BostonNow? More like BostonYesterday. Today's paper has not a word about last night's Dorchester shootout in which both a cop and a suspect got shot. Metro, at least, managed to get three paragraphs and a photo on the front page.
More headline goodness: Spatch analyzes the front pages today of all four of Boston's dailies.
In which eeka learns to hate the Metro all over again.
Jim Sullivan, meanwhile, considers how the Irish may be the last group one can stereotype without fear:
Spatch can barely contain his nausea at seeing not just "would of" on the front page of a major daily newspaper in the Athens of America but on seeing a story in it about products you can use to track your kids, including one called, without irony, Big Brother Teen Tracker. He whips out his "Please Kill Me If I Ever ..." list and adds:
"...if I ever decide I can't trust my own offspring and thus decide to tag 'em with an Orwellian GPS tracker"
Only in Boston, Kids discusses various faults of the Metro, but raises a scary possibility: Imagine if Spare Change Guy ever started hawking it:
Want a Free-e-e-e-e-e-e Metro-o-o-o-o?"
Russ Stein wishes the tall Metro hawker at Green Street would just go away:
... He's like seven feet tall and runs from one end of the station to the other shouting shit like, "Aw yeah, I've got your Metro!" and "It's a great day for a Metro!" while getting in the way of people trying to catch the train. I've also heard him muttering some ex-junkie Jesus bullshit when dodging him. ...
Eeka makes the mistake of reading a Metro Dolt in the Street Q&A, in which three people who don't even live in Boston get to monosyllabically explain what they think of the mayor's plan to move City Hall.
Mike Mennonno photographs the uberest of Newbury Street's uber-shoppers and wonders why the Metro (for which he writes) interviewed three white-bread kids from Allston in a "how do you feel about violence in the city" man-in-the-street thing:
... The WASPiest answer was "You just need to be smart about where you go and what time you go there." I think they left out the end of the quote, probably something like ...to buy your crystal meth and cruise for rough trade. ...
Spatch is trying hard to believe that the letters are actually written by editors on slow days, because they're just too incredibly stupid to be written by normal people:
.. This belief, however optimistically misguided, is the only thing that keeps me from slowly tearing the paper up into little tiny strips while on the train and then garnering the attention of the one person riding who'd Say Something if they Saw Something. ...
Spatch sets his new play inside the Metro newsroom:
... DUKE: But our usefulness score went up 0.5% in the past quarter. We can't ignore the cold hard facts. We've got to stay useless.
SNAKE-EYES: We're trying our best, sir, but I will admit that we've run into some stiff competition recently.
THE BARONESS (sighing): The Sidekick.
SNAKE-EYES: Sidekick.
DESTRO: Goddamn Sidekick.
Mike Mennonno reads the full-page wedding proposal in today's Metro and comes to realize that the T is the perfect place for falling in love:
... I mean, think about it. Love and squalor. The T's a perfect place for it. ...
You might have thought the NY Times bought a stake in Boston Metro earlier this year to help weaken the Herald, or shore up sagging circulation at the Globe or something else having to do with the business of making money off the printed word.
Who knew the Times really bought part ownership of the free handout so Arthur Sulzberger could stifle dissent like the jackbooted liberal fascist he surely is?
Chris defies the conventional wisdom that Metro has reduced Herald readership on the subway. Well, at least, on the Green and Orange lines:
... It's been years since I commuted on the red line or the commuter rail, so I don't know how the Metro has affected these demographics, but I can attest that on the Green and Orange Lines, the Metro hasn't supplanted the Herald so much as it's filled in the void of those who read no paper during their commute. ...
Every morning, Spatch picks up his Metro and marvels at how many incomplete and poorly written stories it can cram into one edition. Take, for example, a story today on some chain recalling a Halloween decoration that can burst into flames that doesn't mention the product name or even say what it looks like:
On the one hand, it is just so frickin' cool that Boston-area college students FINALLY have a guide that speaks directly to them, because, you know, the 22-year olds the Phoenix and the Dig are aimed at just have such dramatically different tastes and needs than the 21-year olds the Globe's new Uncovered seeks to serve.
On the other hand, yeesh. The Uncovered Web site is just so nakedly exactly what it really is: An attempt by a large media conglomerate to latch onto the Craigslist crowd. Only without all the annoying user contributions and community that make Boston Craigslist (and Tribe and, now, Yelp) so different. But with a good heaping helping of patronizing old-people assumptions of how college kids talk and write:
Five reasons to get the Digital Silver package when subscribing to Comcast, even though it's, like, $78 a month ...
Also, people who do not know what "to mack" means should, like, refrain from using it in promoting a used-clothing store.
However, they do have enriching "from the street" made-up verbatim quotes from local cool kids, such as:
"I'd want to see the Yankees win"
Mark Gadomski, 21, hiking the Appalachian Trail, about his Fenway dreams
No, I didn't realize the Appalachian Trail now ran through Boston, either.
But the thing that really makes my eyes hurt is the logo:
OK, I am old and crabby and need a new eyeglass prescription, but, well, yeesh! If I want things to look that fuzzy, I'll take my glasses off - or hit the nearest bar.
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