Posted on 07/23/2006 8:11:44 AM PDT by raccoonradio
What a grand idea to name the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center after Mayor Thomas M. Menino.
We could call it “the Mumbles.”
Look, Cleveland has “the Jake.” Suddenly everyone is referring to the Ted Williams Tunnel o’ Death as “the Ted,” although given the recent killing of a woman in a car below sea level due to political corruption, perhaps a more appropriate handle would be “the Teddy.”
Once the $800 million convention boondoggle is officially christened, “the Mumbles” would instantly enter the city’s lexicon:
“Traffic is backed up all the way to the Mumbles.”
“Hey Sully, did you hear? Fitzie paid off a pol and got on down at the Mumbles.”
“The Legislature today passed a bill doubling the hotel-motel excise tax in Boston to pay for ‘unexpected’ cost overruns at the Mumbles.”
So what if the city could grab maybe $20 million a year for the naming rights? It really fries my nose, as Mumbles himself would put it, that some taxpayers consider a megabucks payout more important than a tribute to the man who has presided so long over our rapidly shrinking metropolis.
Only 13 years as mayor and look at what the man has been able to accomplish. Consider crime, taxes, traffic, the public schools, the police -er, strike that.
Let’s start over: Mumbles is doing the best he can. Who can forget his eloquence as he unveiled the city’s latest gun buyback program? All dialogue guaranteed verbatim:
“The crime council’s a process of inflamenting a six-prong strategy . . . to help us take the senseless gillens off our street with the handguns that are a-bailable . . . Guns may be droffed off at all district police stations. . . . We encourage our young people to rejert a life of crime an’ embrace a lie - life of personal responsibility. . .”
Mumbles has run the city in a time of changing demographics. When he took over City Hall, for example, all the crooked cops had names like Connolly and Flemmi. Now the alleged gangsters with badges have names like Pulido, Carrasquillo and Pizzaro. Adios Bobo, hola Kiko - Boston celebrates diversity!
But let’s remember one thing about this latest police corruption on Mumbles’ watch. Forty years ago, the local constabulary was framing people on murder raps. Now, the BPD bad apples just try to railroad you on heroin and gun-possession charges. Thanks to Mumbles, it’s a kinder, gentler city. Not to mention, depopulated.
Accomplishments? He’s had a few. Very few. A ticket downtown used to cost $15, now it’s $55.
Now this great leader, who is not afraid to occasionally admit his ignorance (“Who Don Gillis?”), who was the first politician to suggest that the public schools needed “mental detectors,” who has battled “prostrate cancer,” our mumblin’ mayor shrugs off the snickering behind his back. [continue]
And yet, not a single filthy, shabbily constructed, falling-apart public building in Suffolk County is named after him. Not even on Deer Island, where a commemoration would seem most appropriate. Yet he dutifully trudges out and delivers classy remarks at other hacks’ ribbon-cuttings.
Who can forget Mumbles’ peroration at the Tip O’Neill Tunnel, or as it’s usually called now, for obvious reasons, the Drip O’Neill Tunnel.
“Tip really unnerstood what gumment was supposed to be about.”
Namely, feathering one’s own nest with other people’s money.
“We honna him,” Mumbles continued, “by naming the tunnel a more important.”
Naming the convention center the Mumbles - it’s the least we can do. Well, that and a $140,000-a-year pension.
(tune: Bingo was His Name-O)
Oh Boston has a tongue-tied mayor
Menino is his name, oh
M-E-N-I-N-O,
M-E-N-I-N-O,
M-E-N-I-N-O
Menino is his name, oh
Look at his face and hear his voice
You'll see that he's no Brahmin
He don't want youse to conjugate
When on Boston Cah-min
M-E-N-I-N-O, etc.
Howie shakes Mumbles' hand: 
M-E-N-I-N-O,
B-A-M-B-I-N-O,
B-A-N-A-N-A-N-A-N-N-A,
F-O-F-I-N-O,
M-E-N-I-N-O!
His tongue's too big for his mouth... and his brain's too small for his head.
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