Author: Joey Ciaramitaro

[Two products of our fair city. Both will kick your ass.]

Oh man, you screwed up, didn’t you?

Yes, your little RadioShack experiment for evil hurt and killed some people and got you the attention you were obviously so desperately seeking. Point for you there, asshole. But I get the sense you really don’t know what you’ve done here, do you? Are you from out of town? I have the strong sense that you are.

If that is the case, allow me tell you a little something about the city you screwed with. This town is not your run-of-the mill medium sized regional capital. In picking Boston as a target you picked has the unique condition of having a ridiculously huge number of completely off-the-wall genius techno-wizards co-existing right alongside some of the most psychotic angry, violent motherf&*^ers on the planet. I guarantee you that bringing these two groups together for common cause will turn out to be a massive miscalculation your part.

Do you have any idea what I’m talking about? This small city produced both Stephen J Gould and Whitey Bulger.  This place gave us Leonard Nimoy and Mark Wahlberg.  Southie and Cambridge. Brookline and Brockton. This place will kick the screaming piss out of you, come up with a cure for having the screaming piss kicked out of you, give it to you for free, then win a Nobel prize for it and then use the medallion to break your knuckles. See what I’m talking about?

Go to other towns with smart people. Do they have the tattooed, scarred, pent-up hard-cases to match? Every time I go to a bar in Palo Alto or Zurich I get the distinct sense that I could pretty much take everyone in there while still holding my own in Words With Friends on my iPhone. Not that I’m some huge tough guy by any stretch of the imagination, it’s just that Boston and the other “smart” towns are in different leagues. It’s like the Bruins going up against some “Magic The Gathering” gamers at pond hockey. (And not our the Magic The Gathering players in Gloucester, either. I’ve seen those dudes and they actually look like they could hold their own pretty well. I certainly wouldn’t try and cast a dubious spell with those guys, they’re hardcore.)

Boston produces two distinct stereotypes: Huge, giant geeks and angry Catholic tough guys. You know what? Both of those are true and you, you dumb shit, just gave them a reason to team up. And on top of it you attacked our signature event, one made up of exceedingly fit people who pursue a hobby of enduring incredible searing pain for hours on end. This is what they do for “fun”. You think these guys aren’t going to go to the ends of the Earth to catch you? Trust me, this town will never forget and never give up. We have a thing here called “Irish Alzheimer’s”- it’s when the only memories you have are grudges.

You terrorist asshole, I can assure you that right now, just as I am writing this, that there are dudes sitting in conference rooms and labs a few blocks away in Cambridge drawing elaborate flow charts on whiteboards that describe exactly how to deploy arcane, unheard of and incredibly complicated technology involving quantum entanglement and nanobots to pinpoint, as much as the universe will allow considering the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, your sorry, sorry stupid pathetic little ass.

And behind me in the North End and across the channel to the bars on Summer St. there are similar groups of dudes debating the scientific merits of different electrical voltages applied to the various soft tissues of the human body in order to elicit maximum amounts of excruciating pain over time. They have formulas for this [V/NADS over Time= Screams that they will hear in Worcester]. This is not a theoretical discussion; they are speaking from practical experience.

You’d better pray the BPD catches you first. No, scratch that, you’d better pray for the FBI. No, wait, all those dudes went to Holy Cross. For your own good you might want to turn yourself in to the CDC or the National Geospatial Agency or something like that. They might let you live. Maybe.

And worse yet for you, Boston is provincial in a way that makes Sicily look like Epcot. We don’t care if you’re going to school here, just moved from half a world away or are up for a long weekend. When you’re in Boston, you’re Boston. We watch each other’s backs, always have and always will. And we live for an enemy and a purpose. This is not going to end well for you. Over the past three centuries we’ve taken on Imperial England, slavery and Krispy Kreeme. Note that given time, Boston wins every time.

Come to think of it, a lot of those Geospatial guys went to MIT. Oh man, you are so effed.