2000

[robotnik2004]

Big Joe, Mike/Chuck, Steve and Rob on the Forest Moon of Allston. Little Joe is obviously R2, but I'm not sure who that makes C3P0.
Allston Rock City! Austin of the East, Athens of the North. Allston, the All-Town!

Allston, home of auto body shops and discount futon stores. Allston, where the national anthem is trivia night. Allston, muse to Pagan Kennedy and Donna Kossy and the guy who wrote Warp and the people who made Funny Ha Ha. Allston, friend to weary travelers who get off the Pike at Exit 18 but have no way of knowing that to get on Storrow Drive you actually have to take the Cambridge exit even though you'd think that would put you on the wrong side of the river, so you take the Allston-Brighton exit but there's no way to get from there to Storrow so you soon realize with dismay you're not headed downtown, you're in Allston!

Allston, where grad students and post-grad slackers and immigrant families reside. Where we crammed eight computers into a four bedroom apartment and our downstairs neighbors crammed seven kids into an apartment meant for three. Where we all paid tithes to Leonard Samia, and thought he was the biggest baddest landlord in the city until Samia got forced out by the only landlord that was bigger and badder still. Where the Samia maintenance guys were only half finished putting new siding on our house when the balcony of another property collapsed, so they spent the next year boarding up balconies, leaving our house half nude in what looked like shiny silver underoos. Where I had the sweet octagonal turret room with seven windows around my bed, but boy did the wind whistle through those seven turret windows in February in Allston.

In Allston, Mike busted his knee and was laid up for a month and turned the living room couch into a convalescent nest. And the pills he took unleashed his alter ego, Chuck. In Allston, a day of sitting on the couch getting buzzed watching Fight Club was only three magic words—"vodka snow day"—away. In Allston, Mike brought his girlfriend over to meet us all, but nobody did, because Steve and Joe were playing Sega Hockey, and they never turned their heads far enough from the TV to see that she was in the room. In Allston, Little Joe hooked us up with free satellite and Franken-TiVo and Big Joe dragged Steve down the stairs. And we went to see Sloan, and Fountains of Wayne, and The Tragically Hip, and The Lowest of the Low, and Marcy Playground, and Matthew Sweet, and Cake, and Beck, and Soul Coughing, and Moby, and Ben Folds Five, and just Ben Folds, and Weezer, because we love the Power Pop in Allston.

Allston!

* *

I'm still beaming from last night's soiree and the previous night's dinner at jereblossom. Thanks, guys.