What’s up people, it’s been a big week. The Tampa Bay Rays are in Beantown this week and I’m attempting to go to all 4 games of the series (I failed this challenge). Going to a game in Fenway on a weeknight is one of the more enjoyable experiences that the city has to offer. You basically pay $15 to sit in a combination public park/museum and eat peanuts. What a great deal.
I unfortunately was not able to see the northern lights over the weekend. It sucked. Super embarrassing to be the guy at the bar telling everyone how cool the northern lights were going to be just to look up and see the normal Southie sky. But, time rolls on. The pictures from just outside the city looked amazing, and I’m making a point to drive to some place with minimal light pollution next time there’s a solar event like that.
Porchfest 2024 Highlights
It’s not often that I find myself making the trek up to Somerville. However, every time I’ve been to The ‘Ville (nobody calls it that) I have had the time of my life. Porchfest was no exception. I had never heard of the event before, but was more than pleasantly surprised to find that it’s just a culmination of all the best things on earth: great music, great food, and great people. The streets were packed with groups of people just meandering through the neighborhood, stopping every few houses or so to appreciate some random no-name band. Here were some of my personal highlights:
This Pole
I mean how is this real. Half of this power line pole fell down and this is how they decided to patch it together? Are we serious? This looks like a repair job that a college house of 10 dudes would throw together. For how good the Somerville public services are, this was astonishingly funny.
The Somerville Community Path
This is one of my favorite things of all time. The Somerville Community Path is a top-tier piece of public infrastructure, which is shocking considering the light pole above. This bad boy runs right through the neighborhood, avoids every major road, and spits you right out at the exact perfect spot every time. A true miracle. If you ever get the chance, take a trip up there and just take a walk on that thing, you will not regret it.
FLOP - Guster
I’ve loosely heard of the band Guster. I was not aware of a few things:
They are from Somerville
They would be playing at porchfest
They are the most famous band in the world apparently
The amount of people standing in this random person’s front yard was absolutely shocking. For a crowd that big, you’d think they would have some pretty big speakers right? Wrong. Guster was inaudible unless you were standing right in front of the band, which was unfortunate because there was about a few thousand people standing like a block away. Not great, Guster! They lost a fan for life. (I’ve maybe heard one song).
Winner - Crawfish, PBR, & Rock Music
The winner of the day was easily the random house that had a fantastic psychedelic rock band, a PBR keg, and a full boat full of freshly boiled crawfish. That sentence is an unreal one, but it’s true. After talking to the owner of the yard we found out that he won the "New Orleans Crawfish Festival” in 2016, and it brought the heat. I lost consciousness for about 15 minutes as I dove into the crawfish and listened to the Grateful Dead. When I came to, my mouth was on fire and I had somehow consumed too much PBR. What a feeling.
Song of The Week: Gumbo by Jimmy Buffet (cover of a Phish Song)
I need to become more of a Phish guy, maybe this will help. This weekend should be a great one, let’s have some fun.
Mod 21 repair shop made its way to the ville
Another great weekly recap of a life well-lived! Love you A!