Smackdown!
If there's one thing we like to do in this town, it's argue. So last month we posted 30 knock-down, drag-out feuds on Boston.com and let readers go at it. Nearly 4,000 responded to our poll. Just keep in mind it's about as scientific as Marshmallow Fluff.
 (Reuters Photo; John Bohn / Globe Staff) |
JOCK WE LOVE
"BIG PAPI" 59%
TOM BRADY 41%
SMACKDOWN ANALYSIS A modest upset. Three Super Bowls and conspicuous public modesty lose out to a big brass band of a fellow draped in more gold than King Tut (but also the greatest clutch hitter in Sox history). Maybe it's the lingering effect of 2004, or the tension over whether David Ortiz will hit 50 home runs before Josh Beckett surrenders that many. Or maybe it's because it's summertime.
THE MORAL We should take this poll in November next time.
RESTAURANT ROW
NORTH END 85%
SOUTH END 15%
SMACKDOWN ANALYSIS We love our pasta and our calamari and our traditions, too. The South End is still too trendy, and this neighborhood has too many places that cut their vegetables up into origami. Quantity, caro mio, quantity.
THE MORAL The North End is in East Boston. The South End is west of South Boston. The original settlers were all drunk when they laid this city out.
| LOCAL BOY TURNED HOLLYWOOD HEADLINER MATT 82% BEN 18% SMACKDOWN ANALYSIS Geez, that Pearl Harbor thing really wasn't a good idea, was it? Or may be it was the whole Bennifer fiasco. Or Gigli. Bechtel doesn't pick projects this badly. THE MORAL Even we're not provincial enough to love Jersey Girl. |
 (AP File Photo) |
 (Fox Broadcasting Company) | DAVID E. KELLEY TV SERIES THE PRACTICE 54% ALLY McBEAL (left) 46% SMACKDOWN ANALYSIS Neither one ever seemed to get closer to Boston than the moons of Neptune, but The Practice had corrupt politicians and dubious hacks on the bench, so it was slightly more familiar. |
THE MORAL We prefer our Dancing Babies on Community Auditions, thanks.
OUT-OF-TOWNER TURNED LOCAL
TRADER JOE'S 79%
IKEA 21%
SMACKDOWN ANALYSIS Food is always essentially more interesting than the plates it's served on, the tables the plates are placed on, and the chairs we sit upon while eating the food on the plates on the tables.
THE MORAL We either dislike huge warehouse stores full of uncontrollable suburban toddlers, or we really don't like the Swedes. Opinions vary.
Sound off on our survey and share your favorite Boston barstool argumentSHORE
NORTH 56%
SOUTH 44%
SMACKDOWN ANALYSIS The North Shore wins because it is an independent entity, from the neonized cheese of Route 1 to the gentle shoppes of Cape Ann. The South Shore? A home for golfers fleeing the city and best known as That Place Down There by the Cape.
THE MORAL Cape Cod is what is. It doesn't need a vestibule.
| HARVARDIAN WE LOVE TO HATE LARRY SUMMERS (right) 54% KAAVYA VISWANATHAN 46% SMACKDOWN ANALYSIS Apparently, insulting the most accomplished members of an entire gender still trumps cribbing your voice-of-a-generation novel from the obscure corners of the teen-lit section at Barnes & Noble. Larry, baby, those female theoretical physicists can prove that you don't exist. Just sayin'. THE MORAL Scandals involving Harvard students don't carry the oomph scandals involving Harvard presidents. And most of us didn't go there. |
 (Globe Staff Photo / Essdras M Suarez; Photo-Illustration by Josue Evila / Globe Staff) |
SWEET INVENTION
MARSHMALLOW FLUFF 63%
NECCO WAFERS 37%
SMACKDOWN ANALYSIS A huge win for the embattled local goo. Just a month or so ago, State Senator Jarrett Barrios tried to cut back on Fluff in public-school lunches. This was a brief kerfuffle in the Fox News universe. However, getting Fluff out of the schools proved as hard as getting it off the knife.
THE MORAL Part of the regional accent is due to our incisors being stuck together.
RADIO PRESET
WEEI 68%
WBUR 32%
SMACKDOWN ANALYSIS A couple years back, MIT's Noam Chomsky opined that he wished the callers on political talk shows were as disrespectful of the putative experts thereon as the callers to sports talk radio are. And here's proof enough of what he meant, at least until Noam pops up on The Whiner Line.
THE MORAL How many colleges did you say were in this town?
 (Globe Photo / Robert E. Klein) |
ALMOST AMERICAN IDOL AYLA BROWN (left) 71% CONSTANTINE MAROULIS 29% SMACKDOWN ANALYSIS A big old win for the Wrentham balladress, and proof positive that if you don't win this particularly curious national obsession, it can mean an almost immediate drop in your celebrity in the general direction of the cocktail lounge of the Holiday Inn in Alpena, Michigan. |
THE MORAL We used to be better at stealing elections.
ALMOST PRESIDENT
JOHN KERRY 54%
MIKE DUKAKIS 46%
SMACKDOWN ANALYSIS The junior senator came closer, and that makes him either the horseshoe or the hand grenade, depending on your metaphor of choice. However, The Duke can be said to have lost to a superior grade of Bush.
THE MORAL We used to be a lot better at stealing elections.
COLLEGIATE CONTEST
BEANPOT TOURNAMENT 72%
HEAD OF THE CHARLES 28%
SMACKDOWN ANALYSIS A result of interest almost exclusively to people who wear college ties and whales on their trousers. The overwhelming win by the Beanpot is probably due to the fact that it doesn't destroy the traffic pattern along the Charles for an entire weekend.
THE MORAL There's a reason why there are no bleachers along Memorial Drive.
BEER
SAM ADAMS 73%
HARPOON 27%
SMACKDOWN ANALYSIS Forget David McCullough's valentine to that awful old blowhard John Adams. The current revival of interest in our Founding Fathers really began when Jim Koch named the local designer brew after the incorrigible downtown troublemaker. It's been around long enough now to have become a staple.
THE MORAL History hangs heavy over this town. Yea, even over our barstools it hangs.
THREE-NAMED GRANDE DAME
ISABELLA STEWART GARDNER 85%
MARY BAKER EDDY 15%
SMACKDOWN ANALYSIS ISG once got tossed out of a performance at Symphony Hall for wearing a "Go Red Sox" ribbon on her hat. MBE never had a chance after that. And, of course, years after she died, only Gardner's museum got robbed. Eddy's entire religion went broke.
THE MORAL Give us back the Vermeer and we'll talk.
THREE-NAMED PHILOSOPHICAL IDEALIST
HENRY DAVID THOREAU 60%
RALPH WALDO EMERSON 40%
SMACKDOWN ANALYSIS Even though Emerson was Thoreau's inspiration, this turned out like the bout between Muhammad Ali and Archie Moore did. Float like a butterfly, sting like a transcendentalist.
THE MORAL Concord will never lack for tourists, as long as there are freshmen taking philosophy somewhere.
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DEFENDER ON ICE BOBBY ORR (left) 67% RAY BOURQUE 33% SMACKDOWN ANALYSIS A guy who gave his all for as long as he had it to give to a franchise that squandered every bit of it, and a guy who will be the icon of that franchise for as long as that franchise continues. Bourque had to go to Denver to get his name on the Stanley Cup. Orr did it here, and with a crook for an agent besides. |
THE MORAL What is this NHL of which you speak?
CLUTCH PLAY
ADAM VINATIERI'S PLAYOFF "SNOW KICK" 65%
DAVE ROBERTS'S GAME 4 STEAL 35%
SMACKDOWN ANALYSIS The interesting thing, of course, is that neither man still plays here. Vinatieri, in fact, took his mercenary foot off to archrival Indianapolis for more dough. However, his kick gave Foxboro/Sullivan/Schaefer Stadium a better curtain call than the old corral deserved.
THE MORAL Come back, Adam. All's forgiven.
WAKE-UP CREW
KISS'S MATTY IN THE MORNING 80%
JAM'N'S RAMIRO & PEBBLES 20%
SMACKDOWN ANALYSIS It is argued that Matt Siegel once took a morning drive-time request from John Winthrop and his homies on the Arbella. As for R&P, apparently there just weren't enough people afraid of pickles to carry the day.
THE MORAL Save this result, especially now that, for most local motorists, "morning drive" extends well into the early afternoon.
(Globe Staff Photo / Ron Driscoll)
GETAWAY
THE CAPE (above) 77%
THE BERKSHIRES 23%
SMACKDOWN ANALYSIS The Atlantic Ocean remains the region's primary destination for family fun and tawdry T-shirts. If you get lost on the Cape, it's still pretty easy to find your way back to the mainland. Get lost in the Berkshires, and you can end up in (gah!) New York.
THE MORAL We are not mountain folk. You want that? Move to Vermont.
VILLAIN
JAMES "WHITEY" BULGER 68%
THE BOSTON STRANGLER 32%
SMACKDOWN ANALYSIS The Strangler was a mysterious psychopath driven to kill and enabled by his own bloody urges. Whitey was an obvious psychopath driven to kill and enabled by members of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. There's a certain entrepreneurial quality to both men's careers, but Whitey's ambitions were global, as, apparently, were his abilities as a lamster.
THE MORAL The shelf life on our legends can be limitless.
PEOPLE WATCHING
NEWBURY STREET 55%
HARVARD SQUARE 45%
SMACKDOWN ANALYSIS A brawl between two areas both turning in their own unique ways into the Natick Mall. There's a more affluent class of people to watch on Newbury (cough - Eurotrash - cough), but the folks around Harvard Square are more likely to watch you back. What they're seeing in you, however, is anybody's guess.
THE MORAL Give me an inch and I'll still take the Yard.
BARGAIN HUNTING
HAYMARKET 18%
SMACKDOWN ANALYSIS Cheap tangerine-colored sport coats or simply cheap tangerines? An interesting conundrum for us all. Both of these places are landmarks in their own way, and in both of them you can lose an arm reaching tentatively for whatever bargain catches your eye. Grab it and run.
THE MORAL He who hesitates pays retail.
(AP Photo)
BUSKER GONE BIG
TRACY CHAPMAN (above) 63%
JOAN BAEZ 37%
SMACKDOWN ANALYSIS It's been an awful long time since Joanie played the Central Square station, and Tracy's had a couple of more recent hits. The PBS Bob Dylan bio wasn't enough to bring Joan all the way back.
THE MORAL If you can't out-sing the Alewife train, don't bother us with your stories about Woodstock.
DINOSAUR ROCKERS
AEROSMITH 79%
BOSTON 21%
SMACKDOWN ANALYSIS The Bad Geriatrics of Boston (with Aerosmith frontman Steven Tyler) are still out there doing pretty much the same things they've always done. On the other hand, Boston (with its singer, Brad Delp) spent an awful lot of years as simply a mess of disembodied sounds on the radio. There's still something to be said of playing live while you're half-dead.
THE MORAL "Dude...looks like a mummy!"
CLAMS
FRIED 66%
STEAMERS 34%
SMACKDOWN ANALYSIS A result almost entirely due to the fact that, when you fry them, clams no longer look like clams. Steamed clams still look like clams, and clams do not in and of themselves look like food. They look like evidence at a coroner's inquest.
THE MORAL Our arteries are clogged. Our roads aren't a barrel of laughs, either.
CHEERS YEARS
WHEN SHELLEY LONG PLAYED DIANE 68%
WHEN KIRSTIE ALLEY PLAYED REBECCA 32%
SMACKDOWN ANALYSIS That 3,797 people remember Cheers is remarkable enough. The original cast remains the best, even if they did carry on the endless Sam-and-Diane-will-they-or-won't-they? plotline. (They did, and a grateful nation rejoiced.) Kirstie Alley, alas, did her best work as a hubba-hubba Vulcan in the second Star Trek film.
THE MORAL The Bull and Finch used to be a helluva bar.
BOY BAND
NEW KIDS ON THE BLOCK 91%
THE CLICK FIVE 9%
SMACKDOWN ANALYSIS Apparently, the New Kids are still, like, way cool, to say nothing of totally awesome and wicked fine, even with Donnie Wahlberg starring in Saw II. The Click Five, who may also be all that, never had a chance. Way cool-ness is not something shed easily.
THE MORAL The word "wicked" means something different here than it does everywhere else.
COOKBOOK AUTHOR
JULIA CHILD 90%
FANNIE FARMER 10%
SMACKDOWN ANALYSIS Fannie published her book 110 years ago, and she undoubtedly would have had her own TV show. Alas, she was born too soon, and it was left to Our Julia to explain to us all about the pope's nose, and in a voice that forever sounded like a whooping crane.
THE MORAL We'll take Fannie's sampler for dessert and Julia for the rest of the meal, thanks.
KIDDIE AUTHOR
ROBERT MCCLOSKEY (MAKE WAY FOR DUCKLINGS) 54%
H.A. AND MARGRET REY (CURIOUS GEORGE) 46%
SMACKDOWN ANALYSIS It is something to be said about your market penetration when you write a kid's story and the city puts up statues to your web-footed characters, and somebody then thinks enough of the book to steal some of the statues. Curious George, on the other hand, never has been given an annual parade.
THE MORAL Quack leaves us wack. So does Ouack, for that matter.
 (Globe Staff Photo / Barry Chin) |
RIVALRY RED SOX VS. YANKEES OF THE 2000s (left) 76% CELTICS VS. LAKERS OF THE 1980s 24% SMACKDOWN ANALYSIS History today being defined as "anything that happened 15 minutes ago," the Red Sox-Yankees thing is a lot fresher and, most recently, it came to a more satisfying conclusion. Nice to see folks still remember the NBA, though. |
