Tag: boston garden

Commentator and young lady who should be in bed by now Swaggie Maggie tried to send in this, but failed due to her constant inattention in class and looking at boys and playing that game with the folded up paper that looks like a duck’s bill and tells you your future.

In the Dead’s defense, they were in Boston: lobster. (Or, as it’s pronounced: lawbstuh.)

For the prosecution: you can get lobster anywhere in Boston. McDonald’s used to do a lobster roll. Until 1983, Bostonians assembled in the Commons every May 22nd to throw them at one another. Lots of people lost eyes, but that’s the price you paid for tradition. (Of course, “a little violence is worth it for tradition” was what led to riots when the schools were integrated, but what are you gonna do?)

Seriously: it’s like the Dead spent every waking moment asking themselves, “What’s the Grateful Deadest thing to do here?” Starting a fire on the fire escape will always be the Grateful Dead thing to do.

For the younger Enthusiasts, this is the old Boston Garden; they tore it down 20 years ago or so and the new building, I’m sure, is pleasant and all the views are sterling and no one has to piss in a trough, whereas in the old Garden (pronounced Gahd’n) there were pillars and beams in the middle of sections and both men’s and women’s bathrooms featured a communal trough.

(It should be noted that there was a small but not insignificant chance of getting stabbed before you ever made it to the bathroom, which would mean you didn’t have to use the trough. Personally, TotD would prefer the stabbing.)

Like most of the surrounding city, the Garden was completely drenched in the vomit of the Irish, which is made up of equal parts half-digested potatoes and patricidal rage. On any given night, once could start a mezzanine-encompassing brawl by shouting “Fuck you, Sully.”

The showpiece of the Boston Garden was the parquet floor. Another Boston sports icon is a wall. If someone painted a Bruins logo on a door, idiots from Boston would worship that, too.

(For those Enthusiasts from Boston currently steaming and screaming, I offer this in my defense: Pesky’s Pole. A fucking pole.)

It was tiny, though, with all the seats right bang on top of each other and almost straight up-and-down: it was built for boxing, so the sections swamped over the floor like a vulture’s hunched neck and once the show started, there was just fuck-all for security, so you could go wherever you wanted and, hey: the Dead’s playing.

Stop complaining; it’ll be over soon.