THE BULLSHIT REMAINS THE SAME

Here's a poem that was inspired by a recent Sunday night walking alone down a quiet, ghostly Lansdowne Street in Boston...

THE BULLSHIT REMAINS THE SAME

by matt burns

It’s just after dark on Sunday

I’m pretty buzzed

I’m walking down Lansdowne Street

No Red Sox game today

Pretty quiet

But that’s not why it sucks

Yes

Let’s face it

It SUCKS

There’s a House of Blues

A couple of sports bars

And a place called “Tequila Rain”

Which is a frequent hangout for the newly 21-year-olds

And also a magnet for the young professionals

Maybe they just got their first “real” job

And they have a little extra money

So they want to get drunk and laid

And then add all the Boston Strong bullshit into it

All of a sudden Boston’s cool because there was a terrorist attack here

So the city has attracted all the band-wagoners

The Boston Strongers

Ten years ago was much different on this street

There were dark

Seedy

Clubs

Like Axis

Avalon

Karma Club…

And there were punk shows

Every night

Well, not every night

But pretty often

I don’t like to be one of those old folks

Those people who say ‘when I was young’!

But seriously

What happened to the punk?

Is Boston Strong the new oi oi oi?!

What happened to all the talk about them taking away our social security

And the 21^st century digital toy talk

And the ‘our stage is your stage’ talk

And we are the children of the revolution

What are we waiting for?

Let’s change things

Oi Oi

Oi

I’m not being facetious

I miss that music

And I miss that attitude

But punk rock is nothing but a ghostly energy lingering on Lansdowne

The Oi Oi Oi’s have been replaced by BOSTON STRONG’S!

They don’t even know what they’re chanting

They’re just shouting BOSTON STRONG

But it was a slogan born out of a PR machine, not a free-thinker

Empty of any true meaning

And lacking any power to change one

Goddamn

Thing

Yes

Boston Strong

An empty slogan

That sounds cool

And it sounds like it means something

But it’s just words

Then again, so wasn’t Oi Oi Oi

Just words

And who really knew what it meant?

Maybe the punk scene was no different from the Boston Strong scene

Just a big show with Mohawks, spiked jackets and Oi Oi’s

The spiked jackets are gone but BOSTON STRONG T-shirts have replaced them

Stand together

Stand as one

Stand united

BOSTON STRONG

Maybe all that has changed is the slogan and the uniform

But beneath it all
The bullshit has remained the same