Peter Gelzinis

Hey, Gelzinis, people in Jamaica Plain don't have to drive to Cambridge for organic tomatoes

adamg — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 15:17:24 +0000

The Herald's foreign-correspondent approach to the Whole Foods/Hi-Lo news continues today. Peter Gelzinis, who normally knows better, rushes so fast to get to the class-warfare angle that he loses his way to the real story.

First, the "earthy-crunchy" set in Jamaica Plain doesn't have to drive to Cambridge for organic tomatoes, as Gelzinis claims. Even if they hate the two earthy-crunchy City Feeds, the Harvest and the organic-tomato-carrying Stop & Shop, your average non-Herald-reader would have a much shorter trip driving up to the Whole Foods in Brighton or the Trader Joe's in Coolidge Corner. More important, though, Gelzinis leaves the really outrageous part until the end: The fact that the Hi-Lo workers were treated like dirt. But that would have been a shorter column and isn't as much fun writing about as feeling morally superior to middle-aged hippies.

Gritty metro columns

adamg — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 17:02:38 +0000

Yvonne Abraham files a nice, simple, well told column on a Dorchester gangbanger who had an epiphany in jail and now is trying to get his life straight in college. Peter Gelzinis expresses angst about the really important things in life, but gets too tied up in knots and his head explodes in a paroxysm of random thoughts - at one point he started wagging his finger at us and telling us we all suck because we cared more about the Celtics victory parade than Curt Schilling's shoulder, which is enough to make the reader go "huh?" and wonder if maybe Gelzinis should stop downing entire six packs of Red Bull in a single sitting.

The death of firefighters vs. a bunch of rich dog owners in Manchester-by-the-Sea

adamg — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 03:33:50 +0000

It's interesting to compare the second-day coverage of the report on the dead firefighters - and see how the Herald is taking the lead on the story.

Herald jumps the shark

adamg — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 15:19:57 +0000

Stupor Tuesday? Tom Menino in a Giants uniform? All because Menino wants to come up with a plan to keep drunken college students from going on a rampage IF the Patriots win?

Also, WBZ 1030? That poll about whether Bostonians would rather go to a Patriots rally or vote on Tuesday? What drugs did you take when you came up with that? It's not like it's really an either/or thing, unless, of course, there are no police present, because Menino stupidly decides the Herald is right and rips up his police plan and the rally becomes the parade out of the first Batman/Joker movie (you know, the one with Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson) and thousands of terrified office workers can't get home to vote because they're trapped in a murderous downtown hellhole by hundreds of marauding, angel-dust encrusted drunken college students.

Just sign me,

Curmudgeon for a Day.

Mooninite column madness

adamg — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 18:32:54 +0000

Oh, darn, I said I wasn't going to write anything else about the things unless something truly, spectacularly stooopid came out. But I can't help myself - swatting Brian McGrory around is like peanuts; once you start, you just can't stop. So here goes with a comparison of four local columns today:

Brian McGrory
Bad Hair Day in Boston.
C-
Some interesting tidbits about Berdovsky wound up wrapped in-between - and completely ruined by - McGrory's stupid nervious tick of starting pretty much every paragraph with "This was the column I was going to write this morning." Sorry you ran out of things to say two paragraphs from the end, Bri, but find a better way to pad out your column next time, mkay?

Howie Carr
Dude, like, send Borat packing
D-
I hope the folks at the Herald don't get too upset when I reveal here that Carr actually died five years ago - and that the paper is now using a Carr column generator. An editorial assistant fills in the subject's nationality and distinguishing characteristics, hits Submit and waits a couple seconds while the PC spits out a MadLibbian column just like Carr would have written before that unfortunate "accident." A pity Berdovsky isn't fat - there are just so many amusing synonyms the Carrbot has stored up for that. "Borat is a refugee all right - from a 'Beavis and Butthead' episode." Man, that's just Carr gold. But honestly, guys, any chance you could update your algorithms? The thing's starting to get stale.

Steve Bailey
Laughing to the bank
A
Wah! Why can't Steve Bailey be re-assigned to the Metro desk? His best columns are about the absurdities of life in the Hub of the Universe, anyway. This column simply and cleanly sums up the whole mess. And props for running the prominent photo of Ignignokt "displaying an obscene gesture."

Peter Gelzinis
Phony threat escalated real danger in hoax
B+
What's this? A columnist actually breaking news? Well, OK, technically, Gelzinis didn't break the story - Boston Police posted the pipe-bomb thing on their Web site - but give him credit for going after this angle rather than simply making cracks about Berdovsky's hair.

Dan Kennedy has some more thoughts.

I'm just jealous because nobody's paying me to write about a cartoon I'd never heard of four days ago.