The Perfect Storm: Inside a Gloucester-Style Bar During Fierce North Atlantic Gales

The Perfect Storm's Widow's Walk... Ambience

Anticipating a Giant Storm at a Coastal Bar — "They're out on the Flemish Cap. I got it straight from Big Bob Brown." This episode expands upon a scene from the film The Perfect Storm. Eight hours of an uncrowded Gloucester-esque bar being boarded up amongst the gales whipping up from the harbor. It will be the perfect storm, unfortunately.

Speaking of which — If you were to ever visit North Eastern Massachusetts and ask a local a question about something North Eastern Massachusetts. The response will probably begin with, "Well, have you seen the movie ________?" Only two movies usually fill that blank (unless you corner a revolutionary nerd or someone from Winter Hill).

One is a movie that orbits Bunker Hill Community College and Southie. The other is about a doomed vessel sailing from Gloucester.

The Perfect Storm is a love note to New England commercial fishing. The gritty souls that challenge the ocean as an occupation. And the communities that foster this line of work. Their roads occasionally licked with sea spray.

I watched The Perfect Storm in a theater near Beverly, MA. The triumphs and terrors flickered on the screen to the very same community (and my upstate NY ass).

These folks remember the 91 storm. In the theater I heard a, "My cousin knew, such in such."

It was probably the most North Eastern Massachusetts thing I was ever a part of.

While The Perfect Storm is a bit overwrought… It's not bad in the way those short-form social media videos with the "Yo Ho" shanty sh!t playing up sea heroism are. The ones that might encourage sea-faring newbs to disrobe and show off some tattoos.

The Perfect Storm seemed pretty legit based on the folks and bars I knew of in the area. And real people were lost to the storm. Which I didn’t know until I watched a local newscast covering the decades-old story in anticipation of the movie's release. The news package ended with something like, "And, of course, we all know the ship and her crew have never been recovered."

The element of the film I really liked was the exploration of a modern "widow's walk." In the movie, a few women, whose loved ones are on the doomed vessel, meet at a coastal bar to ride out the storm. They wait for the Andrea Gail to return under a tv screen airing storm coverage.

Widow's walks are small balconies or roof decks built into historic coastal homes. Many believe these patios were constructed in earlier times to allow seafarers' wives to scan the horizon for their loved ones.

I believed all that. Then I learned from Nantucket, that the widow's walks are a myth.

And now I'm second guessing my theory the bar scene was a nod to the widow's walk or it's just a good spot to bring all non-boat supporting characters into one room...

One takeaway was, wow, I can walk to the local fish monger and just point, to get fish. Maybe fish mongers should make it as difficult to buy fish as it is to catch fish. Like set up an obstacle course or something. "while I'm packing this, go into the Flemish Cap bait prep simulator."