Friday, March 17, 2006

Operation Pick-Up Scene: Part I

Operation Pick-up Scene: Part I

THE SETTING: Faneuil Hall Bar, Boston, MA

Faneuil Hall is a very famous part of Boston well known for:

a) Its history. Faneuil Hall itself as an extremely historical place, and was, in some ways, the birthplace of the revolution. Like, Sam Adams and other famous Bostonian revolutionaries used to rabble-rouse there.
b) It’s a terrible tourist trap.
c) It is the home of tons of cheesy bars and pseudo Irish pubs.

THE ACCOMPLICES:
• Undercover Blonde’s twin brother, Undercover Brother
• Friends of Undercover Brother, Damien, Anton, Errol

HYPOTHESIS:
• I will be treated differently in the bar as a blonde than I ever have been in the past as a brunette
• I will be a blonde among the many blondes who frequent these types of bars

BEFORE THE EXPERIMENT:

I know that going to the bars in Faneuil Hall is inevitable. It is a necessary evil, which I think will offer tons of relevant data for the project. Faneuil Hall bars are big, cheesy pick-up joints, populated with all manner of insufferable people, running the gamut from frat boys & sorority girls in the throes of rush week, to frat boys & sorority girls in the throes of quarter-life crisis, all grown up & living as pseudo-adults, to 30+ men and women from surrounding suburbs, yucking it up in Boston for the evening. There are all manner of tourists, bridge and tunnel folk, and members of the enormous Boston student community that swells the population of the city every Fall. The crowd is, in my opinion, terrible. There is a reason that I left the small town in NH where I came up, chose to go to an artsy liberals arts school for college over the very affordable UNH, ended up with a career in publishing over a lucrative career in, say, business or finance, and moved to Boston’s original gay neighborhood instead of a student slum like Allston or Brighton: to get away from people like this.

I am not a fan of the Faneuil Hall bar scene, I dread the idea of going to such places, and I’m totally stumped as to who the hell I’m going to get to brave these joints with me. However, since this is exactly the type of bar where guys who are “into blondes” hang out. At least, I think this is the case. I’m not sure this is so, since I try to visit these bars as infrequently as possible. However, part of living as a blonde myself means living as a blonde in her natural habitat. Thus, a foray into this type of bar as a blonde imperative.

Just as I was beginning to freak out about the prospect of this situation, I received a phone call from my twin, the Undercover Brother. Actually, it was a text message, because Undercover Brother isn’t a man of many words. It went something like this:

Coming 2 boston 4 parade next weekend make room I ur apartment

Now, I haven’t seen Undercover Brother since Thanksgiving. He is currently finishing up his third year of med school in Philadelphia, and if you read the recently published book, Men at Work by my author, Wendy Straker, you know: med students are really busy. I, too, am very busy, working two jobs to make ends meet because my glamorous publishing industry job simply can’t sustain the fabulosity of my blonde life in Boston.

Undercover Brother and I are twins, but we really couldn’t be more different people. He has dark brown hair, I have…well… blonde hair. He studied Math and Science amongst the Ivy leaguers at UPenn; I studied creative writing and literature amongst the artsy lesbians at Sarah Lawrence College. He always played on athletic teams and was really into sports (like sportscenter every day, twice a day, into sports); I read voraciously and wrote and dyed my hair funny colors and wore black dark eyeliner. If Undercover Brother and I were one person instead of twins, we’d be super human--if a bit strange.

In addition to being my opposite in practically every other way under the sun, Undercover Brother is also way into the bars in Faneuil Hall.

When I called Undercover Brother back to tell him that yes, I was making room in my apartment, I explained my project to him. He said he thought it sounded fascinating and was quite enthusiastic. In Undercover Brother speak, “I’m way into your project” sounds like this: “Sounds pretty sweet.”

To be continued...

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

can you please tell me where the best place is in Boston for woman 45 plus. thanks dave