On the "Cutting Edge" of Hanover Street

Guest blogger LP laments that she has the "lamest brushes with fame," but the lamest are often the funniest. This story is right up there with WMD's tale of drinking at Bennigans with Keith Olberman, a story only made wackier by the fact that Olberman was sporting a Michael Jackson-issue red & black leather jacket. You just can't make this stuff up.

THE NORTH END -- It was just another rainy Saturday night in Boston when WMD and I, lacking the energy or creativity to think of an appropriate spot for a planned “date night”, eagerly jumped on the bandwagon led by the Joneseys to meet for pizza and beer at the North End’s Pizzeria Regina. The perfect antidote for soggy June blues.

After stuffing our faces with sausage pizza and diet Buds, we voted for a nightcap at Café Florentine, a typically crowded North End hotspot. We were pleased to find a few empty barstools and quickly saddled up.

In the midst of pleasant conversation and libations, a duo of dudes in fancy coats and rumpled tresses staggered in, looking for some grub to absorb the large quantities of alcohol sloshing about their bellies. They lurched themselves onto the stools beside us, bumping into my chair in the process. The burly but amiable bartender kindly informed these newcomers that the kitchen was closed. Nostrils flared, words were exchanged and the two dudes muttered something belligerently as they backed off their seats and headed towards the door.

Suddenly, one of the hooligans grabbed a three-ring binder from the hostess stand and hurled it at the barkeep, missing any patrons or staff but causing quite a commotion as it knocked stuff off the bar. This guy was definitely from out of town – any local fool knows that you don’t publicly assault a barkeep in the North End without finding yourself shoved inside the trunk of an unmarked black sedan and taken off to a gravel pit someplace in Saugus.

In a flash, the entire fitted-black-tee-shirt clad barstaff leapt across the bar without disturbing so much as a drop of condensation off our glasses. Out the door they fled, triumphantly returning moments later with the dude in a headlock. Amidst the cheers of the crowd and a swirl of obscenities, they hauled him behind the bar and made him clean up the mess he made.

It was then, despite being hasselhoffed off several lethal Makers & Gingers, that WMD realized that this guy was somebody pseudo-famous. Who could it be? We wondered. And then it came to him: “I think that’s D.B. Sweeney."

Could it be???? After some research, we confirmed today that the goon in question was in fact D.B. Sweeney, that nice guy with the aw-shucks smile and all-American good looks from 1990’s ice skating chick-flick, “The Cutting Edge.” Apparently, he is now a somewhat bloated and surly writer/director of independent films who happened to be in Town on Saturday, cocktailing and attending the Boston International Film Festival to promote his new movie, “Dirt Nap” Ironically, the tagline of the film is, “The journey of a lifetime...hope we brought enough beer.”