A not so Refreshing find

Have you ever witnessed something so tacky and putrid in person that it made you stop and ask yourself why that was happening? It doesn't have to be a huge event, or anything so eye popping that the entire community around you is gaped in awe-, but it could be as small as watching a hipster in Allston flick a cigarette butt on the ground when a trash can is clearly five feet from view.

I moved to Boston with the intent that it was a tolerant, liberal and forward-thinking city. And so far it is, I have no real qualms--but this past weekend I encountered my first dose of douchebaggery. I was running down Commonwealth Ave the other night, around 7pm in lime green pants (they are my favorite pair of sweats I own, Puma brand, so you know they're nice, very appropriate for any athlete to wear), and then as I run past a group of four clearly 'buzzing' meat heads, one of them had the audacity to yell out 'nice green pants faggot'.

I had to stop to turn and stare at the guy, because I didn't think that word was publicly used anymore, I thought that word had died long ago when everybody realized that words like that do nothing but project hate and develop a sense of hostility. Not only were these four clowns laughing and stumbling into a nearby bar, but they were no older than me; all dressed snazzy in their pea coats, Old Navy scarves, all the while laughing about the 'passerby er' they had just 'schooled'.

New Year's eve 2011 was an interesting one, downtown Boston was quite the scene for happy go luckys, well spirited individuals, and friendly go-getters. Come 2am it was time to find a taxi home, but apparently it was time for drunks to get rowdy. Now we all have seen drunken fights break out, typically in or after a bar night...but never had I witnessed groups of girls just wailing on one another.  I'm talking women, between the ages of 21 and 25 punching each other in the faces that hours earlier they had spent hours preparing for a night of socializing and meeting friends. It was a cluster fuck of girl on girl kicking, hair pulling, biting, and punching. All the while this is happening there wasn't one person (including my friends and I) getting involved to stop these girls from making the biggest mistakes of their New Year. But that wasn't what engulfed me with confusion, what floored me was the crowd of four or five guys around the rumble all taking video and pictures. 

These were all pretty girls, dolled up in what were probably brand new dresses, getting wailed on and arrested for something that could have been avoided had somebody stopped the escalation. 

But we don't live in a time like that anymore when men step in and do the stand-up thing. Instead people were literally taking video in hopes to post it on the book of face hours later to maybe gain as much popularity as Snooki getting punched by that English teacher. Again, Internet popularity seems to be the dream in this lifetime, quick exposure = quick success = money and power; that's the mindset at least.

In the morning my friends and I walked to get breakfast in Allston, reminisce about the night, and clear our heads of any blurry memories. Outside my building was what was still considered freshly laid vomit on my staircases and two broken beer bottles. What the fuck?!

The person obviously couldn't mark their territory on all of the hundreds of feet of grass three feet behind him, but they felt the need to smash two beer bottles next to it leaving me to pick up the pieces. I picked up the glass carefully as any good citizen would, and proceeded to walk to the brunchery...we walked five blocks without a single garbage can on a corner. I eventually turned into a CVS to use their reciprocal. On the entire walk we passed four mailboxes on street corners but not a single garbage can. It shocked me-- we are in the age of email, social media, and the Internet yet snail mail carriers are still on every block around here taking up the place of trash cans!

I know bar fights break out everywhere, I know there will always be bigots and arrogant nematodes yelling out slurs and other obscenities just to do it. And there will always be the occasional puke on sidewalk / broken glass smash. But I guess I just wasn't expecting such a forward thinking city with smart individuals to act in such a grotesque manner. 

When you break it down and put these scenarios in any other context in any other location the equation to embarrassment is still evident and the technology and mind set will still be there; people will video tape a fight on their phones in hopes of hitting YouTube stardom. Prejudice will run amok if we allow it to as a society and don't correct those individuals when they say offensive things ( I don't care how tipsy you are ). As for the garbage cans in Allston, I can't believe in the twenty-first century the city hasn't put any sort of garbage cans along the major streets yet still feel the need to keep things old school with USPS boxes. Where are the recycling bins? Where are the garbage cans drunks can throw their bottles out in? Cause I sure as hell don't want to be picking up people's glass weekly.

What a lot of this comes down to is the state of mind we are in now as young adults growing up. We act relentlessly in the most obscene of manners, and we fuel the fire every time we allow it to continue. Society aches for their own reality show, and feel if they can capture it they can maybe become it. But why do people still say racist things when we are growing up in one of the most highly diversified countries in the world? All it does is makes us look like uneducated white trash.

It is all about positive reinforcement, stepping in and telling your friends (as intoxicated as they might be) not to fight, or if your friend says something along the terms of 'fag' to correct him or her, don't let them just slide by with saying that because they're your BFF. And if you're going to litter a bottle (litterings never good, but if you're going to do it) just dont smash it in front of somebody's home.

Gen-Y come on...we all know it's our age demographic doing this. Step up to the plate, we are constantly being watched by people of other nationalities who are visitors or residents in our country; we shouldn't want to be egging on the tacky.

...it just isn't refreshing and it leaves a sour taste in my mouth and every other decent person's mouth. ( yah--that's what she said, no sense pointing that out, I wrote it deliberately ) ;-)

Ta-ta for now.

Back to the grind.

RS