Shaq realizes calling himself Blackie Bulger might be just a tad offensive

By adamg on Tue, 10/19/2010 - 8:13am

KC Downey considers the the big guy's decision to call himself Blackie Bulger and his subsequent retraction of the idea.

Topics:

Sports

Free tagging:

Celtics

Shaquille O'Neal

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Comments

Shamrock Shaq in Whiteface?

By SwirlyGrrl on Tue, 10/19/2010 - 9:31am.

Sounds more like egg face.

It wouldn't be so insensitive if Bulger was a historical figure - like Curley - and not a current fugitive who has victims and survivors who are still alive.

Way to go Boston

By Good job on Tue, 10/19/2010 - 2:15pm.

You just made a catchy nickname all the more popular by raising a big stink over it. The Herald gets all up in arms because Howie nearly caught a bullet and now they've unwittingly made Blackie Bulger stick. Was out at the neighborhood watering hole this weekend and it was the talk among the guys watching the Pats' game. Consensus: They think it's a winner. Maybe if there was as much effort put into finding Whitey or the Gardner paintings as there was criticizing everything "outsiders" say about either of them, both of those cases would be wrapped up by now. In the meantime, enjoy watching Shaq play center and shut your little pollyanna piehole. God, this town knows how to bitch.

Yeah,

By anon on Tue, 10/19/2010 - 10:08am.

he needs to learn that in Boston, we don't like it when people fetishise our criminal history. Yup.

Or, conversely...

By Bean counter on Tue, 10/19/2010 - 2:07pm.

maybe Boston needs to stop overreacting to everything. The Whitey Bulger case pays huge dividends for town every time the FBI puts out another theory, every time some schlub local writer pens a gritty crime novel and every time tourists go tearing around the joint looking for places where scenes from "The Departed" were filmed. Now we're going to get all sensitive about the matter because a large, outspoken black athlete used a reference to Bulger as a nickname? Hell, there's a guy who posts on this site as "NotWhitey" -- where's the hue and cry over his screen name? Has he no sympathy for the victims? My god, what about the children.

Welcome to mob culture, Boston. Chicago has whole gangland tours of its city. New York lives with rappers and producers taking the name Gotti and a bunch of spiky haired talentless progeny screaming on television in "Growing Up Gotti." You have a famous, notorious gangster who's become the most popular fugitive in American folklore since DB Cooper, your town embraces and publicizes this fact every chance it gets and you think anybody really believes you when you say "we don't like it when people fetishise our criminal history?" Please... Scorcese's Oscar says otherwise.

Blackie Bulger is just fine by me, as is Soul Revere, Slam Adams or the Black Monster.

No kidding

By Nepotist on Tue, 10/19/2010 - 9:37pm.

Amazing that anyone can get worked up about that nickname the day this is announced: http://www.boston.com/ae/celebrity/more_names/blog...

The Whitey movie, as written by Chuck Hogan. Sorry Shaq, I never thought Boston would make L.A. look normal and well-adjusted.

Really?

By adamg on Tue, 10/19/2010 - 10:45pm.

From "The Departed" to "Gone Baby Gone" to "The Town," Boston has been portrayed as a Gotham-like collection of psychopathic, murdering thugs - and where all the bank robbers live. What's one more log on the fire?

Yeah, not really bothered by

By HenryAlan on Wed, 10/20/2010 - 1:07pm.

Yeah, not really bothered by this stuff. Boston is a fine set for gritty organized crime movies. I've been enjoying the "Boston noir" so far, just as I always enjoyed all the great L.A. noir. If it's fiction, it's just that, and if it's factual, why shy away from it? Why should L.A. get all the fun?