Super Bowl Ratings, Betting Lines, Silly Bets

The Super Bowl is today, and it hits with the force of a national holiday. 111 million watched the game last year, making it the third most-viewed Super Bowl of all time... which also makes it the third most-viewed TV show ever put on the tube.

The highest non-Super Bowl TV show ever was 105 million watching the final episode of M.A.S.H., and M.A.S.H. was only able to hold the title until Super Bowl 44. Of the 20 most viewed programs in US History, 19 are Super Bowls and one is the M.A.S.H. finale. You need 88 million viewers to even sniff that list. Trump and Hillary's first debate scored 84 million. Seinfeld's last episode scored 76 million. The last Johnny Carson version of The Tonight Show did 50 million.

If you need an idea about how twisted TV ratings get... the fact that population grows yearly doesn't dilute the shock of realizing that the last episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show was beaten by the last episode of ALF. Ranked #20 overall on the list of TV show codas, ALF also outscored the final episodes of Breaking Bad (ALF doubled them), Bonanza, Murphy Brown, Letterman, Sex In The City, Will And Grace, Twin Peaks and Melrose Place.

YouTube is changing everything. Like I said, Donald Trump's inauguration drew 30 million TV viewers. I'm In Love With The Coco, on YouTube, drew 190 million.

If you need a lead on how powerful the Super Bowl is... the Super Bowl postgame show did 76 million viewers. That's what the final Seinfeld garnered, as well as the Ed Sullivan show with the Beatles. It's is about twice as many viewers as the Academy Awards got, a bit less than twice of what Obama's inauguration drew, more than twice as many viewers as Trump's inauguration had, and about triple of what the Charles/Diana wedding drew in the US.

The only thing that can beat a Super Bowl is a British royal wedding, and you have to go Worldwide viewership to get that 750 million number. Only 30-40 million foreigners watch the Super Bowl, which may just explain why the US wins all of those World Wars.

Not a lot of people bet on the Royal Wedding, but that's not a problem for the fan of American F***ing Football. You can bet on every single aspect of the game, and we shall explore some of those aspects in today's column.

The basic betting lines, and the ones where most of the money will be wagered, is like thusly:

2/5 6:30 ET New England -3 Atlanta 58.5

This means that New England is favored to win, by 3 points, a game that is going to get 58 or 59 points.

We did a whole article about how we thought that this betting line was going to work itself out, although we spent most of the article talking about Mongols, General Sherman and physically destroying the city of Atlanta.

However, there are hundreds of bets you can make on the game. Here's a few of them, with little asides where we give you advice on how we'd handle it:


Odds to win Super Bowl MVP

Tom Brady: 3/2
Matt Ryan: 7/4
Julio Jones: 11/2
Field: 10/1

Anything could happen here. Legarrette Blount might punch in 4 touchdowns. Vic Beasley might sever Tom Brady's spine. Mohammed Sanu might catch a TD and throw for one. The field goal kickers may do all the scoring. Devin McCourty may get a pair of pick-sixes. If you feel that something like that will happen, choose "Field."

If you think that Hotlanta will win, and that they will win because Matt Ryan throws 4TDs to Julio Jones (his momma named him that), you have to make up your mind.

On the other hand, if the Pats win, you're pretty much handing the trophy to Champagne Tom.


O/U total points at halftime: 29.5...  O/U total points after three quarters: 43.5

The Patriots start slow in Super Bowls. The Falcons scored on their first possession like 8 times in a row or so.

Keep in mind, if one team goes up big, they'll run the ball in an attempt to eat the clock. That is mostly a 4th quarter matter, but it all factors in if you're banking on the 59 point Over for the game. You could also have a close game where the teams trade repeated strikes in the 4th quarter.

I tend to view games as Wholes, and usually avoid this kind of bet.


Odds a kicker misses an extra point: 7/3

It's been happening a lot this year. That said, we have two pretty clutch kickers working this game, which is being played in a domed stadium. That's kicker Nirvana,


Odds there is a completed Hail Mary: 66/1

When you may have a mortgage payment riding on whether someone throws a Hail Mary and hits it,  try to bet on the team who has Danny AMENdola.

If you have to use ALL CAPS to force through the Amen part of the joke, the joke probably wasn't funny... but the What's Funny book was written during the Bob Hope era, well before the Internet.


Odds to rush for the most yards

LeGarrette Blount: 9/4
Devonta Freeman: 5/2
Tevin Coleman: 3/1
Dion Lewis: 6/1
FIELD: 28/1

Old School wagerers think "Kenny King," a relatively obscure back who cranked out an 80 yard TD catch to screw up a 1980 receiving version of this bet.

You want to go Blount here. Freeman, Lewis and Coleman are more likely to catch the ball than be handed it in most scenarios.


Odds to score the first TD

Julio Jones: 9/2
Devonta Freeman: 5/1
LeGarrette Blount: 6/1
Mohamed Sanu: 7/1
Martellus Bennett: 9/1
Chris Hogan: 11/1
Julian Edelman: 11/1
Tevin Coleman: 14/1
Dion Lewis: 16/1
FIELD: 12/1

I'd be taking Blount all day with this, except that 1) Atlanta scores on their first possession a lot, and B) Julio Jones is a freak of nature, and 3) FIELD is a group that includes the other 98 players involved in the game.


Over/Under height of the tallest player to score a TD: 6’3″

Jones is listed at 6'3". Blount is under. Brady is over. Bennett is over. Lewis, Freeman and Coleman are under. Ryan is 6'4".  Both Atlanta tight ends and Bennett are over 6'4". Every defensive back is under 6'3", in case you're counting on a pick-6.

Over/Under weight of the heaviest player to score a TD: 249.5 lbs

Blount is over 250 pounds. If you're banking on keeping him out of the end zone, you may as well spend all of your money betting Atlanta and the Under.


Odds the opening coin toss comes up…

Heads: 1/1
Tails: 1/1

I could say "flip a coin" here, but that would be redundant.


Odds on what color Gatorade will be poured on the winning coach:

Orange: 7/2
Blue: 15/4
Clear/Water: 4/1
Purple: 6/1
Yellow: 13/2
None: 10/1

"Yellow" is the popular bet in this Mr. Trump-goes-to-Moscow era.

I do know that I worked in a factory for many years, the company kept Gatorade up all the time for us, and we always wanted the Green. Green isn't on this list, which is funny because we'd always bitch and moan if we got Red, which also isn't on the list.


Odds on what color hoodie Bill Belichick wears

Blue: 4/11
Grey: 3/1
Red: 40/1
Field: 50/1

I will say that, if he shows up in a suit, it will be his last game. If he's ever going to dress up for a game, it will be that one.

Otherwise, I'm only comfortable when he wears the grey one.


Odds a fan throws a _____ on the field:

flare 15/1
slightly deflated football: 19/1
dildo: 45/1
dead falcon: 300/1

The flare may come from Bobcat Goldthwait's "He threw a lit flare into my car" bit from When Your Team Wins The Super Bowl. The football joke would only make Champagne Tom angry. The dil gets chucked on the field now and then, and is probably the safest bet on the list. I do not know whether it counts if the team has a pet Falcon who dies of fright when the New England Football Mil-ish-ee- uh gets to bangin' away with those muskets.

I can think of very few winged creatures who got involved with high profile sports games and didn't regret it immediately. The Randy Johnson/dove story is worse than the Dave Winfield/seagull story, and trails only Michael Vick hanging dogs and Kerry Von Erich giving a cat the Iron Claw. I'd bet against the dead falcon.


O/U on the number of times Gisele is shown on screen: 1.5

Giselle is never going to hurt any broadcast with a visual medium. Take the over.


O/U references to Deflategate/Spygate: 4.5

Again, the big theme of the game is Brady being judged innocent by God in a Trial of Ordeal relating to the Deflategate fiasco. Take the over. Remember, someone in the mob thinks that it's a fairly good bet that people will be throwing deflated footballs onto the field.


Odds Dan Quinn wears a hair piece during the game: 50/1

I read an article about Clive Rush, who coached the Pats during a bad season. He was later institutionalized.

One day, he was going up against Paul Brown, one of the all-time great coaches. He's who the Cleveland Browns are named after, and you'd have to check with Jim Brown's momma to make sure that Jim Brown isn't named after him as well.

"Paul Brown is a genius," Rush told his players. "Anything logical that I might try today, he has already anticipated it and developed a counter for it. Therefore, we shall do illogical things."

His big move was having guys run into the huddle, stay for 3 seconds, then run off the field at the last second. "He'll notice it, no doubt," said Rush. "I'm counting on that. He'll wonder why I'm doing it, and waste time he should waste thinking about me trying to solve that riddle instead.""

The Brown team (I think it was Cincy at that point) won by 35 points, as I recall.

That sort of logic, designed to confuse Bill Belichick, is the only way I see Quinn wearing a rug. Bald is beautiful, IMHO. Let it shine.


 O/U on the length of the broadcast: 215.5 minutes

Any number of things can drive this total up or down. I'd avoid this one like a leper whore, but I put the numbers up there for you to bet on.


O/U on the number of times FOX show stars are shown in the crowd during the broadcast: 1.5

If this were the 1997 Super Bowl, you could watch Ally McBeal binge-n-purge on some hot dogs.

I don't watch much normal TV, so- sadly- that is the most recent reference I can think up on this topic.


Over/Under number of sideline reports from Erin Andrews during the game broadcast (between the opening kickoff and the final play): 5.5

The only way you can see more of her is if you aim a camera into her hotel room, wokka wokka wokka...


Odds there is a halftime show wardrobe malfunction: 2/1

When Janet Jackson was disrobed by the NSYNCH kid during the halftime show, I was actually reaching down to dip a Tostito into some salsa. This was at a point in my life that I wasn't seeing many breasts. Sometimes, the world is a cruel and unjust place.

If we get a Lady Gaga warbrobe malfunction, does it count if she does it on purpose? I keep seeing her doing a "Grab THIS pussy, Donald!" type of protest. It's not always a bad thing to be on the Ugly list in some places, especially if 110 million people see you work your way onto it.


O/U on the number of guest performers during the halftime show: 0.5

Someone, be it Mick Jagger or Rihanna or Bey Bey or even Jimmy Page, is joining her for a song. You only need one with this bet.

I am curious if, should she bring out a midget, what a half a person counts as.


Odds on Lady Gaga’s opening halftime show song

The Edge Of Glory: 3/1
Perfect Illusion: 7/2
Born This Way: 4/1
Other: 2/1

The only Gaga song I know is the one that goes "La la la-la la," which I also am being told by Stacey's kids is every one of her songs.

Little Known Cranberry County Magazine fact... this column was originally a town reporter column on Cape Cod TODAY, we covered the town of Bourne, and we called it Bourne This Way. I had no idea it was a Gaga song for several of the years we were writing that column (I wanted the more Kubrickian "Bourne To Kill"), until Jessica finally explained it to me. The IP address on our Facebook page still says "Bourne This Way."


Odds Lady Gaga gets booed during the halftime show: 9/1

A very, very liberal performer who might 1) have a lip synch failure a la Ashley Simpson or Mariah Carey, or who might 2) make some sort of anti-Trump statement in a stadium full of can-afford-$2500-a-ticket Texas football fans... it's a lot like what they say about passing the football- three things can happen, and two of them are bad.


Odds on which company will air the first commercial (after the coin toss):

Bud Light: 25/1
Lexus: 30/1
Intel: 30/1
Skittles: 30/1
Wix: 30/1
TurboTax: 33/1
Avocados from Mexico: 35/1
Mr. Clean: 35/1
Hyundai: 500/1

I don't know what a Wix is, so I'd probably bet on the Bud Light.

Running an ad during the Super Bowl will cost you $5 million for 30 seconds.

"See it on the TV/any given Sunday/Win the Super Bowl, drive home in a Hyundai..."


O/U commercials parodying Donald Trump: 1.5

Does a White House press conference count? Those oily bastards might repeal Obamacare during the middle of the second quarter.


Odds on who is more likely to host Saturday Night Live following the Super Bowl:

Tom Brady: 1/19
Julio Jones: 25/1
Matt Ryan: 50/1
Bill Belichick: 5,000/1

The odds on Belichick (who would be superb at it, the perfect straight man for a Sandler/Farley/Belushi type of character) may be conservative.

"None of them" is the best option.


Odds Luke Bryan wears cowboy boots and blue jeans: 4/1

Your author, who won $50 once when Christina Aguilera wore pantyhose during a different National Anthem, should know the answer to this, but I don't know who Luke is and don't know how he dresses.

I assume that he's a country guy, and they don't wear anything but jeans and cowboy hats. What else is he going to wear? A full pimp outift? Camo? Hezbollah?


Odds of Lady Gaga making an anti-Trump political statement during her performance (visual or vocal): 10/13

This is a juicy one. Gaga is a fluff performer, known as much for her legs as her lungs. She did a perfectly nice National Anthem in the last Super Bowl without editing anything into the Francis Scott Key classic.

She could instantly change her image into something far more serious by taking a shot at Cheeto Jesus.

When betting money on this, please make sure that the line is clearly defined on"making an anti-Trump political statement" and "getting that anti-Trump political statement past the censors," especially if her protest involves soft furry things that Trump likes to grab.

It may add to your enjoyment of the National Anthem to know that it is a rewritten English drinking song, akin to Roll Out The Barrel. The guy who wrote it, Francis Scott Key, later had a son who was killed by a jealous husband. The killer, Union General Daniel Sickles, got acquitted by running the first Insanity defense in US legal history.

Sickles later had a leg blown off at Gettysburg, and is said to have refused pain-killing ether because lighting a cigar around ether may cause an explosion... and, uhm, first things first, mate.

- Abdullah

Super Bowl LI Prediction: Marching Through Georgia (In Texas)...

Football is known for military analogies. Football teams blitz, throw bombs, sack, flank, feint, perform end runs... you know, all that Soldiering stuff. Even the game itself is basically military in nature, in that you forcibly take territory from an adversary.

Some people look down on that, but not Cranberry County Motherlovin' Magazine. We think that football should be what it is. It's a brutal game, played by brutal men to entertain brutal fans.

This flaw in our collective personality only gets worse when the New England Patriots get into the Super Bowl against the Atlanta Falcons, like they are this weekend.

We meant to write several small articles to give you insight into the game, maybe a little Steve on Monday, some Stacey on Wednesday and Abdullah as the weekend anchorman. Instead, there was a lot of military history being read on Cape Cod's borderlands this week, and it is with the mind of a Conqueror that Cranberry County Magazine took the Sports Desk to Houston this weekend.

Prior to invading Galilee, the Mongol khan Hulagu gave Egypt the chance to avoid hostilities. He sent envoys with a reasonable peace offering to the Mamluk Sultan in Cairo, and these poor men- who were decapitated moments later- stood before Qutuz to proclaim:

"From the King of Kings of the East and West, the Great Khan. To Qutuz the Mamluk, who fled to escape our swords. You should think of what happened to other countries and submit to us. You have heard how we have conquered a vast empire and have purified the earth of the disorders that tainted it. We have conquered vast areas, massacring all the people. You cannot escape from the terror of our armies. Where can you flee? What road will you use to escape us? Our horses are swift, our arrows sharp, our swords like thunderbolts, our hearts as hard as the mountains, our soldiers as numerous as the sand. Fortresses will not detain us, nor armies stop us. Your prayers to God will not avail against us. We are not moved by tears nor touched by lamentations. Only those who beg our protection will be safe. Hasten your reply before the fire of war is kindled. Resist and you will suffer the most terrible catastrophes. We will shatter your mosques and reveal the weakness of your God and then will kill your children and your old men together. At present you are the only enemy against whom we have to march."

I shouted that as I stepped off a 737 jet at George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, much to the consternation of the airport security, who I now know will run your stuff through the metal detector thing after you get off of a plane if you are acting strangely enough. It is also not what they want to have shouted off of a balcony at the Hotel Derek in downtown Houston, although they just send a bellhop up to talk to you if you do it there. They don't understand that there may be Georgians around, and that I wanted them to be intimidated.

We're here to analyze the game and offer our advice on how you might want to deal with it if you are maybe talking to a bookmaker. If we were here for the World Ice Dancing Championships, it might not be necessary to assume a military mindset to properly do our jobs. We would instead speak of things like Grace, Precision, Talent... things that would only get in the way of our NFL work.

Tom Brady, who has a Brazilian supermodel wife, a billion dollars and a football team to quarterback, probably doesn't devote a lot of his time to studying military history. However, his mission is very much like the mission assigned to General William Tecumseh Sherman in the Civil War. Sherman and Brady had the same basic goal, making Georgia suffer.

Sherman's job was, in a nutshell, to bisect the Confederacy and eliminate their ability to wage war. He did so by embracing the concept of Total War, fought not just against the military, but the civilians who supported them. He did so by cutting a 50 mile wide swath of devastation through the heart of Georgia, from Atlanta to Savannah.

He did one hundred million in damages, about a billion and a half in today's dollars. His soldiers burned barns, torched warehouses, slaughtered livestock, fired up cotton, downed telegraph lines, destroyed 300 miles of railroads, confiscated ten million pounds of corn and "generally set about to smashing things." A fraction of the seized goods went to practical use feeding his army, the rest was "simple waste and destruction."

Sherman's efforts doomed Georgia to poverty for a generation, and left Atlanta as a smoking ruin. He felt badly, but it was what he had to do. "My aim, then, was to whip the rebels, to humble their pride, to follow them to their inmost recesses, and make them fear and dread us. Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. " When he needed to be brief, he just said, "I will make Georgia howl!"

The Patriots, although operating in Texas, have the same basic mission. They have been undergoing a Trial of Ordeal since NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell inflicted the unjust penalty of Deflategate upon them. When the shadowy NFL commish has to hand the trophy to Bob Kraft, he will know in his crooked soul that his very God has judged against him.

I know this like I know that the sun will set this evening. So, working from that end, we can reverse-engineer how we come to that result.

Atlanta has a potent offense. Matt Ryan has Julio Jones to throw to, and he has two terrific running backs to work the ball to. It is an offense that made Matty Ice the MVP candidate, and it whipped up on Green Bay and Seattle like they were talking about their mom. The defense, once a joke, was fearsome in the NFC title game. They are probably a really good draft away from being a title contender for a generation.

Still, it's really 4 guys against a dynasty. The Pats neutralized LeVeon Bell last weekend, and he's better than Devonta Freeman and Tevin Coleman combined. We can blanket Julio, and see if "Tom Brady says 'Thanks, sucker' as he takes the NFL trophy from Goodell" is a more likely outcome than "Super Bowl MVP Mohammed Sanu."

If there's anyone who can neutralize Ryan/Jones/Freeman/Coleman, it's Bill Belichick. If there's anyone who already has a copy of Atlanta's playbook, it's Belichick. If there's anyone who could make it snow inside a Texas domed stadium, it's Belichick.

I'd feel a lot better if Gronk was playing, but that's just how the cookie crumbles, friends. Atlanta will score enough to make it interesting, but they "might as well appeal against the thunder-storm." New England is both establishing their destiny and proving their innocence. Atlanta is just the next clown out of the car in a circus that they are merely bit players in.

New England doesn't have a Super Bowl win of greater than 3 points, but that changes this year.

New England 34-24

Boston Slang, Deep Cuts

We stumbled across the Glossary Of Boston Slang on Wikipedia a few moons ago, and we thought we'd rifle through it and draw some items to your attention.

A few things need to be addressed before we start.

1) The glossary, which by name implies that Noah Webster pored over it, instead has that edited-by-teens look.

2) Your author, although born in Boston and a former resident of Dorchester and Quincy, is very very Irish Riviera. I moved inland once, and went back to the shore in 5 years. This geographic isolation will show in the slang that I recognize.

3) Many terms mean one thing in the city and another thing in the suburbs. Both forms are generally and technically correct.

4) We intend to treat several terms as either Retired or Redundant, both by Prominence rather than Obsolescence. They have been beaten to death in many a meme, and someone who assumes that a Massachusetts audience is just learning these words is most likely a Californian.

Among these terms are:

Wicked
Pissa
Wicked Pissa
Dunkin'
ZooMass
Jimmies
Fenway Frank
Packie
The Cape
Bubbler
Statie
Fluffernutter
Tonic (which may have died out here anyhow)
The Pru
The Pike
Lobstah
Marsh Vegas
The Hub
Gobbler
Regular Coffee
The T
The Irish Riviera
The Dot (We almost included "Dot Rat" below, but it got the chopping block)
Masshole
The City Of Sin
The Vineyard
Bang a U-ey
The People's Republic
Hoodsie
Beantown
The Green Monster
Frappe

The elimination of these overused terms means that my own list below will be of the Deep Cuts, Junior Varsity, 200-level class... and I'm OK with that.

5) We may or may not tangle with where-is-it-prevalent questions regarding sub/hero/grinder and other linguistic mysteries... kinda depends on how much filler I need, to be frank. (Ed: Frank is actually the author's brother)

6) I may come across as a rube to some of you, especially if you are older or more urban than I am. It's all good, and I will take enlightenment in the comments.

7) While we may use a town nickname or two to get a laugh, we already did a Local Town Nickname article.

8) I'm not working with Boston Accent versions of regular words. I'm looking more for local patois.

Let's look over some terms, shall we?

Swamp Yankee

The word "Yankee" means different things to different people. Our French editor tells me that the term is used in Europe (the French spell it "yanqui," which makes us sound like a Sasquatch type creature) to describe all Americans. The people of the American South use "Yankee" to describe anyone northern, even someone from New York. Northerners ascribe it to New Englanders. New Englanders ascribe it to northern New Englanders, and Maine/Vermont/New Hampshire will all just point at each other when you say it.

There is less wiggle room as to what a Swamp Yankee is.

Basically, it is a rural Yankee, although it goes deeper than that. Depending on who you ask, it can mean "old country family that is no longer elite or monied," "anyone from SE Massachusetts or Rhode Island," or "a term that Irish and Italian newcomers to a rural Massachusetts town use to describe the long-term residents."

"Four or five old country guys, sitting around a general store, having a lying contest" is a good description of the Swamp Yankee. Since even the rural towns are growing and becoming more diversified, the term describes an older and older man every year that passes. The term may even fall out of use, and pretty much has for a lot of people.

Although pejorative ("Yankee" implies industriousness, while "Swamp Yankee" aims more towards a bumpkin), it is very much like like the racial slur "ni**er," in that Swamp Yankees can call each other that name with love, but a city guy might get stomped if he says it in the wrong crowd.

This very magazine was almost named something with Swamp Yankee in it, but many definitions of the term stress a connection to English ancestry, and I'm as Irish as an 11 AM third beer.


Irish Battleship

Speaking of the Irish, this term has nothing to do with the Navy.

An Irish Battleship is simply a triple-decker house in the Irish parts of Boston.

There are some fun stereotypes to work with. Irish families tend to be large, so a triple-decker could spill out 30-50 people if they have bunk beds and so forth. These houses tend to be tall and thin, so as to allow the developer to fit more of them on a street. This gives the appearance of a warship when viewed from the front.

There's a reason that they call it an Irish Battleship instead of an Irish Freighter and so forth. The Irish like a good battle as much as they like a good bottle. I don't have the actual quote in front of me, but I heard something once along the lines of "your average Irish criminal has little use for things like Fraud, Embezzlement and Price-Gouging... but if there is some Fighting to be done, he is apt to have a hand in it."

With 40 people who may quite likely be inter-related in each house... if you mess with someone in their own yard, the whole battleship may come out after you.

The triple-decker is how housing was constructed in Irish neighborhoods during that time PJ O'Rourke described as "before city planners discovered that you can't stack poor people who drink."


Tuxedo

The term "tuxedo" has no distinct connection to New England, and is in wide use everywhere. However, our little part of New England has very distinct uses of the term.

The term "Portuguese Tuxedo" or "New Bedford Tuxedo" refers to the practice of wearing a sport coat over a "premium soccer warm-up suit."

The "Fall River Tuxedo," on the other hand, is when you wear a sport coat over a hooded sweatshirt.

The "Irish Tuxedo" is when you're wearing shorts and a winter coat at the same time.



Pukwudgie

This sounds like a racial slur, but it actually refers to little goblins who supposedly haunt the swamps of the Bridgewater Triangle.

The term is from the  Wampanoag language, and Pukwudgies play a role in their folklore.

They primarily haunt the Hockomock Swamp, and have turned up in references as far east as Silver Lake in Kingston.



Whoopie Pie

A chocolate cake sandwich with creme filling. It was invented in Massachusetts, and has since spread nationally.

Whoever invented the Devil Dog pretty much just looked at a Whoopie Pie and figured out how to slim it down and make it mass-profitable. Devil Dogs were trademarked in the 1920s, as were Whoopie Pies. Both has been around for almost a century before they were trademarked, and they were known informally by their current names.

Also known as a BFO, aka Big Fat Oreo or Big F*cking Oreo. The Oreo, however, is a cookie, not a cake.

Southerners in northern bakeries will often mistake this for a Moon Pie, and are disappointed when they discover that there is no marshmallow or graham crackers in it.


Relievio

This game is actually a Massachusetts variant of Ringolevio, a Brooklyn street kid game that evolved from a British game called Bedlam. "Relievio" is a spelling distinct to Massachusetts, however.

It is a much extended form of Tag, involving teams and jails. It is thought to have migrated into Massachusetts from Brooklyn, with minor name and rule changes as it bled into the former resort communities that now form Boston's suburbia.

This was the sh*t back when I was a kid on Duxbury Beach. You have two teams, and each has a jail at an opposite end of the neighborhood. The teams would chase each other around, capture each other, and jail each other. You could spring your team from jail by barging into the jail without being caught.

The Notorious B.I.G. referenced the game in Things Done Changed, calling it "Coco-levio" and referencing the "Coco-levio one two three, one two tree" capture line. He was from Brooklyn, and the same game was called Relievio (with a "one two three RELIEVIO" capture line) around the same time in Duxbury. George Carlin (a bit older than Biggie and I, and a Manhattan kid) referenced "ring-a-levio" in his act several times.

Biggie points to the decline of the game's prevalence as accompanying a period of social decay, but it fell out by mere demographics in Duxbury. Once the 40 kid neighborhood mobs of the Baby Boomer 1960s and 1970s fell off to the bare dozen kids of a Generation X neighborhood in the late 1980s, you didn't have enough manpower for Relievio. Most kids would just default and play the needs-less-kids Flashlight Tag. The same demographic fate is what basically killed baseball for white kids.



White Man

I doubt that this term is in widespread use at all, and I only included it because it made me chuckle.

It's a term for the very Caucasian town of Whitman, Massachusetts.

Wokka Wokka Wokka...



Triple Eagle

This is a term for someone who went to:

1) Boston College High School

and then

2) Boston College

and finally

3) Boston College Law School.

Dee Wee

A variant of DUI, with the last two letters being pronounced as a French website editor might pronounce "yes."

I like Dee Wee because:

A) Massachusetts drinks hard enough that a Driving Under The Influence term needs not only a nickname but an acronym,

and

B) Someone, somewhere was too lazy for the three letter acronym, had to shorten it... and it caught on.

C) It rhymes.


Townie

"Townie" belongs in the Retired category, and I only mention it here because it means different things to different people

Ideally, it refers to someone from Charlestown. However, you can lay the term on someone from Southie or even parts of Dorchester without losing any effectiveness.

Once you get out into the sticks, far enough that the urban connotation is no longer necessary, it means "the locals from that town." It is often used in college towns to differentiate between the local punks and the ones who are in the dorms.

I dated a girl from Charlestown (she ruled... she had 5 kids from 4 men, all of whom were in jail for robbing armored cars, and the principal of the school that I taught at- who grew up in the neighborhood-  told me "She's a wonderful girl, sweet, never misses Mass... but if you just even take her out to dinner, she'll be pregnant before the check comes.") once. When I brought her to Duxbury Beach for a bit of ucking,  we crossed some unknown line between Charlestown and Duxbury where she stopped being the Townie and where I became the Townie. Offhand, I'd draw that line at about where the Route 128 Split is.



From The "U" When It Was Only A "C"

Many people from Massachusetts- myself included- went somewhere like Salem State, Framingham State, Worcester State, or Bridgewater State. Shoot, I went to a pair of 'em.

At some point, the state switched those schools, formerly known as Bridgewater State College and so forth, into universities. Thusly, Salem State College became Salem State University.

Universities are more prestigious than colleges. Someone like me, who has a Bridgewater State College diploma up on the wall, can front like I was smart enough to get into a University just by saying "I went to Bridgewater State." This works even if, say,  I was a moron, who BSC only let in the door because I was an orphan with a Pell Grant in each hand.

It can backfire, as there is a Bridgewater State Hospital for the criminally insane (it once housed the Boston Strangler) in the same town which is also called "Bridgewater State," but the right man can work that to his advantage in most social situations.

However, if you catch someone fronting on their Framingham State College education like they went to a University, you can shut them down by going "You went to the 'U' when it was only a 'C.'"


Rotary

This is another one that should be retired. However, the author lives near a bunch of these, has written about them at length, and knows that someone reading this article as a prep guide prior to a Massachusetts visit may need to know some things. The centre does not hold.

What everyone else in the world calls a "traffic circle" or a roundabout" is called a "rotary" in Massachusetts. There is actually something called a "rotary" in real life, but it isn't what we have in Massachusetts. We use the term incorrectly, and great and potentially lethal differences exist between how one drives in a rotary, a roundabout and a traffic circle.

The funny part is that rotaries/traffic circles/roundabouts fell out of favor in the US, and were gradually phased out to the extent that they are now nearly extinct... except in Massachusetts, where they are still prevalent. That's right... the people who don't know the rules now define the rules.

The even funnier part is that, as far as I can tell, there are no rules in a rotary other than No Left Turn. The best way to deal with it is to treat it like stealing a base.... get a lead, pick your spot, explode full-speed, slide through the base...

Stacey, our French writer, uses a sudden zero-to-seventy snap of her wrist to illustrate the same method, and it looks very much like the motion one would use to start an outboard motor.


Brazillion

An indiscriminate number used on Cape Cod to answer the "How many dishwashers/painters/movers/laborers/whatever are on Cape Cod?" questions that sometimes arise during regional planning discussions.

Much like other intangible terms like "the code of the West" or "la plume de ma tante," it is a term that, as Hunter Thompson once said, "can mean just about whatever you need it to mean, in a pinch."


Mooncusser

We tend to assign Piracy to places like Somalia these days, and perhaps rightfully so.

However, there was once a time when America was more like Somalia than Somalia was. Cape Cod, which is a mess of little islands, hidden coves and known-only-to-locals currents, was prime ground for piracy, privateering and smuggling.

Smugglers like darkness, as they often depend on rowing ashore without anyone noticing. When the moon was shining, it increased the chances of being seen. Hence, they would "curse" at it.

"Curse" becomes "Cuss" very quickly on the lips of people who are famous for not pronouncing their R sounds.

"Mooncusser" was a prominent enough term on Cape Cod that it was in solid contention when newly-formed Monomoy High School was kicking the mascot idea around a few years back.


Peking Ravioli

This one snuck up on me. I had no idea that this term was not used outside of Massachusetts. The rest of the world calls them pot-stickers, dumplings or- properly- Jiaozi or Guotie

The term arose from Joyce Chen's restaurant in Cambridge, and it was named "ravioli" in an effort to lure in Italian customers. Attempts by Chinese restaurants to lure in Italians and Irish-who don't consider a meal to be a meal without bread- are also why the Hung Lo Kitchen in Yourtown, Massachusetts still throws some bread in with your order.

The meal itself dates back to the Song Dynasty, and versions of it have been found even further back.

New Bedford

New Bedford rules, and one of the reasons she rules is because she has about 10 nicknames. Even your author, who studies and writes about junk like this for a living, doesn't know all of them.

Nicknames include New Beddy, New Beige, Beige, New Beffuh (born of the same mom as Meffuh/Medford, I'd bet), New Betty, Baby Lisbon, New B and even The Whaling City.

You have to wave these around very carefully, as what might get you a laugh in one bar might get you a chain-whipping in another. With the exception of Baby Lisbon, you never know which is which.


Greenie

This is a term for a worker of Irish descent who is in Massachusetts illegally.

There is a layered meaning to the term, with "green" working along the lines of "new, naive, inexperienced" as well as the green of the "green card"... which a true Greenie wouldn't have, anyhow.

However, the main thrust of this term is the Irish reference. I'd recommend knowing but not using this one, as it could get you stomped by a roofer in many a pub across our reading area.

Mike Greenwell patrolled left field in Fenway Park for many a season with this nickname, and I have no idea if he knew about the meaning.


Shanty Irish

While we're on the subject, this term falls into the same pejorative region.

It is not a term in itself, as it needs something to modify. It is very much like how "wicked" is used in Massachusetts.- no one ever says "wicked" in a stand-alone sense. The heading should technically be "Shanty Irish ____," and only isn't because I needed an extra paragraph.

You can use it in front of "house," "town," "family," and whatever else you might want. A guy who I used to work with, who no doubt had a grouchy wife, used to bemoan the "shanty Irish bone" that the Good Lord in all his wisdom had cursed him with. He used to volunteer for extra shifts a lot.


Upper/Lower/Mid//Outer/Up/Down/Out/On/Off Cape

Cape Cod is easy to get around on. Two roads cut right through it. If you get lost, it's a husband's dream... if you just keep driving and your wife doesn't yell out the window for directions, you'll hit Route 6 or Route 28 again soon enough.

So, to make it more confusing, locals have a dozen different terms for navigation that make perfect sense to them and will drive a New Yorker insane. This is before we get to the rotaries (see above).

Upper/Lower/Mid/Outer Cape Cod is easy to explain. Trains used to run out here from Boston, and the terms are born from the towns' relative placement on the list of train stations.

Upper Cape = Bourne, Falmouth, Mashpee, Sandwich

Mid Cape = Barnstable, Yarmouth and Dennis

Lower Cape = Brewster, Harwich, Chatham

Outer Cape = Orleans, Eastham, Wellfleet, Truro, Provincetown

Parts of the Lower Cape appear higher on a map than parts of the Upper Cape do, but try not to worry about that right now.

Other navigational aids on Cape Cod:

"Off Cape" means everything on Earth once you cross the bridges (Sagamore and Bourne). It is used how "Outside The Asylum" is used in Douglas Adams novels.

"On Cape" speaks not of a region, but of a direction. You might tell someone asking for your ETA that you "just got on Cape," or you someone in Dartmouth may tell a tourist to "just take Route 6 to the bridge, and follow it on Cape."

"Out on the Cape" is how Cape Codders speak of people further out (east, sometimes north, sometimes even south... as long as it correlates with Route 6 or Route 28) on Cape Cod than they are.

"Down the Cape" is a) how someone from the mainland refers to someone from the mainland who moved to Cape Cod, i.e. "Steve moved down the Cape," or b) how Cape Codders move along a directions-seeking tourist once they determine that they will find either Route 6 or Route 28 soon enough, i.e. "Get on Route 6 and just keep heading down the Cape." Option B only works west-to-east, except when it is working south-to-north.


South Shore vs South Coast

These two terms should mean the same thing, but. uhm, welcome to Massachusetts! Remember, this is where a single road is concurrently 95 North, 93 South, 128 North and Route 1 South.

The South Shore is considered to be Boston's southern coastal suburbia, and it runs roughly Quincy to Plymouth.

The South Coast is the Greater New Bedford area, and was called so until a weatherman invented "South Coast." It runs from Wareham to Fall River or so.

The town of Bourne's mainland area forms the hinge on the imaginary door between these two, and is the only town that touches both regions. Bourne sort of serves the same Latvia/buffer zone purpose with Cape Cod and the rest of the world.

Defending Marsh Vegas

I'm a big fan of linguistics, regional dialects, only-used-here terms... stuff like that. I've been reading up on it this morning. This page, a Glossary Of Boston Slang, will spawn a few articles. One of them will be called some form of "local terms that I was unaware of, but which rule," once I type it up and everything.

Quick preview: I was unaware that a triple decker house was known as an "Irish Battleship." I also had no idea that "Slampig" was one word, or that Framingham was known as "Dirtyham."

Nothing against Framingham- I've never had a bad date out of that town- but I needed a segue into town nicknames, and people from places like Gettysburg or Amityville will tell you that sometimes bad things happen to good towns.

One thing that jumped out at me during my research was that other towns use the "Vegas" moniker that people from the South Shore like to drop on Marshfield. While I type it now and then, I don't think that I have ever spoken the word "Marshfield" to anyone local. "Marsh Vegas" rules too hard. It is highly prevalent, as is the lazier "Vegas."

We could argue all day about why Marshfield is known as "Marsh Vegas." Some people point to the Irish Riviera nicknaming pattern, some point to a parody (sleepy town named for Las Vegas), some point to former gambling houses, some point to legalized horse betting, some point out that "Las Vegas" means "the meadows," which Marshfield is covered in, some point to the overabundance of commercial signs as one drives down Route 139... no one knows why it is called "Marsh Vegas," but everyone knows that it is called "Marsh Vegas."

Suburbanites like myself tend to forget that, while the South Shore may seem like the whole world to some people, it really is just a little slice of a little section of a little state. Still, I was very shocked to see that there were contenders arising for the Vegas title.

Lexington, Massachusetts, Wakefield, Massachusetts and Nashua, New Hampshire all turn up in the Boston Slang Glossary, laying claim to the Vegas title. Lex Vegas and Nash Vegas do have a ring to them, and Wakefield has the additional nom de guerre of "The Dirty Dirty Wake Vegas."

I have heard "Dirty Dirty" used in rap music by rapper guys speaking about the "Dirty Dirty South," and that's where the term is owned. Locally, I have heard it used for the South Coast region of Massachusetts. It makes more sense with "the Dirty Dirty South Coast" just from the hip-hop genesis of the word, but "Lex Vegas" makes more sense than "Marsh Vegas" and I still intend to advocate for Lexington to drop the nickname.

In fact, they should all drop the term "Vegas.". Marshfield deserves it, Marshfield rocks it harder, and many locals would not know what someone was talking about if they said "Marshfield."

Do I have the right to make this claim? Am I right to make this claim?

"Lex Vegas" yields 41 million results on Google. Many of them are from other states, however. Lexingtons in both Kentucky and Virginia have more prominent usage of "Lex Vegas" than Massachusetts does. That's a red flag right there, player.

"Wake Vegas" loses on Google because Katy Perry did a song called "Waking In Las Vegas," and that's pretty much all she wrote for the Internet presence of "Wake Vegas." I have no intention of hopping through 100 pages of search results looking for a nickname etymology which I plan to disregard anyhow. Eff them.

"Nash Vegas" is even uglier. For one, Nashville, Tennessee stakes a pretty solid claim to the title. To make it more Google-awful, a prominent professional wrestler named Kevin Nash once had a stage name of "Vinnie Vegas," and it kills any Google presence New Hampshire may have hoped for with the nickname.

A search of Google for "Marsh Vegas" yields numerous results, exclusively for Marshfield. There's an Urban Dictionary entry, a Facebook page, and a zillion social media references.

It just fits Marshfield better. They are the only ones who truly own their nickname. Massachusetts deserves better than a second-best Lex Vegas and New England deserves better than a third-best Nash Vegas.

Therefore, I call on Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker to do the right thing and issue an official proclamation proclaiming Marshfield as the only true Vegas, and dismissing the claims to the term by Lexington, Nashua and Wakefield. Anyone caught referencing Lex Vegas will be dragged down to Green Hahbah and keelhauled.

Keelhauling, which is the practice of tying a criminal to the keel of the ship and dragging him under it, was a vicious practice. Those who didn't drown were dragged along a wall of barnacles, to the extent that decapitation happened now and then. It was outlawed in 1853, but it could be brought back in special circumstances.

Special circumstances like someone failing to recognize Marsh Vegas, for instance...

We've done whole articles on town nicknmes.... check it out....

Local Town Nicknames

Sara Curtis in Virginia won't be saying "Lex Vegas" any time soon...

January 2017 Nor'easter Pictures, Videos

A powerful nor'easter hit Massachusetts this week. We missed last night's tide, but we got all up in this morning's offerings.

We mostly worked Duxbury Beach, but we did manage to snap-shot Green Harbor. The tide, normally a 9 foot nothing, got big ups from the storm surge.

I was using a thirty dollar Wal-Mart phone camera and a badly battered laptop, while shooting in the teeth of a nor'easter. The laptop served as the video host, and you will probably be able to tell that I usually have someone else do the filming.

This wasn't a bad storm, maybe a B minus. No structural damage that I could see, although some beach erosion surely went down by the dunes.

I grew up on this beach, and watched a lot of gulls in my time. The smarter ones hunker down somewhere leeward, but sometimes one of them gets bored enough or hungry enough and works the surf. Joe Deady II on the camera for this one.

My old front yard, just after the porch there. It was great fun and easy work repairing that law every spring. We used to have a cobblestone patio, too... cobblestones that my father either bought or "acquired" from some road in Boston. They were very fun to re-arrange every time the ocean did something like this, and I'm a masochist.

The main problem residents here will have is that the ocean splashed a few million gallons of salt water over the wall and onto a great many lawns. You can see it happening between the stairs.

My 35 mph photography is improving, but it is a slow process.

The legendary public stairs of Duxbury Beach, home to much 1980s teen debauchery.

I had to get off of Ocean Road North before it lived up to the name. That took me through this puddle of seawater. I was pretty much that U-Boat Commander joke from the Tom Cruise pimp movie.

Joe Deady made it outside before I did, but I made up for it later with intensity.

Libby Carr gets into the mix with a bit of second story work over some Hummock Lane flooding. Hummock Lane is named after "Rouse's Hummock," which is what Cable Hill was called either A) before they put the trans-Atlantic cable in, B) when Rouse lived there, C) both, or D) neither.

The guy who owns the house with the flooded lawn worked at a golf course when I lived there. No matter what sort of maelstrom befell Duxbury Beach that winter, you could drop a 30 foot putt on it by summer. My yard, by contrast, looked like what grows over a shallow grave after a while if the killer is particularly good at choosing spots that the cops don't look in.

This is what Duxbury's Great Salt Marsh looks like with a spring full moon tide. Unfortunately, this was a mid-cycle 9 foot tide. Any water you can see in this picture is storm surge. I'm at the beach, shooting towards Duxbury Proper.

This is when I decided that moving my car from the driveway of the house I was shooting at would be a good idea.

As bad as this may look, A) it didn't get any, uhm, badder, and B) this is getting off very, very easily. as a full moon tide when this storm hit would have probably wrecked some homes.

You never ever let Ol' Glory get slapped around by a nor'easter. A wind sock would have made my job easier, but that's not this guy's problem.

They say that a waves don't get  more than 5 feet off this beach in all but extreme conditions, and we were in that neighborhood today. They had a rough tide the night before, and were very lucky that those waves weren't rolling into houses on a full moon tide.

You can tell that I shot this one instead of Joe... because it's blurry as heck. The surf covers up for a lot of my errors.

"I'z unda yoor howz.... shootin' at yer ocean."

I got up on the seawall for a few, but it was camera suicide until the tide eased back some.

Even the porch was a rough go.

I got in where I fit in.

Hummock Lane, with Cable Hill/Rouse's Hummock in the background. A newly located Cape Cod Bay, now a street pool, is in the foreground.

RAIN TOTALS AT NOON

North Weymouth, 3.5"
Sandwich 3.24"
East Mashpee 2.75"
Falmouth 2.52"
Duxbury 2.0"

...'been raining since, too.

Rain is actually what washes the salt water out of the lawns, if you're lucky. It's all sand once you go down far enough, and sand drains well.

You can almost see Green Harbor in the background. Green Hahbahhhh... obscured by the mists of the storm.

WIND GUSTS

Wellfleet 59 mph
Minot 40 mph
Cuttyhunk 44 mph
Plum Island 62 mph

Duxbury Beach, summer 1978, after the Blizzard. The house I was doing most of my shooting from is a much larger version of the 4th house from the right. I grew up in #2 from the right.

We made our way south for the tail end of the storm, and got some Sagamore work in.

We got to Saggy well after high tide, so don't think that we don't represent hard down this way.

Sagamore benefits greatly from the presence of Cape Cod, which keeps it from the heaviest of the storm surf.

You could still get knocked off a rock two hours after high tide. Bourne representin'...

We went to the White Cliffs in Cedarville (Plymouth), but the party was pretty much over by then.