Unless one wants to see Jersey Boys the theatre scene seems to be on hiatus in Boston during late July and early August but that’s okay, there’s plenty of street theatre everywhere one looks.

I’ve spent the past few days in Beantown, my first time here in at least ten years, and have enjoyed seeking out alternatives to the usual sights like the “Glory monument,” Beacon Hill, the Old South Church, the Old North Church, and Faneuil Hall. If you’ve never seen these nation-making locales (and reminders of our genocide about which residents of this so-called bastion of liberalism still live in a deep, dark denial) then  make them your first order of business when you come to Boston.

If you’ve seen them, then consider something off the tourist trolley line like the Museum of Fine Arts and its extensive collection of mummies and 15th century Flemish religious paintings, the kind that, with their vibrant colors and expressive faces, look like they were painted yesterday for a graphic novel.

There’s also the Mapparium at Christian Scientist headquarters, a 3-story stained glass globe built in 1935 that one enters through a gangplank and explores from the inside.

Okay, I confess I did buy a ticket for one of the trolley tours. They’re an easy way to get around the city and take in a few sights at the same time.  While waiting in line to board I heard the dad of a Red Sox apparel-clad family say “…blah blah blah Roanoke blah blah blah.”  I asked if he was from Roanoke, Virginia, my hometown, and he said yes.  I reminisced with him and his wife about the world’s largest man-made star and the world’s smallest Graceland before they departed with their kids at the first stop, Fenway Park.

I rode the whole loop but by 3/4s through the ride the trolley had become completely empty except for me. It was rush hour and we were crawling so the driver-guide asked if I’d mind our skipping the last three historic site stops so he could take me straight back to the final stop and knock off for the day. I told him no prob, and as a result I got my own private trolley tour of sites not on their usual  itinerary, like the location of the 1950 Brinks armored car robbery, the 1919 molasses flood and the Crispus Attucks monument on Boston Common.

I also recommend the Back Bay Fens which I discovered this trip by accident. It’s a low-lying park that I understand was started as a victory garden during WW II.

Turns out that fen is an old Dutch word meaning wetland, so the fens were the low-lying swampy areas of old Boston.

Fenway Park was built on top of it, hence the name, similar to how the Meadowlands sports complex was built on top of, you guessed it, the swampy Meadowlands in Secaucus, NJ. Today the remaining fens are the Back Bay Fens, a park, gigantic community garden and outdoor sex club as I discovered.  I spent the afternoon strolling up one narrow lane and down the next, digging the way each tenant had made her or his padlocked plot of land unique from the others.

A few couples strolled about, elds creeped around within their plots maintaining their lush gardens.

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Unfortunately plenty of perverts – there, I said it — lurked, and occasional telltale condoms littered the narrow pathways. Is this really necessary?  What is up with these lusty loners? Please note that I am not calling all homosexuals perverts. I am calling grown men aging from 16 to 65 who have nothing better to do on a weekday afternoon than stand blank-faced at the end of each garden aisle staring straight ahead hoping to be approached for a quick bushwack, all the while knowing that tourists, kids and old folks are within 5 feet of them, perverts. This is some kind of bizarre, naughty, juvenile exhibitionism for which they should seek help, and has nothing to do with being gay.

I heard one such gray old daddy lecturing a younger bushwacker at the end of one of the paths as I walked past: “…between two consenting adults where nobody can see them [au contraire, mon frere] is nobody’s business, and if they can see us out their window, well they need to just…” and then I had passed out of earshot.

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I guess there’s been some trouble lately from the gay and straight residents along the fens who are sick of being the exhibitionists’ condom clean-up crew every morning. Get a room already, fellas.

I am perplexed. It’s the same with Central Park’s Ramble, which, even during the Roaring ’20s was known as the “Fruited Plain” because of its popularity as a cruising pasture.  Forest cruising also goes on in Central Park’s North Woods, which I jog through regularly while trying my best to ignore the scarecrow men standing just off the trails in the middle of the weeds like motion-sensitive animatronic zombies waiting to spring to life and start creeping towards any male who jogs past. This behavior is also rampant in sections of Philadelphia’s Fairmount Park. If you’re an urban trail runner, gay or straight, you know what I’m talking about; it’s inevitable that you’ve encountered this special brand of muggle.

Mind you, these urban forest retreats are in gay-friendly metropoli where gay bars and communities abound, so what’s the thrill of lurking in the woods just yards from families, school children and tourists? They’ve got some other thing going on inside. Perhaps they don’t want their wives/husbands/boyfriends/girlfriends/partners finding out? They like the naughtiness? They’re unabashed, unrepentant sex addicts? What is it? Is there anything about this in the Kinsey Report?  If you know anything please help me out by writing in to break it down for me.  It’d be nice if fitness-minded city dwellers, gay and straight,  could use an urban nature trail for its intended purpose without having to worry about a bunch of creepy men spying and skulking like horny sasquatches.

I also had a mostly terrific run along the Charles River’s scenic path, except for the jackass  intentionally running on the wrong side of the lane and playing chicken with me and presumably other runners. Is that some kind of Harvard Delphic initiation rite? I was jogging along minding my own business and this short, shirtless, steroid-pumped twerp with a Napoleon complex comes barreling towards me from a good distance away.

This twentysomething guy is small, like half my size, and all pumped up like a swollen tick from too many hours in the gym making up for his thimble-sized ego and probably traumatized by years of being known as the small guy in junior high school. Mind you I’m as far right on the paved track as I can humanly get.  He’s making a beeline right at me instead of simply moving to his own right like a grownup would do.  Was he serious? Picture a terrier charging at a gorilla. The physics alone were going to cream the guy and leave me unscathed if we impacted.

I guess he wanted to go back and brag to the rest of the track team how he’s such a badass that the mere sight of his chiseled pecs made a middle-aged man twice his size (and with twice his paunch) move out of his way. It was like two rams charging each other in the wild, only I’m one of them, and only I find it comical instead of remotely important. I’m thinking this idiot’s going to break his nose on my sternum and then bounce back and smack the pavement from the momentum, and I’ll hop over him and keep running.

So he’s getting closer and closer. I’m thinking maybe I’ll pepper spray him if he gets within 3 feet of me (I carry it for dogs), because he’s charging me out of the blue and clearly planning to assault me. I also thought of just sticking out my fist as he approached and letting his tanned yuppie face ram into that.

At the last, I mean at the very last split second, I mean our knees almost touched and I’m ready to clothesline him, macho man chickens out and hops to the right, off the paved trail and onto the dirt path alongside it. We both keep running and I glare at him as we pass. He won’t make eye contact but stares at the ground, sullen and humiliated.

Why he did this to himself I’ll never know. I never got the point of this excercise in stupidity. It was just Beantown bizarre. I said, “Nice move!” to the little guy as he passed and finished my run.

The best revenge is living well, so I ate and drank extremely well at Cafeteria on Newbury Street (the place so nice I ate there thrice).  It’s overpriced with an upscale vibe but laid back and friendly. Until this week I’d forgotten the joys of a mid-day cocktail at an outdoor cafe. I recommend their Well Dressed Martini made with Chopin vodka and bleu cheese stuffed olives coupled with either the lamb sausage pizza or their fresh, not-too-heavily-breaded calamari, along with an iced tea to wash it all down.

[photos and images via me, queersighted.com, wikipedia, BU and youtube]

Down by the river
Down by the banks of the River Charles
That’s where you’ll find me
Along with lovers, buggers and thieves