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Lust Boston’s sex industry has had the stuffing knocked out of it in recent years. Today, most of our — ahem — gentlemen’s clubs are located out of town: King Arthur’s, in Chelsea; the Squire Lounge, in Revere; and the Golden Banana, in Peabody. Here in Boston, we’re down to two clubs, facing off across a quiet street in what remains of the Combat Zone. The swankier of these is Centerfolds, a multilevel establishment with scores of top-notch dancers, a full menu, and a $20 cover charge. Across the street is the somewhat seedier Glass Slipper, where the girls aren’t quite so hot, the food is nonexistent, and the entrance fee is zilch. For more-interactive adult entertainment, there are sex-chat lines, plus a large number of escort services operating in the Boston area; you’ll find these listed in the Adult section of this newspaper. Sex shops, while not as numerous as they once were, can still be found in Boston. One of the largest and most comprehensively stocked adult stores is Amazing Express, which will furnish you with such products as a Jack Rabbit Vibrator, DVDs with titles like Strap-on Sally, and enough in the way of naughty magazines to keep you occupied for a month. Grand Opening!, meanwhile, caters to a more up-market, or at least a more sensitive, crowd. Along with the requisite books, videos, and pleasure probes, this store offers classes to teach you how to use them. Finally, for those who like it a little kinky, Hubba Hubba stocks an entire range of whips, masks, restraints, and strange bauble-y things that seem designed to befuddle as much as titillate. Wrath Perhaps the best place to experience wrath is on the streets of Boston, where giving the finger to one’s fellow drivers has evolved into something of a quaint local tradition. The MBTA at rush hour, also, will allow you to seethe with animosity toward your fellow man, not to mention women, children, backpacks, and the very idea of public transportation. A more enjoyable form of ire can be found at Jillian’s, which has 250 high-tech video games, many of which will allow you to shoot, stab, bludgeon, and disembowel a variety of virtual enemies. More wrath can be found at the Good Time Emporium, which, along with an impressive selection of sickeningly violent video games, offers a multitude of other ways to vent spleen, including bumper cars, laser tag, and batting cages. Finally, wearing a Yankees baseball cap anywhere in this town will likely endow visitors with a newfound appreciation for Shakespeare’s line, "I understand a fury in your words, but not the words." (YURNGH-KURGHS SAHHCK!, by the way, translates as "Yankees suck.") Gluttony You can’t eat big in Boston without trying the Atlantic Fish Company’s four-pound lobster, which, if it were human, would be old enough to drive a car and almost large enough to reach the pedals. A plate of pasta at La Famiglia Giorgio, meanwhile, will fulfill your carb count for the next two weeks. The most inordinately large dessert in the Boston area has to be the Great Pyramid sundae at Cabot’s Ice Cream, in Newton, which, for the low price of $185.99, uses (no kidding) 60 pints of ice cream. A slightly more modest dessert is Anthem’s fried Twinkie, which masterfully combines the elements of fat, sugar, and a cream-like filling. Nothing says overindulgence, though, like a slab of meat. For a steak that any bovine would be proud to die for, try Abe & Louie’s or the Palm. A drive up Route 1 will take you to the Hilltop Steakhouse, in Saugus, which has a 20-ounce sirloin on its menu. It’s worth making the trip just to see the plastic cows outside. There is, of course, no shortage of places to drink yourself silly in Boston. For ale lovers, the Sunset Grill & Tap has more than 100 beers on tap, and more than 300 bottled brews. To really get the feel of bibulousness, though, try the bowl drinks at the Cactus Club — the 60-ounce tequila mocking bowl is said to be a favorite. The Cambridge Brewing Company offers an even larger concoction: the 100-ounce Beer Tower, which, says an employee, "is like having your own little keg." As far as smoking at any of these places, you have to go outside for that, and while some bars with outdoor seating will allow you to puff at their tables (we snuck a smoke on the patio at the Armani Café the other day), it’s always best to be discreet with your filthy habit. Take note that smoking outside has its pros and cons: a bonus is that you get an opportunity to chat with people you otherwise wouldn’t have come in contact with, while the downside is that many of these people will be passers-by asking you for a cigarette. Greedy bastards. Envy Wander up and down Newbury Street and you’ll be assaulted by the spectacle of people who are younger than you, better-looking than you, wealthier than you — or, very often, all three at the same time. At the Mass Ave end of the street, you’ll find the tattooed masses, whose pierced eyebrows and meticulous tattiness make an unmistakable statement: "We are cooler than you." Wander into Newbury Comics and look at the racks of music you don’t understand. Enter Allston Beat and fondle clothes you could never wear. As you make your way down the street, toward the Boston Common, the businesses get swankier and the people get lovelier. At Louis Boston, you’ll encounter suits you cannot afford. At Cartier, you’ll find jewelry you can barely afford to look at. At the Riccardi Boutique, even the jeans require a second mortgage. Not that you’d know it, judging by the streams of beautiful people who swipe their platinum credit cards with happy abandon. The whole thing culminates in the splendor of the Ritz-Carlton, whose plush carpets coddle the feet of the truly wealthy. Perhaps the most galling thing about all this is that these people — with their jewels and furs and enormously expensive shoes — maintain an absolute disregard for those of us who scurry T-ward, with no one to carry our bags for us, no doorman to give us a deferential nod, the money in our wallets overwhelmed by reams of ATM slips and expired coupons, while at home, the young ones shiver with fever and malnutrition in front of a fire we cannot afford to fuel. Sloth You’ve eaten your own body weight in ice cream, practically bathed in tequila, spent a week’s wages at the track, killed 700 virtual zombies, argued with a pointy-head in Harvard Square, and had your baseball cap knocked off in the Fenway. The only thing now is to sit back and do absolutely nothing. You can enjoy this so-called pursuit pretty much anywhere in Boston — lying on the Esplanade, beside the Charles River, or on the Boston Common. The best place for both men and women to exercise their indolent side, though, is at one of our spas. At Étant Day Spa, you can get what they call a "four-handed massage" (two masseuses), a "personal Energetic alignment" ("Use of light touch, as well as crystals and sound"), or a "body polish." Grettacole, meanwhile, offers a "hot-stone therapy massage" and a "skin-rejuvenating salt rub." For an old-fashioned, crystal-free rub down, try a massage at the health club at the tony Boston Harbor Hotel. If even this seems like too much work, try Dillon’s Russian Steam Bath, a local institution where you can supplement your "platza" (basically, a broom massage) with an hour or two of steamy languor. Or you can simply take a snooze during the convention speeches. You won’t be the only one. Chris Wright can be reached at cwright[a]phx.com page 1 page 2 |
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Issue Date: July 23 - 29, 2004 Back to the DNC '04 table of contents |
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