Hey, there! Log in / Register

Nouns, adjectives describe Verb

The Globe explains the Verb, the replacement for the Fenway Howard Johnson's that is an homage to the Boston rock scene, circa 1975.

For $200 a night, guests will get to stay in rooms decorated with old Phoenix covers (contributed by Stephen Mindich himself):

They’ll also see a grittier Fenway/Kenmore area, a place where Burger King and the Pizza Pad were considered gourmet restaurants, and punks and Sox fans sometimes brawled on the sidewalks.

Oh, the name comes from "reverb."

Neighborhoods: 


Ad:


Like the job UHub is doing? Consider a contribution. Thanks!

Comments

..rebranded as crap nostalgia.

What.. is Mindich so damaged by his inept migration of the Phoenix media moloch to web 2.0 that he's stuck in this dim fetal position regression?

He never got that memo explaining how impossible it is to polish a turd.

It kind of reminds me of the strange restaurant things Gunter Grass would invent in his various Danzig trilogy works like 'Schmoo's Onion Palace' in The Tin Drum.

Meanwhile, a considerable number of perfectly decent people who gave their careers to that thing ended up totally hosed.

up
Voting closed 0

in the "failing to navigate the old / new media transition successfully" camp. I find it remarkable that he's still making money from sex-worker advertising, which helped keep The Phoenix afloat for years; I thought Craigslist had killed that business, too.

Over the years, the place was a platform and waystation for a lot of terrific journalists, many of whom are still working at publications that did manage the transition. If evoking nostalgia for 60s and 70s vintage Boston rock is the design goal, what better way to decorate the hotel than with old Phoenix covers?

up
Voting closed 0

Are all those ads for hookers (I mean "escorts") even real anymore? I thought they were mostly redirect sub adverts for clubs, parties, exotic dancers and phone chat lines disguised as something racier.

up
Voting closed 0

Dark once when I needed packing material for a move; it's great for wrapping wine glasses.

It's almost entirely ads for escorts, phone-sex lines and strippers, all of which I'd classify as sex-worker ads. There's often a token cover shot of some local music act, which presumably is meant to make the rag less embarrassing to carry around.

up
Voting closed 0

maybe some old Rat posters. Maybe some posters from Kix or the Boston Tea Party. Anything other than a tribute to an old pimp and his crumbled empire.

up
Voting closed 0

want to donate? No? Then spare us your sanctimony about the sex industry.

The Phoenix in its day had some of the city's best rock journalists, photographers and illustrators, and there just happened to be a well-preserved pile of back issues lying around waiting to be framed.

up
Voting closed 0

Kit Rachlis, Jimmy Isaacs, Joe McEwen, Clif Garboden, Michael Freedberg, and Bob Blumenthal just to name drop a few. Isaacs used to call me the "Arhoolie Records promo man". If you can find one instance where I've denigrated them and not the pimp Mindich, I'd like to see it.

The Phoenix, for all it's triumphs, became nothing more than a shill for the flesh trade, and in my mind that negates any of the good work it did in the past, unless of course you agree with the direction the paper took, with it's front section devoted to defending women's issues and a back section devoted to the subjugation of women.

up
Voting closed 0

Remember: The new trend is to say that prostitution (sorry "sex working") is an admirable profession for women and totally safe and honorable!

up
Voting closed 0

like the Andelmans do, but a fact that grownups recognize is that the trade exists, and is victimless for the patrons. If we weren't a nation of sanctimonious prigs, we'd recognize this reality and work to legalize and regulate the industry to keep the workers safe, healthy, and free from criminal exploitation. Prohibition just drives it underground and into the arms of criminals, away from the protection of law.

up
Voting closed 0

who might argue with you on the validity of your statement that it is "victimless for the patrons". I once knew a working girl who liked to pocket wedding rings that she lifted from her "victimless patrons", knowing, of course that the john would not come looking for it after. "That's my real tip!" she'd say.

And if one girl ever caught a beating from a john she met through "Slick" Mindich's little empire, that's one girl too many.

up
Voting closed 1

Theft clearly has a victim. Consensual sex for money? You haven't remotely made that case, and have falsely ascribed the criminal victimization of sex workers to a business that runs their ads. This is like blaming a gun murder on Guns and Ammo magazine: feeble-witted.

up
Voting closed 0

on food and Boston's dining scene. However, I have spent my entire life on the street, and I can say with the utmost confidence that Stephen Mindich is nothing more than a pimp. This is not some statement on libertarianism and belief in slapping America's puritanical views on prostitution in the face. Mindich's actions have had consequences for real women who have been on the receiving end of some real shit through people they met through the Phoenix and all the while Mindich has presented himself as some liberal icon when he's taken a cash end for human suffering and dare I say it trafficking.

Of all the things the internet has destroyed, I was never happier then when the Phoenix closed down.

up
Voting closed 0

[SOME VERY HIGH UP PERSON AT THE PHOENIX] tried constantly to turn my lesbian sister to the other team to an irritating level. That's one of the reasons she jumped ship before it sank.

up
Voting closed 0

My recollection is "not very much" -- most of the display advertising was from bars, clubs, concert halls, movie theatres, and other entertainment venues.

up
Voting closed 0

of the classifieds. Then once it took off, it was a separate section of the paper, usually about 6 pages.

up
Voting closed 0

I used to house sit for Mike Bloom, first met Blumenthal in 73 at a Howard McGhee concert, introduced Ed Hazell to most of the jazz people he wrote about and on and on.

My favorite Pheonix caper was telling Al Giordano the details of a John Silber poll before Silber was ready to announce.

The poll basically told us that Silber would be viable if someone like Heinrich Himmler was the opponent, otherwise, no.

He was fit to be tied.

My least favorite Phoenix capers included the time a stringer hack English professor I knew, from Tufts, wrote about the Ornette show and ineptly slandered him due to a poor command of process and then I had to chase that arrogant imbecile Milo Miles to make a retraction with a lawsuit threat from Tufts.

Top down old media sucked and hosed its writers.

There were some very astute people and utter hacks all in some uneasy coexistence with sleazy idiot Mindich pulling levers shamelessly.

I actually have video here from one of the FNX remnants of a Mindich fluff session. It is..fucking...awful.

His main innovation was adjusting the prevailing dumb down process that informed bad old boomer media conceits to the point where it almost seemed cosmopolitan. Kind of astute lite.

Your food writing is easily up there with MFK Fisher or Steingarten, which surprised me. Mindy must have given up on Bowdlerizing after I left in the mid 90s.

But there is a lot to learn to recover your deserved stature as a writer. I was very lucky to befriend a Babson grad school web marketng entrepreneur guy in my building soon after I got back here in 2008.

And then I made friends with the owner of All About Jazz and learned a lot about how to deploy killer content in a reworked data base.

Mindy could have been doing that stuff but no. He was sunk by his own hubris and may all you worthies find something better.

up
Voting closed 0

I had forgotten about Milo Miles. You're completely right, he was an arrogant douchebag. Then again, the same could be said for Mike Bloom and the strange little clique that always followed him around, annoyingly espousing their views on why Hatfield and The North were the next Beatles.

up
Voting closed 1

I never was that psyched about the Canterbury scene either.

I was a jazz advocate from a civil rights direction via friendship with Archie Shepp.

The music press was a thing to handle.

The clique was a handful too, but he has a giant heart.

And the years have not been good to him, lost a wife, etc.

I like the community, I just don't see the point in holding it up as some steller thing.

It was little provincial Boston trying to be important like it has since the Erie Canal was finished.

up
Voting closed 0

IMAGE(https://elmercatdotorg.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/hojobo.jpg)

They're sure to become sought-after collectables now!

( I'm also glad my washer, Horatio, has a Sanitary cycle! )

up
Voting closed 0

There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your laundry.
Especially if it spent time on the Lynnway.

up
Voting closed 0

There certainly are. Claire and Clara are two absolutely gorgeous Anchor Hocking,"Splash-less" glass mixing bowls. I bought both of them at the Lynnflea Market on the Lynnway for just five dollars!

In addition to their own name tags, I put labels on my scale, Cheri, including the weights for Claire and Clara in grams. It's really helpful for measuring the correct amounts of flour, water, and other ingredients when making bread with my dough whisk, Vera. Cheri has a "Tare" feature that can cancel the current weight, but that doesn't help if you've already added ingredients to the container.

Vera's great! I bought her when my old electric bread maker, Erika, died from a prolapsed kneader bearing. It's amazing how quickly Vera turns water and flour into dough (which eventually gets baked in the oven of my stove, Dagmar). If you've never tried making dough with a whisk like Vera before, you'll be really surprised. You can get whisks like Vera on Amazon for less than ten dollars.
IMAGE(https://elmercatdotorg.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/claireclara.jpg)
Clockwise from bottom of picture: Cheri, Vera, Claire, Clara, and Nora the coffee grinder in the top right corner.

up
Voting closed 0

IMAGE(https://elmercatdotorg.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/cicero.jpg)
Cicero the garbage disposal. (hiding beneath the counter)

up
Voting closed 0

My sister wrote for the Phoenix and got picked up for the Globe and then a paper in Providence before the collapse. Luckily she got out in time.

Regardless I hope this place brings back Grandma's Basement. There's hardly a place anymore where you can see edgy open mic comedy without college kids getting upset now.

up
Voting closed 0

I was roommates with a comedian named Marc Maron in the 80s.

He was busy, even worked for an outfit with a payroll system.

Most forms of live entertainment are in flux.

up
Voting closed 0

Hah you lived with Maron, that's neat. I know he had a tough time coming up here and had to change his act considerably to get noticed. Then there was that whole Louis CK feud..

up
Voting closed 0

any good maron stories from those days?

up
Voting closed 0

...he's a harmless kindly guy.

I remember him agonizing about how vicious comedians are to each other.

We were in an erstwhile slum on the edge of Davis Square, 19 Cottage.

It's all tricked out now. https://flic.kr/p/ogdFPk

We used to sit on that stoop grilling chicken and drinking 3 buck a bottle Magyar wine.. Duna.

Tracy Chapman lived on the other side and hated us cordially.

There was a band there and Marc was friends with the drummer, Stan

http://youtu.be/jtMYwvPyf48

He was probably at that show, I was.

The pianist and Maron didn't get along after Marc bought a huge marshall amp and tried to rock out with a cheap guitar.

And Marc was always naturally funny, expression wise. He could be a hilarious mime. Kind like Marty Feldman or something.

Being a comedian for a living is real work. He even had conventional payroll stubs from an agency that had him doing the college circuit around the region.

It was an okay living.

up
Voting closed 1

the Pimp Room in Mindich's honor.

up
Voting closed 0

... I'll burn it down.

Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com

up
Voting closed 0

Mrs Low Level Crime herself. The Judge Maria Lopez Crap Pipe has a nice ring to it, no?

up
Voting closed 0

If so, bravo. Otherwise, it's an incomplete tribute.

up
Voting closed 0

"punks and Sox fans sometimes brawled on the sidewalks."

As a denizen of the old Kenmore/Rat scene, I can tell you it wan't usually punks and Sox fans brawling. Usually it was the punks vs. the suburban disco people from the Kenmore Club (and it's other various names) across the street. One local music paper even wrote a piece about it circa 1979 called "The Battle for Kenmore Square". It wasn't all that much of a deal though, the "brawls" between the two factions weren't all that frequent.

up
Voting closed 0

Vomit is a verb.

up
Voting closed 0

would have been the perfect spot for a non-descript midrise luxury condo building, with a bank branch on the ground floor.

up
Voting closed 0

and fairly insignificant compared with exposing an entire region to saccharine mediocrity only exceeded by the Globe, for decades,no less.

And if you're gonna be mediocre, you'd best not be arrogant and hope it works out..

Look at how nearly all the insufferable swaggering 'faces', as we called them are either out to pasture or toast.

BCN... gone.

Mindich gone.

The Globe, a half crippled billionaires vanity toy.

Insufferable college radio... gone.

It's all for the better.

There is an amazing interesting planet to talk to out there and share what your good at.

Little worthless me, by myself, has had more than 2 and a quarter million visits to my Gurgle Plus page.

When I'm not seagulling this depressed and argumentative joint, I'm either making content or sharing content. It's fun watching foreigners get psyched about the Turbines or Boston Harbor and it is a perfect antidote to morose bickering locals.

up
Voting closed 0

... (most of) your contributions here. ;~}

up
Voting closed 0

If you want to see real fun by all means stop by my Google plus world.

It is like night and day.

Nice good natured people from all over the world and all we do is share stuff.

I never get into the dim squabbles that are a daily part of being here.

Adam really is a kind of saint for putting up with all of us.

The only Americans I deal with are railroad and music enthusiasts. For some reason I have lots of southern Slav friends, Southeast Asia and so on.

This place is mostly valuable to get a sense of the local constituencies. It's urban social anthropology meeting lore sharing.

And the kindly thoughtful people here shine like diamonds in a coal bin.

up
Voting closed 0

I rarely go there because, for whatever reason, almost all my friends are on Facebook -- and I'm not sure I have time for both FB AND Google+. I will take a look someday, however.

up
Voting closed 0

My friends here are mainly cynical old systems integration engineers and they despise facebook.

But it is what's for dinner here.

People fear Google while Facebook snoops them in more idiotic ways.

I mainly need a multi dimensional publishing platform suite and Facebook ain't it.

It matters if you want to replicate your actual world online but few people I know give a shit. An old Middle East crony beta tested it when he worked at Harvard and has the very first account when it began to emerge from Zuck's dorm.

But he'll allow that it is kind of dim.

Plus is all about making friends with strangers to a degree where they are moved and become your friend.

That's outside a lot of people's comfort zone but I love it. And I'm getting a real sense of how people in different worlds see life.

In the past year I've dug up stuff on floods in Modena and Serbia to help friends there, comforted a Javanese woman who was mourning her dad and on and on.

Every day is another fun way to appreciate someone or give them something to appreciate. What's not to love?

I don't want to be insular. I like the world and it's inhabitants and I've been keeping an eye on their hopes and qualities for years.

This ability to weave a planetary fabric of community in real time is transformational.

up
Voting closed 0

... around half on my FB friends are from outside the US -- mostly people connected by movies and musical interests. ;~}

up
Voting closed 0

..are often more gratifying.

Our local kinship and meta clan structures are often a combination of friends who aren't your fault and inlaws being outlaws.

I actually loaded some photos on a friends Facebook page for him last night.

https://flic.kr/p/ognLnv

The interface is okay, a bit busy.

up
Voting closed 0

... tonight (if I remember). ;~}

up
Voting closed 0

I imagine either system can be adjusted to what you want from it.

It might just be a lot of duplicated effort.

I have a bunch of Romanian entities in my friend crew.

Not as many Magyars, alas, but there's a cool woman in Cleveland from Hungary who teaches piano and works a church music program.

But if you post stuff, I'll automatically reshare on sight.

If Adam ever uses his account there, same deal.

As it is I try to do a periodic U Hub pick cause it is a great way to share aspects of Boston with the Urban Travel crew.

up
Voting closed 1