We're #1

 Amherst's new them song:  "Where have all the hippies gone?"

So this is certainly not the kind of Internet poll result you will see our Chamber of Commerce, Business Improvement District or UMass Office of News & Media Relations proudly hype in a press release.

But, considering the source, maybe they should.

Internet troll and anonymous provocateur Turtle Boy Sports named us #1 on the list of his (obviously he's a he)  "Top Ten Hippie Towns in Massachusetts Where Turtle Boy Would Lose His Mind"

Not that he has much of a mind to begin with.  But hey, at least he can count to ten.

First of all Amherst has the lowest median age in the state, with 58% of our population comprised of "college aged youth."  The "hippie" demographic died off a while ago.

These days we have more homeless hanging out in town center than we do hippies.

In other words the Vietnam war is l-o-n-g over.  And Turtle Boy should know that since he -- like Barstool Sports -- revels in bad boy, party hardy, rowdy student behavior.

If immaturity was a good thing, Turtle Boy would be a saint. 

But that's kind of the modus operandi for Turtle Boy:  Cite a cliche or two, add a pinch of snark and a few lousy photos and voilà, you have a listicle "story."  Now bring on the hits. 

Funny thing is in his "takedown" of little old me last spring he clearly says, "Downtown Amherst has tons of cool shops, restaurants, and bars, none of which would exist were it not for the fact that 20,000 carpetbaggers live there in three out of the four seasons."

And he even closed with, "it’s actually got a nice downtown area with tons of nice looking things."

But that's Turtle Boy: spew so much verbiage that you soon forget what you have said in the past.  And he's too lazy to bother with a simple Google search -- even of his own website.

And w-a-y too cowardly to stand by his opinions under his own name.

Blarney Blowout: The Biggest Loser

It has not been a good week for the mid-30ish cowardly Worcester blogger who likes to relive his carefree UMass glory days, almost as much as he likes to exude snark from under the protective cloak of anonymity.

First he gets outed by an actual professional journalist, and then his childish attempt at taking me down while championing the outlandish aspect of Blarney Blowout falls flat, like a drunken bozo staggering across a patch of ice.

And I was so anxiously awaiting a decent hatchet job.

No, Larry Kelley did not win.  The town, higher education in general, and in particular students who attend UMass/Amherst -- our proud flagship  -- won.  Resoundingly.

Crawl back to your swamp Turtle Boy you're drunk.

Even better, you're marginalized.

Make My Day

I have to admit disappointment that Turtle Boy Sports had never heard of me.  After all, I've been doing this -- whatever this is  -- for almost eight years now, and some folks still think my sole reason for being is to hassle kids having fun.

The digital equivalent of "get off my lawn."

But I don't really live all that close to UMass/Amherst and I can honestly say I have never lost a night's sleep due to a party house next door.

Although I do lose a fair amount of sleep on warm weather weekends cruising around neighborhoods that do have problems with party houses.

Over the past 8 years I've published 3,474 posts, 161 of them "Nuisance House" posts (mainly involving male UMass students) and another 135 "War on Rowdyism" posts pushing Town & UMass officials in the right direction to deal with it.  So all in all, less than 10% of what I do.

I've probably published as many if not more posts championing Amherst public safety departments and my neighbors at the DPW, or respect for country, aka my 9/11 commemorative flag odyssey -- something patriotic Turtle Boy would probably support.

So other than the grumpy-old-man-with-too-much-time-on-his-hands jokes, it will be interesting to see what Turtle Boy comes up with to "bury" me.  Although he may be wondering how I managed to acquire his Twitter Direct Messages.

And if he is a high school history teacher he should know rule number #1 in war:  "Never underestimate your opponent."