Here's the Stewart/Carlson exchange. I will say the nice thing about 90's references is that the aspect ratio is 4:3 so you get more screen used while watching vertically.

https://youtu.be/aFQFB5YpDZE

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The artifact that you gave the most detail on is the one I actually remember. Ironically, this song came on tonight. Someone immediately said it was by Creed, and Limewire would have agreed. Must be a dark and stormy night in Lowell...

Crank Yankers would have been when you were in your teens. It was puppets voiced by comics making crank calls, aired after the Jon Stewart version of the Daily Show, hence the Jon Stewart/Tucker Carlson exchange: "Don't compare yourself to us, you're supposed to be real news. We're literally followed by puppets making crank phone calls."

You didn't miss much. It was just two guys making crank phone calls. Not quite as good as Crank Yankers.

I was made in 88...

Kinda. It's from the Jerky Boys. Years of relevancy: the 90's.

Is that a meme?

listen here jerky, I don’t neeeed to talk to you!

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I used to live in Somerville and moved to Lowell because the rent is much cheaper. I would be happier and would rather live in Cambridge, JP or Brookline than Lowell. I appreciate your candor, but people I know and don't know would never choose to live in Lowell if they could live in Cambridge, Brookline and JP. There is more public transit, grocery stores that are walking distance, diverse in various ways, residents are civically engaged, Cambridge and Boston have property tax breaks if the unit is owner occupied, you are closer to the airport, amtrak and sports venues. I can go on and on...

Man, sure, we participated in something we shouldn't have, and under my direction. I still beat myself up about my decisions that day. Do you know what my personal goal was for 2022? To pick up so much trash out of homeless camps that when the leaves fell off the trees we didn't have to listen to people bitch about them. But no, just follow the herd mentality of what our intentions really were. If you want to have a real conversation instead of slinging blind accusations, my number is 617.201.9916. I'm happy to talk.

make sure to rip down some more homeless camps while your at it ya krooked fucks

Thank you for posting this!

Maybe try the farmers market at mill no 5 on Sundays. Not sure about organic but I think most of it is from local farms so it’s worth asking

I was going to suggest them as well. Good produce, good people, and good for the community.

Mill City Grows, people! Excellent quality, incredibly fresh, proudly local. They have affordable, flexible, dependable Community Supported Agriculture farm-share program. Actually, quietly, it's kind of a whole movement!

https://www.hornefarms.com Chris is an awesome dude. He was running a csa last year and you could pick stuff up outside of navigation brewing. Fun to grab a beer and a bunch of produce.

Farmer Dave in Dracut. I am not sure if totally organic though.

Second this. Good amount of farms in Dracut that you'd probably be able to get what you want. You're are going to have a bit of a wait for most to open as winter ends though.

Any local farms in dracut. Outside of that, mill no. 5, Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s in nashua.

On a positive note, check out Jimmy's Halal Fried Chicken. It's great, inexpensive, and usually open.

This thread from a month ago in r/Boston talks a bit about some of the challenges.

r/Boston thread

I think a lot of the challenge is that there's not enough people with disposable income that find Downtown Lowell a competitively convenient place to get to or live in. The walking infrastructure is terrible in many places with missing crosswalks, unreliable lighting, broken / missing sidewalks, large roads + highways with fast vehicle traffic (including lots of commercial trucks), insufficient market rate housing, and limited canal crossings which limit the pedestrian catchment area / market.

Lowell is also not ever going to be a competitive place for people to drive any distance to for simple things because the road network is poorly connected for actually visiting the city, in terrible physical condition, and poorly marked (they can't even manage to reliably paint lane lines). There are much easier places to drive and park, like Nashua. I can't imagine many people drive in to Downtown Lowell for casual discretionary errands / activities more than twice a week from anywhere really beyond the Lowell city limits.

I think comparing median per capita income - median rents also might help explain why Downtown and Lowell in general's commercial footprint is heavily focused on non-discretionary services like healthcare, social services, military recruitment, rehab clinics, and money transfer / cell phone shops. https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/somervillecitymassachusetts,mobilecityalabama,lowellcitymassachusetts/PST045222

I don't think Lowell's business environment will change significantly without a massive influx of market rate housing inventory + some infrastructure improvements, or (regrettably) a wholesale gentrification of Downtown + the Acre.

I don't see any real political commitment or money going into market rate housing at scale in walking distance of Downtown Lowell.

Red Rose was recently nominated for a James Beard award! Great recommendations :)