Standup Guy

Jimmy Tingle cracks wise about his Boston bests

unny town, Boston. It’s given America the likes of Denis Leary, Conan O’Brien, Jay Leno, Mike O’Malley, Steven Wright, Louis C.K., Dane Cook, and Lenny Clarke. But if there’s a comic who really personifies this place, it’s Jimmy Tingle. Tingle appeared as a bartender in Next Stop Wonderland and a priest in Boondock Saints, and has starred in and produced documentaries with stinging social commentary, including Jimmy Tingle’s American Dream. He ran and performed and produced at his own Jimmy Tingle’s Off Broadway Theater in Davis Square until it closed in 2007. He’s had his own HBO specials. He even got a master’s degree from Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, and was picked to give the graduate address. What’s more Boston than that? Follow Tingle on his website here. Here are Jimmy Tingle’s Boston, Cambridge, and Somerville secrets. He’s got this to tell you about them: “Get on the Tingle Tour Bus while we still have time, my peeps!”

The Kennedy Library. Not a secret, really but one of the great national treasures, a shrine to American politics, right here in Boston. Really Inspiring for people of all political persuasions. A place where Republicans and Democrats can still find common ground.

The Harbor Walk around UMass/Boston and the Kennedy Library. Great views of the harbor and the library, never crowded, and very cool for solitude, biking, walking, or running. On a clear day you can see parts of Quincy. I’m not kidding!!!

The Blue Hills. It’s like the White Mountains, only in Milton. Trails, horseback-riding, hiking, running, mountain-biking, skiing. They even have log cabins you can rent. Great views of Boston. Many of the trails and structures were built by FDR’s 1930s public-works projects to put people back to work.

The health club at the Hyatt on Memorial Drive. Access to Charles for running and biking, great pool for laps, rarely crowded. Outside deck, room service at the pool, weight rooms, treadmills, running machines, exercise bikes, sauna, steam, free parking, and day passes or memberships available.

Club Passim. One of the oldest folk-music clubs in America, still going strong, with all kinds of unique performers and musicians. Lessons for kids and adults, open-mic nights, and a veggie restaurant with beer, wine, and coffee. Sit where Dylan sat and liberate your inner tambourine man.