are struggling to lug on and off the train.

In the earliest of my above-ground-Green Line days, next to the driver, with all my crap, and he simply drove right by my stop.  When I asked him to stop verbally, he said, I had to hit the button.  What the hell?  This is a TRAIN, what do you mean I have to hit the button?

But fine, if that’s the way it works on this train sometimes, then so be it.  I adapted.

The next time I got on the train with groceries, I hit the tape.  Again, the train blew right by my stop.  This time my fault, according to the driver, was that I was riding in the second car and not standing at the front-most door, waving my arms, so that he understood he was supposed to open them at my stop.  FOR FUCK’S SAKE, DUDE.  Just open the goddamned doors of the train if the stop is requested, is it that hard?  What is the point of having a multi-car train with three sets of doors if ALL of the doors don’t open at once?

It should not be this much of a challenge to get off the T.  Riding the T is hard enough, especially the green line.  Have some fucking mercy.  We’re all trying to get through this slow as fuck, crowded, wobbly commute together, the least you can do is your job.