Dig Boston July 15-22, 2015

DIGBOSTON.COM 7.15.15 - 7.22.15

OUR ANNUAL SPECIAL ISSUE CELEBRATING CRAFT SUDS IN THE HUB

FEATURE

LORD HOBO BREWING CO.

DANIEL LANIGAN ON BREWING SUCCESS AND NOT GIVING A DAMN ABOUT WHAT PEOPLE THINK

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VOL 17 + ISSUE 28

JULY 15, 2015 - JULY 22, 2015

EDITOR Dan McCarthy NEWS, FEATURES + MEDIA FARM EDITOR Chris Faraone ASSOCIATE MUSIC EDITOR Nina Corcoran ASSOCIATE FILM EDITOR Jake Mulligan CONTRIBUTORS Nate Boroyan, Paige Chaplin, Mitchell Dewar Christopher Ehlers, Bill Hayduke, Emily Hopkins, Micaela Kimball, Cady Vishniac, Dave Wedge INTERNS Oliver Bok, Emily Tiberio

DESIGN CREATIVE DIRECTOR Tak Toyoshima DESIGNER Brittany Grabowski INTERNS Amy Bouchard, Stephanie Buonopane, Kelsey Cole COMICS Tim Chamberlain Pat Falco Patt Kelley Tak Toyoshima

ADVERTISING ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES Nate Andrews Jesse Weiss FOR ADVERTISING INFORMATION sales@digpublishing.com

BUSINESS PUBLISHER Jeff Lawrence ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER Marc Shepard OPERATIONS MANAGER John Loftus ADVISOR Joseph B. Darby III DigBoston, 242 East Berkeley St. 5th Floor Boston, MA 02118 Fax 617.849.5990 Phone 617.426.8942 digboston.com

ON THE COVER Lord Hobo’s Daniel Lanigan rules the cover this week. Get the full story on Lord Hobo’s plans for conquest on page 12. Photo by Michael Zaia.

©2015 DIGBOSTON IS PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY DIG PUBLISHING LLC. NO PART OF THIS PUBLICATION CAN BE REPRODUCED WITHOUT WRITTEN CONSENT. DIG PUBLISHING LLC CANNOT BE HELD LIABLE FOR ANY TYPOGRAPHICAL ERRORS. ONE COPY OF DIGBOSTON IS AVAILABLE FREE TO MASSACHUSETTS RESIDENTS AND VISITORS EACH WEEK. ANYONE REMOVING PAPERS IN BULK WILL BE PROSECUTED ON THEFT CHARGES TO THE FULLEST EXTENT OF THE LAW.

DEAR READER It’s important every once in a while to step back and take stock of the goings-on around you in order to live life as a well-informed member of society.

So, let’s see. In the last week or so, the New York Stock Exchange halted trading with no explanation, and conspiracy theories from Anonymous hack jobs to ISIS cyber attacks abound. Around the same time, the Wall Street Journal website crashed as people tried to figure out what was going on. Also on the same day, United Airlines grounded all flights across the world due to a computer malfunction. Then there’s the whole Greece-is-imploding thing.

Actually, nevermind what I said above. Stepping back and taking stock of the world can be a scary, depressing thing. Luckily, there’s beer. Glorious, cold, complex, delicious craft beer, and it’s all around us in Mass. And New Hampshire. And Vermont. And across the nation for that matter. And it’s that comforting fact that fuels our fire every year to assemble a quenching Craft Beer Issue that celebrates all there is to get excited about regarding the constantly growing and evolving craft beer scene across the land, which we’re proud to present to you this week.

If nothing else, consider it a brief respite from the ills of the world, allowing you a much-needed break from everything that doesn’t concern beer and a window into all the things that do. And—at least from our cheap seats—a perfectly good reason to get blind stinking drunk on the great beer to be found all across the Hub. DAN MCCARTHY - EDITOR, DIGBOSTON

DIGTIONARY

GLITCHFANT

noun ɡliCH’fənt 1. What happens when users of WCVB’s mobile app are suddenly inundated with erroneous “royal baby” alerts due to a technical glitch, as they were earlier this week.

2. An infant born from a computer malfunction and destined to rule the Earth with an iron fist.

OH, CRUEL WORLD Dear Blockhead, While trying to gauge the swarm of intoxicated women, slurring and slumping over all of the available seats on the last commuter rail train from North Station, I pondered what inspired this aftermath of alcohol and Aquanet?

When playing the “guess the band” game, trying to decipher which regurgitated act took the Boston Garden stage to reap the nostalgic profits of their zealots, I was baffled to discover it to be New Kids On The Block.

Really? New Kids On The Block? Boy band fans in their mid-40s? Still singing songs used to serenade pre-pubescent girls? Or is “Hanging Tough” about testacles? I can only hope that Jenny McCarthy convinces her hubby’s crew to refuse vaccinations, and that they are all exposed to a salmonella outbreak at Wahlburgers. Which would still be better than sitting through one of their shows.

ILLUSTRATION BY AMY BOUCHARD

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NEWS US

SPEAKING WITH THE ENEMY NEWS TO US

My chat with the guy who is ‘standing up against anti-white bigotry’ at BU

BY DOUGLAS YU I am a Boston transplant, originally from China, with a master’s degree in multimedia journalism from Emerson College. I mostly cover local news and community stories for the Somerville Times and social issues for Spare Change News. Outside of that, I have been fascinated with fringe groups since watching Lisa Ling’s 2006 documentary on MS-13, World’s Most Dangerous Gang, and so I gravitated to news that a white pride group was trolling Boston University professor Saida Grundy.

This all started months ago with a series of exchanges on Twitter that led to Grundy making her account private. In March, she tweeted, “[W]hy is white America so reluctant to identify white college males as a problem population?” Another time, she wrote, to the consternation of countless white folks, “deal with your white sh*t, white people. Slavery is a ‘YALL’ thing.”

In May, Associated Press reporter Philip Marcelo published a statement from Grundy: “I regret that my personal passion about issues surrounding these events led me to speak about them indelicately. I deprived them of the nuance and complexity that such subjects always deserve.” That wasn’t enough for some detractors, namely those with the National Youth Front (NYF), a hate or pride group (depending on whom you ask) which has fanned significant backlash against the BU African American studies professor. Notably, NYF hung flyers on campus calling for Grundy’s firing and launched a hashtag campaign to boot.

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center “Hatewatch” blog, NYF is a newly formed youth wing of the white nationalist American Freedom Party (AFP) and is one of the latest in a growing number of racist organizations recruiting young people on campus. On that tip, I asked Angelo John Gage, the New Jersey-based chair of NYF, for his contact information on Twitter, and surprisingly received a response. I had a journalistic itch to scratch, and as a result secured a conversation with a white supremacist to share with readers.

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Gage is a 31-year-old Italian American who was born in Italy, came to the United States at the age of two, and later served in the Marine Corps for four years. In our correspondence, he was defensive about his organization being connected to the national AFP, but claimed that his group does in fact work “with the AFP to accomplish our mutual cause.”

“I have never been involved in any ‘white supremacist’ group such as KKK, neo-Nazis, skinheads or whatever else,” Gage wrote. “That is why we founded the NYF, which is not like any other groups, being that it is a non-political, nonreligious group, for white people who wish to preserve their race, heritage and cultures around the world.”

Grundy’s not the first professor to land squarely in NYF crosshairs. According to a report in the Phoenix New Times, the family of an Arizona State University professor was “targeted” by the group over a “controversial class he’s teaching called U.S. Race Theory and the Problem of Whiteness.” After the course was highlighted by FOX News, the ASU campus flooded with handouts, made by NYF members, labeling the prof as “anti-white.” Gage expounded on his repertoire in our exchange: We have done activism against Arizona State University, and Appalachian State University for allowing students and teachers to express their anti-white bigotry without consequence. Such colleges who claim to be anti-racist are really just anti-white. In other words, they want to end racism by allowing racism against white people to exist in order to “make things equal,” which to any sane person is absolutely stupid.

As for his collaborative efforts with like-minded social media users to spur the firing of Grundy, Gage explained: We all know for a fact that if white person said “all black males are a problem population” not only would that teacher get fired, Boston University would be

burnt to the ground. We simply are pointing out this hypocrisy and are exposing the anti-white sentiment that has seemed to have gained much traction in our universities across the country.

Grundy should be fired simply because we should not allow bigots in positions where they can influence our students to hate other races. There is no place for racist teachers in the 21st century.

Gage, who has previously run for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in New Jersey (as a candidate for AFP), claims that his group isn’t racist. The notion is apparently similar to how, as Huffington Post recently reported, “the leader of the Traditionalist American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan is tired of ‘a few rogue Klansmen’ ruining the group’s reputation, and argues that the group is a non-violent Christian organization.” But while Gage claims NYF is “not about declaring war against our fellow Americans,” his rhetoric can be extreme. In 2013, he claimed in a YouTube video that “white genocide” is underway, the result of “massive uncontrolled third world immigration to white countries only.” (He also blogs for a site called the White Voice about topics like the evils of synthetic sweeteners and why womanizing—which he claims to have been a past master at, aided by his “good looks”—is bad for you.)

In our email interview, Gage wrote that he currently lives in a home that he bought. “I am focusing all my efforts right now into NYF full time, without pay, using my own money I have acquired over the years,” he noted, but amended in a separate email, “The donations we received are used for our missions, but no one gets paid to do this, is what I meant to say.” When asked how NYF is going to further realize its mission on campuses across America, Gage suggested that their strategy is classified, but promised “to continue standing up against anti-white SPEAKING WITH THE ENEMY continued on pg. 6

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SPEAKING WITH THE ENEMY continued from pg. 4 bigotry wherever we can.”

In his latest effort at BU, Gage seems increasingly heated. Early this month, after a BU alumni magazine noted in a profile of Cornell William Brooks that the new NAACP president was anonymously sent a box of fried chicken and a bottle of malt liquor, Gage wrote in a blog post that the university, comparatively speaking, “totally ignores the inappropriate and anti-white statements made by one of their own, Saida Grundy.” Gage has also taken to blasting what he categorizes as biased reporting, and asked that I not “twist this interview to fit an anti-white narrative as many have done before.”

Since I had Gage’s attention, I felt compelled to ask him about Dylann Roof, the young man who is charged with the recent shooting of nine black people in a historic African American church in South Carolina. “Dylann Roof is a terrorist who should be executed for his crimes,” Gage wrote. “There is no excuse for his actions.

His terrorism against innocent blacks is exactly what the anti-whites need in order to associate all ‘pro-white’ originations [sic] with violence and murder. We are against any type of violence from any side for any reason.”

It’s worth noting that NYF only currently recruits members of European descent.

“Every other race already has an interest group,” Gage wrote in an email, adding, “which of course isn’t considered ‘racist’.” About Asian people such as myself, Gage wrote many things that I will not re-print at this time, except that he encouraged other races to “protect their people from the diversity supremacist, for this insanity will eventually affect them as well.” Without a hint of irony, he added, “Asian Americans also face discrimination for actually performing too well in school lol.”

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Earlier this month, the Boston Zoning Board of Appeal deferred its ruling on a proposed dispensary on Milk Street for another month, the hope being that the operating group, Patriot Care, will be able to work out objections from adversaries who are fighting against medical marijuana coming to Boston.

At the aforementioned hearing, which was well-attended by outspoken parties on both sides, Boston City Council President Bill Linehan, who is helping lead the fight against the downtown dispensary, repeatedly stated that his problem is not with medical marijuana, per se, but rather with the centralized location. “[The dispensary] needs to be near … a medical facility, a place where people go for medical services, not for financial services, not for retail services, not live next to, not work next to,” Linehan said. “I support them finding the right location, but this is not the location.”

In his unlettered spiel, Linehan neglected to cite any existing laws or statutes that require dispensaries to be near medical facilities, probably because none exist. Interestingly, the council president has never asked for CVS or Walgreens to set up exclusively in close proximity to healthcare services. So what’s his reason? According to Linehan: “We have businesses that have spent millions if not billions to improve this neighborhood and this sends the wrong message.”

In these actions, the president is showing his bigotry. Perhaps not in the traditional sense, but it can and should be considered bigotry when people stereotype a class of citizens as dragging a neighborhood down—especially in this case, since studies show that dispensaries improve communities and reduce opiate overdoses. Take, for example, the 2014 JAMA study on “Medical Cannabis Laws and Opioid Analgesic Overdose Mortality in the United States, 1999-2010,” which shows a 25% reduction in overdoses in states with functioning medical marijuana programs.

Also at the hearing, Milk Street Cafe owner Marc Epstein expressed opposition based on a lack of parking in the area, even after admitting that he’s never opposed any other business from opening in the area. In this case, on his presumption that dispensaries bring absurd amounts of traffic, it’s not about bigotry against patients, but rather about parking.

Representing Patriot Care, former Boston City Council President Mike Ross explained that the company’s existing Washington, DC dispensary has already improved its surrounding neighborhood, which has also seen increased property values of late. Ross additionally pointed out that many Patriot Care patients in Boston will use public transportation, hence making for less traffic woes than are imagined.

In the mix, at least four current councilors—Matt O’Malley, Michelle Wu, Ayanna Pressley, and Tito Jackson—sent representatives to read statements in support of the dispensary. So at least we know where they stand. What’s less clear though is what is happening behind the scenes, as Mayor Marty Walsh has openly opposed marijuana reform. Regardless, despite the many roadblocks, Patriot Care spokesperson Dennis Kunian remains hopeful. As I exited the hearing last week, he assured, “Mike, don’t worry about it. We’re going to work this out, trust me.”

Let’s hope so.

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MEDIA FARM

THE CONFEDERATE GAMES OF AMERICA

Thanks to the Olympics, US flew ‘Stars and Bars’ on world stage

BY MEDIA FARM @MEDIAFARM

You may have noticed the Confederate battle flag making headlines of late.

Meanwhile, in Massachusetts, where current legislators may be buttholes but at least have never flown homage to slavery on Beacon Hill, our main concern appears to be the 2024 Olympics, or more specifically the prospect of a Summer Games coming to Boston. Look closely though, check a couple chapters back in the history books, and you’ll find an intersection of these issues that is worth exploring.

As it turns out, thanks in part to the Olympics, the United States of America was represented by the Stars and Bars on the world stage during the 1996 Atlanta Games. At the time, the Georgia state flag featured the confederate throwback in its entirety, and as you might imagine, tensions hit the ceiling during the Olympics planning process over whether the region—and by extension, the entire country—was going to present itself to international onlookers as proud bigots and xenophobes (imagine Hamburg, Germany, which is currently competing with the Hub for 2024, flying the Nazi flag).

Organizers back in 1996 declined to put rebel flags outside of their new private venues, but were otherwise mum on the matter as it pertained to public attractions—that despite their ravishing success in swaying Georgia politicians on innumerable other issues. As a result, activists took up the fight to have the filth removed from plain sight of an international audience. After that failed, since state-owned venues like the Georgia Dome were “required by law” to hoist the symbol of southern aggression (which was added to the flag in protest of federal desegregation in 1956, and remained there until 2001), some folks engaged in direct action. From the Los Angeles Times, which dutifully covered the national disgrace …

This afternoon, shortly before the Olympic torch begins the last leg of its journey to the city’s new stadium to signal the start of the XXV Olympiad, another smaller, ragtag relay will begin at the crypt of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Away from the cheering masses, runners will carry the flame through an African American neighborhood that has seen better days and on to the steps of the state Capitol. There they will set fire to the Confederate battle emblem— otherwise known as the state flag—which some political leaders have taken to calling “the American swastika.”

Times writer Eric Harrison noted, “Not since Union forces burned Atlanta during the Civil War have locals been so worked up over somebody coming this way with a torch.” In any case, the Olympics commenced with Georgia’s tribute to the biggest failure in American history still soaring.

There’s been a lot of talk about Olympiad legacies, and in flashbacks from Atlanta, some see great success. At the same time, others see infrastructural white elephants, and an event that was marred by visual displays of the confederate emblem, not to mention a bombing attack by self-described “bona fide Civil War buff” Eric Rudolph. It’s all subjective, as would no doubt be the impact of a Boston Games. Nevertheless, some facts can’t be denied, and shouldn’t be forgotten. As Massachusetts flirts with bringing the Olympics to the Bay State, we may want to consider the legacy of the Atlanta Games in full—stars, bars, warts, and all.

[Media Farm is wrangled by DigBoston News + Features Editor Chris Faraone] 8

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Craft beer can mean a lot of things to a lot of people. For some, it’s a burgeoning movement. For others, it’s a phrase highlighting a life spent toiling for the greater good of discerning beer drinkers everywhere. And to others still, it’s a catch-all phrase suggesting that whatever suds fall under that category are intrinsically better than the typical swill that dominated the US beer scene for years. And wouldn’t you know it: All of the above are right. So it’s with beaming pride we present you with our 2015 Craft Beer spread. Best enjoyed with your favorite pint, naturally. Cheers.

BY DAN MCCARTHY @ACTUALPROOF

GROWLER GRABS A reminder that your next craft beer growler harvest can be found with surprising ease.

You really don’t need a reason to head to a local brewery to fill up a giant jug of their delicious beer, but if you do, let the relatively close proximity of these spots be that reason.

Aeronaut Brewing Co.

Fills: 32 ounce Go-to fill: A Session With Dr. Nandu American Pale Ale 14 Tyler St., Somerville. aeronautbrewing.com

CBC: Cambridge Brewing Company

Fills: 64 ounce and 22-ounce bombers.

Go-to fill: Cambridge Amber or Tall Tale Pale Ale 1 Kendall Sq., Cambridge. cambridgebrewingcompany.com

Deadwood Café & Brewery

Fills: 64 ounce Go-to fill: Deadwood IPA or Hefeweizen 820 Morrissey Blvd., Boston. deadwoodbrewery.com

SALEM RISING Beloved transient local craft brewery inks deal on permanent home and taproom south of Boston Two years ago, a few years after Notch Brewing owner Chris Lohring brought the session-beer powerhouse (in the making) to life, plans to find a permanent home for the brewery began in earnest. At the time, Lohring had been brewing in loaned space within Mercury Brewing Company out of Ipswich as well as in Two Roads Brewing in Connecticut, and as the brand’s popularity grew locally, he saw the need to zero in on his own house. And now that the ink has dried on the contracts, Notch will be bringing its first ever brewery and taproom to 283 Derby Street in Lohring’s home turf of Salem, Mass.

“It’s a project I wanted to take my time with and make sure I did right,” says Lohring. “The licensing climate [in Boston] is kind of bizarre, but I wanted to bring something to support local business, and Salem is really keyed into craft beer.”

The space will have that off-the-beaten-path feel (don’t worry, it’s only a 10-minute walk from the Boston ferry), and once the 5,000-square-foot facility and brewpub opens in March 2016 (along with its forthcoming beer garden), Lohring says he’ll be able to stretch his legs a bit and really get down to maintaining production of his marquee beers—and dip his toes into the waters that have until now been out of reach due to the lack of a permanent home.

“I like to brew lagers, but the whole history of Session beer is connected to the Czech Republic and even Germany,” says Lohring. “I want to be able to showcase a lot of the things I haven’t been able to produce in any quantity. What people should understand is that session beer … it’s not just ‘session IPA.’ There [are] dozens of styles we can brew that other breweries embrace, but we just haven’t yet.”

“Yet” indeed.

Harpoon Brewery

Fills: 64 ounce using an Austrian-manufactured filler system Go-to fill: Any of the special releases found only at the tap room 306 Northern Ave., Boston. harpoonbrewery.com

Trillium Brewing Co.

Fills: 32 ounce and 64 ounce Go-to fill: Congress Street IPA or Fort Point Pale Ale 369 Congress St., Boston. trilliumbrewing.com

John Harvard’s Brewery

Fills: 24-, 32-, and 64-ounce fills; glass or stainless steel Go-to fill: Arrow IPA or Dunster Pale Ale 33 Dunster St., Cambridge. johnharvards.com

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FOR MORE INFORMATION VISIT NOTCHBREWING.COM

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LANIGAN THE JOURNEYMAN FEATURE INTERVIEW

The story of the honcho behind Lord Hobo is the story of craft beer in New England

BY JEFF LAWRENCE @29THOUSAND

This story starts with a creative journeyman. As journeymen do, he changes his life’s course, and in this particular case, gets pulled into the craft beer vortex. From there, he spends a couple of decades working for and building from scratch some of the best beer bars in America. And at the end of that rainbow, you get Lord Hobo Brewing Company. to the Other Side, which then led me to the Deli Haus and that Guinness, changed everything for me. It all goes back to that.

How did your time at the Other Side shape your taste for better beer?

I went to see my cousin Phil in Brattleboro [Vermont] around 1996, and while I was there I went to McNeill’s Brewery. I walked in and asked for a Guinness and the bartender said, “We don’t have that.” I was pissed. That’s what I wanted and I couldn’t get it. My cousin told me to try the Oatmeal Stout instead, and to my surprise it was amazing. Then I tried the Imperial Stout and I was wowed.

It really opened my eyes further.

Where did this start for you? How did you fall in love with craft beer?

I bought some beer and brought it back to Boston, and Back in 1994, I was living in Boston and working as a bike shortly after Ray McNeill, the owner [of McNeill’s], started messenger. I was also a wannabe beatnik looking for a selling me his Deadhorse IPA, their Barleywine, and Old new path. A friend of mine owed me some money but he Ringworm. It was a hit. At the time I was also talking to couldn’t pay me, so he offered his turntables instead. He Aaron Sanders, who was the GM at Bukowski’s Tavern lived in New York City though, so I jumped on a bus and [now the co-owner of Deep Ellum and Lone Star Taco], and headed down to collect. When I arrived, I waited over an sharing our passion for these beers. He then introduced hour, but he never showed up. I took the next bus home. me to a sales rep from B. United named Dane. He came There was maybe 15 people and plenty of empty seats, in, sat me down, and we drank all kinds of crazy beers but as we prepared to leave, on walks this beautiful that night and I was blown away. A huge night for me. woman, and she sits right next Twenty-four hours later, I was to me. We talked the entire ride ordering cases of these beers. home, and at some point she Our bottle list went from 4 to 60 mentioned that the Other Side overnight. I started selling the crap Cafe was hiring. The next day, I out of bottles while I changed the walked in and asked if they had draught list. any openings, and was offered a job on the spot. I worked the line Daniel finally left the Other Side and dishwashers that night. in 2012 after rebuilding the brand, During that time, I had a crush traveling the world, and starting FOUR LORD HOBO on a girl named Jen who worked two of the best beer bars in the BREWING CO. BEERS at the Deli Haus in Kenmore country, the Moan & Dove in Square (now Lower Depths), and I Amherst, MA and the Dirty Truth in As described by Daniel Lanigan would stop over every afternoon Northampton, MA. (Along the way, to see her. She turned me on to he went to Europe and Mexico.) He Guinness during those visits, and bought the Old Amherst Ale House “Blend of three beers … for once in life, immediately I developed a taste in Amherst and transformed it the ends are more than the means.” for it and it became my go-to beer. into a premier destination. Daniel I was also only 19, and it was the says, “I literally picked up the only place that would serve me Yellow Pages and called the owner, because they saw me so much Eugene O’Neil, and asked him if “Dangerous hidden booze … subtle and assumed I was 21. At the same he would sell me his bar. He said, gentle juicy blanket … total ball cover.” time, Sean and Val Collins were ‘Meet me in an hour.’ So I met him teaching me about different bars and asked him how much it would and had Redhook on tap [from cost, and he told me, ‘$60,000 “Incredible … drinkable … flagship.”

Seattle], but were looking to would be nice.’ That happened expand with more offerings. We to be the exact amount of money went from one tap to three taps I had raised.” Then there was a “Too young … too soon … not there yet.” quickly. But that random bus ride moment right before he signed the and that random girl who led me paperwork that made Daniel take

Boom Sauce

Consolation Prize Steal This Can Ball & Biscuit

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pause, and the weight of the commitment and decision almost derailed it. He felt like he was selling out. But he closed the deal, and six months later, he opened up the Moan & Dove.

At one point, the Moan & Dove was rated the number one beer bar in the country. How do you think that happened?

The nationally recognized beer bars at the time had old palates. I was young and passionate and new. I also met the Shelton Brothers [ed. note: importers of exceptional European specialties], and they introduced me to a ton of great beers. I quickly realized I had access to world class beers, I was willing to buy these expensive kegs, and no one else was doing it. I also decided to not carry the standard craft beers many had at the time: Sam Adams, Sierra Nevada, Harpoon, Anchor Steam, for example. If I gave people a choice not to try these beers, some would never try them. So I didn’t give them that choice. Everyone thought I was crazy. People loved it.

Your taste for different beers was obviously growing with success, but how did your palate evolve with your businesses, and how did that lead you back to Boston?

I knew enough not to sell Magic Hat, but I was more tolerant of various styles and brands back then. I’m not like that now. I know what a good beer is, so I don’t drink bad beer. I learned so much from my time with the Moan & Dove, but I needed more. So I sold both bars the same month and moved back to Boston. I’m a city guy at heart, but I also was tired of being overshadowed by other places simply because we were so isolated. I wanted to play with the big boys and be around my peers. People like Dave Ciccolo, owner of the Publick House in Brookline, and many more. Every one of these guys is crazy passionate, and that separates us from other bar owners. We have a niche we care about, and that resonates with people.

So in 2008, I came back to the Other Side Cafe to run it, and with an option to buy. It needed a lot of help, and I did what I could to turn it around. I had to let staff go and revamp the entire place again. With Sean and Val gone, the new ownership lost the vision. I was horrified, but I did it with an eye to ownership.

But that didn’t work out, so … Lord Hobo … how did that happen?

Funny story … I was looking around Boston for a bar to buy, but couldn’t find anything other than shitty bars for $800,000 and a million-dollar renovation after. It was ridiculous. Then I got a call that the B Side in Cambridge was for sale. So I called the owner, and I offered him $500,00 sight unseen. He took it. Then the government got involved; he owed $700,000 in back taxes. After a year of negotiations, the deal fell through and it went to auction. The day of the auction, I walked in and said,

PHOTOS BY MICHAEL ZAIA

Less than a month old but 20 years in the making, there’s no doubt LHBC (yes, there is a connection to the restaurant in Cambridge) is angled to become a major player in the booming craft beer industry. The brewery’s founder, said journeyman Daniel Lanigan, to put it simply, may be the most dangerous man in craft beer. He’s also a dear friend of mine, and someone who, as a close observer of the micro movement since before all of the welcome fuss over hop culture, I have come to respect immensely.

All things considered, I couldn’t think of anybody better to throw questions to Daniel over some choice pours at his new digs in Woburn, and to retrace his steps on the road that led him to become a Hobo …

“Time to go home boys, no one is getting this place but me.” Everyone was pissed off, but at the time I had so much invested in this project that I had to do it. Bidding started at $150,000 and went to $250,000 quickly, but I stayed quiet. When it got to $330,000, well overvalued, I raised my hand and bid. I didn’t have a dollar more and couldn’t have gone higher. Going once … going twice … sold! I had bought the B Side. In 2009, we reopened as Lord Hobo.

You found success with Lord Hobo as a destination for serious beer lovers. How did that lead you to open Alewife, essentially a clone of Lord Hobo, in Baltimore in 2011 and in Queens in 2012?

I wanted to do more, but I was done with Boston. It was crazy. You had to pay more than a million dollars for a place that could barely do more than a million max. I had two offers to do something with little risk in these markets, so I jumped on it.

Fast-forward to 2013, and you start thinking about opening a brewery. Clearly it’s the next step in your creative evolution with better beer, but what was motivating you personally at this time?

It’s a hard question to answer. Honestly, I’m not sure where the original idea came from, but it was definitely a business decision as much as it was a creative one. The growth of the craft beer industry was explosive. I saw my friends having huge success in it. Sam Calagione from Dogfish and Greg Koch from Stone Brewing were selling their beer everywhere, and their business was growing exponentially. With a bar or restaurant, you’re limited to what you can do financially. Once your bar is successful and packed, there is a limit to what you can do, and with limited margins at best and no growth option, I was looking for more. And I like a challenge. I’m wired to make shit bigger.

It’s well documented that you don’t give a shit about what people think, and not everyone likes that. How do you respond to naysayers?

When you open your own brewery, you can do whatever the fuck you want. People said, “How dare he talk about making world class beers?” and “Your beers don’t even exist yet and you’re marketing a blend called Boom Sauce.” If you don’t like what I’m doing, go open your own fucking brewery.

I’ve been promoting craft beer for a long time. I take my staff to Europe and Colorado as part of that. I’ve done more than most for craft beer. It’s a fact, not an opinion. I’ve done a lot for the business. No one cares about it more than me. Should I take advantage of that investment and experience and do more? Yes. The same 25 guys who talk shit on BeerAdvocate.com because they don’t like the name of my beers, or me, can fuck off. They

complain about pricing and say stuff like, “Blending is pretentious.” That’s bullshit. If you knew what you were talking about, you’d know it’s not some new idea and that it’s been around for some time. I’m not the first nor the last. But who cares? All I want to do is make a product that blows people’s minds, and if $4 a can is too much money, there are plenty of other options.

You’ve seen a lot, and experienced almost every aspect of the craft beer growth. Some might say that you’re “the most dangerous man in craft beer” at the moment. I would. Can you live up to that? Do you care?

Most dangerous man in craft beer … [laughs] … I don’t know what that means, and maybe that was appropriate at some point of my career, but not today. What is important now is that we recognize that the top ten rated IPAs are not available in stores for you to buy. Those who covet these beers can get them, but not everyone else can.

Our agenda is to be in that conversation, but also on the shelf. We wanted that capacity, and we have it, but we’re not trying to hurt those brands. We’re not going to have an impact on Heady Topper or Tree House; they’re still going to sell their beers, but we don’t [want] people to wait in line to buy them.

Daniel doesn’t hesitate to acknowledge his roots. The fact that he started from the bottom means he knows much more about the industry than most, and has stronger opinions and relationships as well. As a result, he’s allowed to say things as a bar owner that he shouldn’t say as a brewer. “They’re [brewers] a sensitive lot. A lot of people are upset right now. They say, ‘How is this guy getting all of this attention? He doesn’t deserve this attention!’” He adds: “But how many owners of world class beer bars have gone on to open a brewery? None.”

Daniel’s relationships and experience give him an edge.

Most startup breweries have three major problems when they launch: not enough cash, no credibility, and no customer base. According to Daniel, “I launched with customers. I walked into several locations that I have a relationship with, and they agreed to carry my beers.

Why? Because they respect me enough that they know I won’t sell them crap.”

You’re now working with a beer distributor for Lord Hobo Brewing, but it’s very different than working with them as a restaurant owner. You obviously followed the recent pay-to-play controversy with Pretty Things and their distributor, and while things have undoubtedly changed since the investigation, it still impacts the industry. What are your thoughts? Are you concerned?

No one has ever ever come to me and offered me money for tap lines. Maybe it’s because they know that I would never take it, but after 13 years of ownership, you would think it would happen at least once, but it never has. I

know a lot of bar owners, and we talk about these things, and no one has ever said they’ve been approached either.

In my opinion, it sounds like this had everything to do with Yuengling’s efforts to acquire draft lines when they launched last year. They did a massive push when they entered the market, and they probably had some kind of benchmark to hit―“We need X amount of tap handles, now go make it happen.” The sales guys then go out there saying, “I need to get these, and I can justify any means necessary to do this because of the pressure.” The bar owner responds because they want to help out and they know they can benefit, so they say, “Well this is a good deal for the moment, so maybe for a few months I can do this.” The envelope of cash and checks though don’t exist.

Maybe a new sign or a new draft system, but in the end, it’s all about keg discounts. Is that illegal? I don’t know, ask the distributors. They set the price.

The guys that do huge volume buys and placements have a lot more at stake, and are more desirable, so there may be a good reason no one has ever approached me. Is there something happening on a larger scale, say with the Yard House? I don’t know.

The larger question has to do with the nature of capitalism. The idea that “I’m willing to help you out if you help me out” is real, and unfortunately with beer, the little guy loses out sometimes. But that’s how it works.

However, if you make world-class beers, you’re not likely the one to be replaced. Hill Farmstead is not getting replaced by Yuengling. Quality and demand trumps a quick buck. If my beers are being replaced though, what does that say about them? That’s my fault. That’s my problem. I’m not going to shoot the messenger or get mad. I’m going to compete. If you do your job right, you don’t have to worry about anyone else.

That’s not what I expected to hear. How does that play into the role of the distributor though, and is there a problem with the model?

I have an idea on that, but it’s a conspiracy theory I guess.

The amount of wholesalers keeps shrinking as the big guys buy the little guys. The big guys who have 24 brand SKUs and acquire 200 SKUs now have a huge portfolio, and can control pricing. They realize they can charge more for smaller beers and brands, and since the big guys have massive pressure to sell more of their bigger brands, they make the price of the craft beer artificially high so less people buy it, and by doing so they control the amount of craft beer handles that bars acquire. They control the cost of craft beer, and while it rises and returns a higher margin, they also gain control and growth of the craft beer market.

The new price points and margins between craft and macro brands also allows them to increase their macro pricing, which in return increases their margins on the volume buys and it becomes more profitable. Craft has become a vehicle for increasing the margins and pricing for the rest of the industry. Craft beer was a lot cheaper five years ago when a lot of this started. Since then, wholesale distributors have consolidated and there are now half of what was there was in 2010. It’s all about price control. This is having a huge impact on craft beer growth, and no one is talking about it.

I went back to Daniel a week after we chatted for this interview, and asked what we had missed. His answer: “We have to talk about where craft is headed. People keep talking about the ‘bubble.’ San Diego County has 95 breweries; why are there so few breweries in Boston? There seems like there are a million small breweries popping up by the hour, is that good for craft beer?”

Clearly, the interview wasn’t over. Aside from what it’s like to be a polarizing figure in this industry, I still wanted to know about his dreams, for the brewery, where he sees Lord Hobo in five years, and how it feels to walk into a bar and see his tap handle next to Harpoon, or some of his idols like Stone or Dogfish. I guess I’ll have to follow up and find out. At this point, it seems like Daniel will be staying in the Boston area for a while.

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ALLEY CATS Hopster’s Brew and Boards opening a local craft beer packie in forthcoming Boston Public Market

As if you needed another reason to celebrate the arrival of the Boston Public Market, the ambitious 28,000-square-foot indoor market with over 35 local farmers, fisherman, and food producers slated to open July 30, you now have one more. Hopster’s Brew and Boards, the Newton make-your-own hooch-ery, is opening Hopster’s Alley within the complex. It’s carved out a small concrete enclave within the layout, and will be stocking all manner of local beer, spirits, and cider for the retail-only storefront. Expect to find suds from the likes of Mystic Brewing, Backlash Beer, Allagash Brewing Company, Idle Hands, and Element Brewing.

We asked Hopster’s Ben Plotkin about his thoughts on some of the selection to come:

Mystic Brewing (Chelsea, MA): While Mystic’s lineup of quality farmhouse

BONE IN A few questions for Bone Up Brewing’s founder Any time a new brewery plants their flag in the greater Boston area is a reason to rejoice. And over the last several years, it’s an occurrence that’s been happening with increased frequency. Now that Everett will soon be home to the forthcoming Bone Up Brewing Co. (just down the street from fellow Everett brewers and local craft beer darlings Night Shift), we decided to check in with founder and head brewer Jared Kiraly on what to expect from his brewery and taproom opening in late-summer.

Describe Bone Up for the uninitiated.

We’re a tiny brewery, been working on it a year now. It’s not a term I use, but we’re at the upper end at what most people define as a “nano” brewery. We have a three-barrel system, probably looking at doing two batches a week, so about 300 barrels a year.

Give me a brief tour of your background.

I’ve been brewing at home for 11 years now, moved up to Boston to take a job at Harpoon for a year and a half. Most of my experience locally, helped Chris [Tkach] at Idle hands brew once or twice, Idle Hands started little smaller than what we’re starting with. Then I went into service side of industry. I met my wife while working together at Sunset Grill + Tap in Allston. She’s been brewing with me at home for two years now. And she will be taking over production side.

ales is pretty well-known in the Boston area, I’d guess that slightly fewer people are familiar with their excellent English IPA, their ESB—a very good example of a style not often seen at all on these shores—or Entropy, their monster of a barleywine, uncarbonated and oak-aged. Bryan & Co. even produce a series of beers, the Vinland series, fermented with yeast cultures native to New England. The point is, there’s so much creativity at work at Mystic, and so much of it yields excellent results. They’ve recently teamed up with Will Meyer of Cambridge Brewing to start dedicated production of spontaneously fermented wild ales, and I’m already salivating at the thought.

Backlash Beer (Boston, MA): It’s not often that a brewery decides, three years into its life, to suddenly stop producing the vast majority of their lineup and release a bunch of entirely new recipes into the market—but that’s the kind of attitude that I think makes Backlash great. Never mind the fact that Helder makes some of the best IPAs in Massachusetts plus a rock-solid imperial stout and Belgian blonde—his refusal to compromise his vision for his brewery and his beer is what makes Backlash really stand out to me in the local market.

Allagash Brewing (Portland, ME): I can honestly say that I’ve never had an

Allagash beer that I didn’t like. From their flagship White to their crazy Coolship and oak-aged sour one-offs, Allagash is the very definition of consistent excellence across a range of styles for me. Add to that their commitment to environmental sustainability in brewing and the awesome charitable work they do in the Portland community, and you have a truly exemplary operation in more ways than one. Doesn’t hurt that everyone I’ve met from the company seems to love working there.

What will you be launching with?

We’re going to start with year arounds [and] have a wheat beer hoping to get out before summer is over. I’m a big fan of porters, so [we’ll have] one of those year round.

And my favorite of the four [is] a premium cream ale. Light, easy to drink, crisp, like a pilsner but [also] like a saison. Hard to pitch to people, but it’s delicious.

Will the outdoor beer garden be open right away?

When we first start up we’re going to focus on taproom. The outdoor seating won’t be open for first couple weeks, for permitting reasons. We’re hoping it’ll be a draw [and] bring people in to talk about our beer. We’re excited, and we want to spread that.

VISIT BONEUP.BEER FOR MORE INFORMATION AND OPENING UPDATES 14

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BE SURE TO CHECK OUT OUR MID-SUMMER ISSUE NEXT WEEK FOR MORE ON THE BOSTON PUBLIC MARKET OPENING. FOR MORE INFORMATION ON HOPSTER’S, VISIT HOPSTERSBREW.COM

BOSTON PUBLIC MARKET PHOTO BY STEPHANIE BUONOPANE

What’s the big picture for your beers?

We go for classic American styles, very drinkable and approachable. We incorporate a lot of Belgian aspects and Belgian yeast, but it’s America so you gotta have hops. We have one year-round IPA, and some coming up that are seasonal and one-offs as well.

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OLDE MAGOUNʼS SALOON PRESENTS:

BACON PALOOZA

WEDNESDAYʼS • JULY 1ST-29TH 5-11PM ARANCINI

Crispy Risotto Croquette / Pancetta / fontina Cheese / Amatraciana Sauce

HOG WILD RANGOON

Black Pepper Bacon / Charred Jalapenos / Cream Cheese / Plum Sauce

FIG-ALICIOUS

Bacon Wrapped Figs / Goat Cheese / Balsamic Vinegar Drizzle

BACON POUTINE

Waffle Fries / Cheese Curds /

Bacon Onion Gravy / Soft Fried Egg

CHICKEN & BISCUITS

Fried Chicken / Buttermilk Biscuits / Country Bacon Gravy

BACON BOA

Pan Fried Asian Bun / Slab Bacon / Kimichi / Korean BBQ Sauce

BACON WRAPPED PORK TENDERLOIN

Roasted peach & Shallot Gastrique

BACON BOMB MAC & CHEESE Apple wood Smoked Bacon / chicharones / Jalapeño Bacon / Pancetta

WARM BACON AND BREAD PUDDING

Salted Caramel Sauce / Bourbon Pecan Ice Cream

@MAGOUNSSALOON OLDEMAGOUNSSALOON

518 Medford St. Somerville

magounssaloon.com|617 - 7 76 - 2 6 0 0 16

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EVENT- FUL A few beer-minded events to get on your calendar CRAFT BREW RACES What: Beer festival following a 5k race that features over 30 breweries (Longtrail, Wolavers, Downeast Cider, Narragansett) local food vendors, and live music.

When: July 18, 12-4pm Where: Fort Adams State Park, Newport, RI Cost: $40-55 craftbrewraces.com/newport

HOP FEST What: 25 breweries with multiple styles on hand (Jack’s Abbey, Naukabout, Clown Shoes) three live bands, and Boston-based food trucks.

When: Aug 22, 3:30-7:30pm Where: Cordage Park Pier, Plymouth, Mass Cost: $40 hopfest.org

JOHNNY APPLESEED CRAFT BEER FESTIVAL What: Outdoor tent-based beer soiree with over 25 breweries (Two Roads, Newburyport Brewing, Wormtown) and endless 2-ounce samples.

When: Aug 1, 4-8pm Where: Downtown Leominster, Mass Cost: $25 johnnyappleseedbeerfest.com

MASS BREWERS FEST What: Over 30 Mass Brewers Guild producers (Notch, Riverwalk, Somerville Brewing) and over 100 beers, including special styles brewed just for this event.

When: Sept 4, 6-9:30pm Where: World Trade Center, Boston, Mass Cost: $40 facebook.com/massbrewersguild

CAPE COD BREWFEST What: Over 75 American craft microbrewers (Peak Brewing, 21st Amendment, Cape Cod Brewing) with live music and local food trucks on hand.

When: Sept 26, 3:30-7pm Where: Cape Cod Fairgrounds, Falmouth, Mass Cost: $45 capecodbrewfest.com

SPIRIT SPOTLIGHT Booze + craft beer = really interesting booze The Rhode Island-based spirit company Sons of Liberty has been making waves since hitting the scene with its firstever line of seasonal whiskies that use beer grains and ingredients during the manufacturing process. Their most recent is a Genever-style gin called Belgian Wheat Act, crafted as a quadruple-distilled spirit created from Belgian wheat beer, and is the first in its new line of “True Born Gin” products distilled from craft-style beers.

Belgian Wheat Act is made in 250-gallon copper pot stills and has notes of hops, lemongrass, coriander, and sweet orange peel. The company is already distributing it around town, so head to solspirits.com to find the closest spot to you.

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ARTS ENTERTAINMENT

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WED 7.15

FRI 7.17

FRI 7.17

SAT 7.18

SUN 7.19

TUES 7.21

Pastoral to Pop

Art Beat Fest

SpectralFest

Boston Comics Spellbound Party

Bread and Salt’s Flamenco Brunch

JP Sings the Boss

If the wild fluctuations in our summer weather continue to unleash a muggy hellscape upon us, know that you can now escape to the MFA for a little frosty AC and the new exhibit Pastoral to Pop, which just opened and runs through February.

On display: over 50 prints and rarely seen works from Britain’s great 20th century artists, from etchings to color linocuts and British versions of Futurism and Cubism. And possibly other “-ism’s.”

You can kick off your weekend this week with the annual two-day Somerville festival that collects over 15 bands (Soft Pyramids, Mount Peru), hula-hoop dancing, over 75 craft vendors, local food, and even live theatrical performances that adhere to this year’s theme of “looping,” where they will re-perform bits over and over a la Groundhog Day. No word on any surprise Bill Murray appearances.

Still, never count him out.

Sly dog, that Murray.

Summer is peak time for packing up a Zipcar and heading north to a three-day music and arts festival on a 70-acre farm in the middle of the New Hampshire woods.

Hit SpectralFest and its plethora of psychedelic art, hippie vendors, visual arts village, latenight drum circles, and belly dancers will be at your feet, as will hookah lounges, over two dozen bands and EDM DJ’s, yoga, and fire dancers to boot.

The weekly Boston Comics Roundtable is hosting a special gathering to celebrate the release of the Spellbound Comics #1 anthology launch on Saturday, and you’re invited.

It fuses over a dozen stories that take the Hub and weave in varying narratives and Emmy Award-winning graphic design for diverse localized graphic storytelling. Bonus: The book will be for sale here before its official debut at Boston Comic Con on July 31.

Sunday marks the end of local pop-up culinary powerhouse team Josh Lewin and Katrina Jazayeri celebrating their travels through Barcelona and Seville in Spain vis-à-vis their temporary restaurant concept Gitana. At this final event, you can land authentic Spanish cuisine (two words: jamon iberico), while Maria Galan and Fiesta Flamenca provide flamenco sounds to give you the full experience. As much as that can be transferred to Somerville, anyway.

Birthdays are great. And birthdays with open mic setup and a love for New Jersey’s crowned king of rock, Bruce Springsteen, are even better. But when those are wrapped up in everyone’s favorite JP tapas restaurant-slashbookstore-slash-record shop, they’re the best. So now that JP Sings turns one, you can grab some friends and use the PA system to unleash your full Boss upon the crowd this Tuesday. Please, hold off on “Born to Run.” Unless you bring a horn section.

MFA. 465 Huntington Ave., Boston. 7:30pm/all ages/$10. For more information, visit mfa.org/ exhibitions/pastoral-to-pop

ArtBeat Festival. 55 Davis Sq., Somerville. 6-10pm/all ages/$3 donation. For more information, visit somervilleartscouncil.org

Page Farm. 46 Sand Hill Rd., Croydon, NH. $55-95.

For more tickets and more information, visit spectralspiritfest.com.

Boston Comics Workspace.

561 Windsor St., Suite 306, Somerville. 6pm/all ages/ FREE. For more information, visit bostoncomics.com/ spellboundparty

Cuisine en Locale.

156 Highland Ave., Somerville. 1-3pm/all ages/ cash bar. For more information, visit breadandsalthospitality.com

Tres Gatos. 470 Centre St., Jamaica Plain. 8-10pm/21+/ FREE. For more information, visit tresgatosjp.com

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ILLUSTRATION BY BEN DOANE, JAMIE KOH, AND OLIVIA LI

TIME TO PARTY, WIATCH!

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MUSIC

EDUCATIONAL EMO

MUSIC

mewithoutYou’s Aaron Weiss returns to school

Mitski on how to shut down sexist, racist remarks

BY NINA CORCORAN @NINA_CORCORAN

BY NINA CORCORAN @NINA_CORCORAN

HATERS GONNA HATE As a female musician, there’s a lot of pressure to be the best at what you do—otherwise you’re “contributing” to the idea that females are mediocre at music. Even Mitski, the AsianAmerican woman rocking the indie rock battlefields with the most versatile music imaginable, feels the pressure. Now she’s sharing her best comebacks for young women and people of color to keep marching forward in a world that needs their voices now more than ever.

What’s the best way for a woman to respond to someone who can’t get over the fact that she’s a female who is successful?

I know it’s hard, but don’t focus on them. Don’t give them any more of your time and energy, don’t let them take part in your journey and current/eventual success, don’t acknowledge them. Don’t let them benefit from you whatsoever.

Philly’s mewithoutYou is the post-hardcore emo band that refuses to drop religious ties. After joining forces in 2000 and going on to release five studio albums, frontman Aaron Weiss and the rest of the five-piece realized it may be time to shy away from the church, but not for the reason you would expect. Turns out Weiss is in school studying education philosophy. One of his major’s main focuses? The process of learning that follows choice and influence in a subject matter.

“Students are more than empty vessels into which knowledge is being poured; they’re active participants in the process of construction,” he says. “I saw in that model more potential for creativity and freedom than may be [in] the way I had once seen it as the acquisition of facts.” His studies have influenced his lyric writing process and he now leaves things open-ended. “I can put a certain collection of contents and questions on the table for the listener to arrange them however they see fit,” he says. “Then they can add or subtract to them in a way that they see fit.”

He is, of course, referencing mewithoutYou’s sixth studio album, Pale Horses. It returns to the group’s old musical style with forceful drumming and articulate shouting similar to 2006’s Brother, Sister, a change which came as a result of the Catch for Us the Foxes 10th anniversary tour in 2014. “We played these songs for years and years and remembered how much we enjoyed it,” Weiss explains. Like that, a return to a faster, heavier sound was clearly worth tapping into again.

“It’s probably informed my songwriting, but not in a preemptive way where I set out to research a topic and then wrote about it,” he says of his studies. “It’s more an iterative process; it’s a topic I’m interested in, want to write about it, but realize how little I know about it so I have to look into things to write more detail.” The clearest case of this on Pale Horses is nuclear power. “I searched around to see what is the process by which we convert uranium into electricity or make an explosive out of it,” he says. “There’s technical details like pebble bed reactor core. I didn’t know what that was, but I looked it up.” He may be teaching countless bands how to write, but one thing is clear: Weiss is still a student at heart.

What advice do you have for female musicians or musicians of color looking to stand up to criticism themselves?

Surround yourself with and support fellow female musicians and musicians of color. Not only will that create a safer, more comfortable space for you to be creative, but having those people in your support system and being part of theirs makes it less necessary for you to be dependent on oppressors. >> MITSKI W/ ELVIS DEPRESSEDLY, ESKIMEAUX. CUISINE EN LOCALE, 156 HIGHLAND AVE., SOMERVILLE. 617.285.0167. THU 7.16. 7PM/ALL AGES/$12.

CUISINEENLOCALE.COM

>> MEWITHOUTYOU W/ FOXING, FIELD MOUSE. THE SINCLAIR, 52 CHURCH ST., CAMBRIDGE. TUES 7.18 7:30PM/18+/$20.

FOR MORE INFORMATION, VISIT SINCLAIRCAMBRIDGE.COM.VISIT DIGBOSTON.COM FOR THE EXTENDED INTERVIEW

MUSIC EVENTS THU 7.16

FRI 7.17

[Cuisine En Locale, 156 Highland Ave., Somerville.

7pm/all ages/$12-14. cuisineenlocale.com]

[Democracy Center, 45 Mount Auburn St., Cambridge. 7pm/all ages/$5-10 donation. democracycenter.org]

GENRE ELVIS DEPRESSEDLY + MITSKI

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FRI 7.17

R&B FOR THE SENSITIVE SOUL HOW TO DRESS WELL + BUKE AND GASE

[Institute of Contemporary Art, 100 Northern Ave., Boston. 6:30pm/all ages/$25. icaboston.org]

AMICABLE ALT ROCK PILE + CREATUROS + VUNDABAR + STOVE + MILK

[Middle East Upstairs, 480 Mass Ave., Cambridge.

8pm/18+/$12. mideastclub. com]

SAT 7.18

HEARTFELT EMO WITH WIT MEWITHOUTYOU + FOXING + FIELD MOUSE [The Sinclair, 52 Church St., Cambridge.

7:30pm/18+/$20. sinclaircambridge.com]

OTB SLASH EARTHFEST GUSTER + NEW POLITICS + ATLAS GENIUS [Hatch Memorial Shell, 47 David G Mugar Way, Boston. 5pm/all ages/ FREE. otbboston.com/site/ schedule]

MITSKI PHOTO BY NICOLE FARA SILVER

There’s more attention on people of color in music now, but usually it defaults to African Americans as the primary group in that category. How do you feel Asians are represented in music, and do you want to change that in some way?

We need Asians of all different heritages and histories and genders and skin colors to be represented in media so that we can finally get to a point where being Asian isn’t fetishized anymore, where Asian Americans can finally just be artists. You try to imagine an AsianAmerican major solo musician and you have a hard time visualizing it. Even I’m half white; I’m a really pale shade of Asian.

TheAmazing

Acro Cats with e th Rock Cats

d n a b t ca scued y l n o e e h t R e ! e d s l Comee entire wore cats can be in th e cats prov Regent Theatre hous ed!

7 Medford St, Arlington n i a July 23rd - 26th tr www.regentheatre.com for tickets http://www.circuscats.com for info

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FILM

HAWKISH

Howard Hawks screwball comedies are marked by romantic anarchy

BY JAKE MULLIGAN @_JAKEMULLIGAN

THURS 7/16 - CRUSH PRESENTS:

LAZERDISK

FRI 7/17 - ILLEGALLY BLIND PRESENTS:

PILEVUNDABAR, CREATUROS IAN, MILK SAT 7/18 4:30PM

FAREWELL DREAMER SAT 7/18 - LEEDZ PRESENTS:

DJ YELLA OF NWA SUN 7/19 2PM DOORS NICK CINCOTTA WED 7/15

THE SKILLS

TRESPASSER, RAW BLOW THURS 7/16 - BOWERY PRESENTS:

THE FAMILY CREST

THE LONELY WILD, GREY SEASON FRI 7/17 - LEEDZ PRESENTS:

JUST JUICE SAT 7/18

HOWARD KREMER WITH LAMONT PRICE SUN 7/19

PRIMITIVE MAN

OPIUM LORD, GATECREEPER (AZ) MON 7/20 - ILLEGALLY BLIND PRESENTS:

WHAT CHEER? BRIGADE GUERILLA TOSS TUES 7/21

PLANES MISTAKEN FOR STARS

DIRTY BANGS, BURY THE NEEDLE

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Since Watergate begat All the President’s Men, American movies have maintained a wary respect for journalism. So Cary Grant’s performance as Walter Burns, the democratic newsman in Howard Hawks’ His Girl Friday, throws back to a forgotten archetype: He’s the journalist-as-scamp. He’s with his ex-wife and exace Hildy Johnson (Rosalind Russell)—she quit him and his paper—and you can’t look away from his scheming eyes. Every time Johnson suggests she may stay to help with one last story, they light up with the intensity of a Looney Tunes cannon blast. Grant’s scene-stealing is as unscrupulous as his character’s morals: We’re so caught up in the minutia of his performance that the dialogue often shoots by unacknowledged.

And the narrative speeds by and snaps back like a tight-springed typewriter, shifting direction with every line break. Local politicians are working to execute an unstable man on the eve of their next election, and Burns—for reasons of pride, spite, and circulation—is advocating for a last-minute reprieve. He’s a general fighting a war for the sake of self-interest. So when Johnson shows up one morning, he hatches a battle plan to win her back: keep her at the Post, and Burns can service his personal, professional, and sexual causes all at once. He’s an unabashedly self-serving deviant, and the only problem is that the radically type-A Johnson loves him for it.

When Johnson left Burns the first time around, she made him into a man without a partner, and in Hawks’ world, that’s equivalent to a swift death. Just look at Mollie Molloy, a friend of the criminal awaiting execution, who—after the endless proddings of innumerable news outlets—throws herself out a window.

Hawks’ camera gives us a rare dynamic angle, staring down at the wreckage. But moments later we’re back in reporter mode, trying to keep up with Johnson and Burns as they immediately go back to work, forgetting the tragedy before it’s been cleaned off the street.

His Girl Friday plays at the Brattle Theatre this Monday and Tuesday as the start to the theater’s “Screwball Summer.” Screwball comedies are a subgenre we reference often: A general description would be to say that they feature pairs—usually mismatched acquaintances or recent divorcees—who flirt their way through the sexless stage of their relationship, all while their desires for consummation are frustrated by the forces of society and nature. The curiously celibate romantic action comedies of Edgar Wright and Peter Bogdanovich, the rhyming wordplay of Quentin Tarantino and Wes Anderson, even—turn back one page—the farcical intersections that occur among the social outsiders that feature in Tangerine: They all owe their existence to screwballs.

But the subgenre is not an exact science, and each of its creators had their HAWKISH continued on pg. 24

FILM EVENTS WED 7.15

PROJECTED ON 70MM FILM THE WILD BUNCH

[Somerville Theatre. 55 Davis Sq., Somerville. 8pm/R/$10. somervilletheatreonline. com/somerville-theatre] THU 7.16

PAUL THOMAS ANDERSON’S MAGNOLIA

[Somerville Theatre. 55 Davis Sq., Somerville. 8pm/R/$10. somervilletheatreonline. com/somerville-theatre]

BOSTON FRENCH FILM FESTIVAL PRESENTS MELANIE LAURENT’S RESPIRE

[Museum of Fine Arts. 465 Huntington Ave., Boston.

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THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE 2 [Coolidge Corner. 290 Harvard St., Brookline.

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MON 7.20

WORLD PREMIERE OF SAM FULLER’S UNAIRED PILOT

DOGFACE

[Harvard Film Archive. 24 Quincy St., Harvard Sq., Cambridge. 7pm/NR/$7-9. hcl.harvard.edu/hfa]

REEVES. HOPPER. BULLOCK. BUS. SPEED

[Coolidge Corner. 290 Harvard St., Brookline.

7pm/R/$11.25. coolidge.org]

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HAWKISH continued from pg. 22

FILM SHORTS BY JAKE MULLIGAN @_JAKEMULLIGAN

own way of practicing it. A Hawks screwball is not like an Ernst Lubitsch screwball—say, Trouble in Paradise or The Shop Around the Corner (Aug 4 and 5)—which draws its characters with an understanding warmth that almost gives color to the soft, sympathizing black-andwhite cinematography. And it is not like a Preston Sturges screwball (The Great McGinty and Christmas in July, Aug 24 and 25,) which balances romantic melodrama with lowbrow slapstick and highbrow turns of phrase to concoct brazenly kinetic cinematic sugar-rushes.

Howard Hawks’ screwball comedies may as well be a subgenre of their own—and what separates them from the other works on display is Hawks’ entirely unique sense of romantic anarchy. In most screwball comedies, life’s greatest risk is falling in love: You get left, cheated on, jealous, etc. But the danger in Hawks’ screwballs is elsewhere: aging (Monkey Business), the military (I Was a Male War Bride), crime (Ball of Fire), or a tiger (Bringing Up Baby). The danger isn’t falling in love; it’s everything else.

The perpetually roving images in his films often observe the action from a distanced remove, as though we were an intimidated reporter—chasing the action without daring to interrupt it. And it allows Hawks to accentuate his emphasis on the interplay between the collectives that get created to weather the storm of his chaotic universes: In Friday he ends up fitting no less than seven rival reporters into one frenzied composition, like a Greek chorus on speed. There are too many people in each frame, too many words in each sentence, too many dangers lurking around each edit—a cinema of too much-ness, with the only respite being the rare warmth of friends and partners. Among all that, there’s no room for sentiment or reverence, for institutions, professions, causes, or anything else.

CARTEL LAND Documentaries like this one

by Matthew Heineman aim to batter us into disbelief: We’re in Michoacàn, where victims recall unspeakable acts of cartel violence and government employees speak openly about their side jobs cooking narcotics. Heineman’s interest in the visceral—in firefights—precludes larger insights about that trade. But in following the struggle between local Autodefensas and the cartels they oppose, he finds a fitting symbol for the bloodshed. The leaders on the ground level shift incessantly, death demanding that each role constantly be in flux—everyone’s a piece on a chessboard, with unseen money-men making the moves.

>> HIS GIRL FRIDAY. BRATTLE THEATRE. 40 BRATTLE ST., CAMBRIDGE. MON 7.20 @ 3:30, 5:30, 7:30, AND 9:30PM. TUE 7.21 @ 3 AND 5PM. NOT RATED. 35MM PRESENTATION.

FILM

LA PLAYS ITSELF

On the comedic ethnography of Tangerine

BY JAKE MULLIGAN @_JAKEMULLIGAN When Sin-Dee Rella (Kitana Kiki Rodriguez)—the pre-op transgender prostitute featured in Sean Baker’s Tangerine—stomps furiously over the Hollywood Walk of Fame, en route to a showdown with her boyfriend-slash-pimp, the subtext of the moment is hardly subtle.

Baker’s farcical film, which takes place across the day and night of a white-hot LA Christmas Eve, has two primary subjects: Hollywood, and genitals. The idea being that we know much less about either topic than we’d like to admit.

“Yeah, like a real bitch,” Sin-Dee’s friend Alexandra (Mya Taylor) tells her about Dinah, who Chester—the aforementioned pimp—has started sleeping with. “With a vagina and everything.” Sin-Dee just got out after a month-long incarceration, and hearing that Chester has spent all that time with “fish” (cisgender women) sends her even further over the edge than the crack pipe she’ll be hitting later on. She sets out, between tricks, to find that “real bitch,” planning to catch Chester red-handed: She’s going to drop the woman’s beat-up body in front of him the moment he starts claiming fidelity, as coal for his Christmas.

One of her johns is Razmik (Karren Karagulian), an Armenian taxi driver—married to a cisgender woman—who often stops the meter so he can orally service Sin-Dee and her colleagues. (In one of the funniest scenes the movies have seen in years, he accidentally picks up a cisgender prostitute, and experiences something best described as “straight panic.”)

Before Razmik’s path intersects with the film’s gaggle of sex workers, Baker edits in clips of his passengers: a young woman with dyed hair and a Hello Kitty phone case taking selfies, or two eye-nodding bar-hopping guys rolling their way to unconsciousness. In most films such cross-cutting—which continues, from Sin-Dee to Alexandra to Razmik, in circles—would be extraneous texture. But in Tangerine it’s integral detail. It’s ethnography as comedy.

Baker’s camera rushes through the streets behind Sin-Dee with the force of a homing missile. But his compositions also highlight places alongside people. Commercial plazas, food trucks, car washes, and even the occasional chain store make cameos. And what emerges is a document of the Hollywood that Hollywood declines to show us. Tangerine becomes a critique of surfaces themselves: The LA we know from movies and TV, revealed to be as false as the idea that anatomy dictates gender.

One of the last locations we end up at is Santa Monica Boulevard’s Donut Time, which doubles as Chester’s office during his hours of operation. Everyone in the narrative— Sin-Dee, Chester, Alexandra, Dinah, Razmik, his family, and the shop owner, for starters—converges on the spot for a screaming match that has your eyes crossing in six different directions trying to follow it all. It’s a conflict befitting a screwball comedy. But Baker isn’t rejecting that Hollywood tradition—he’s reclaiming it. His comedy-of-remarriage contains the markers of life that the filmmaking industry exists to erase. Tangerine re-inserts them: the mom-and-pop pizza places, the run-down taco stands, the penises, the vaginas. It takes Hollywood—the town and its products—and fucks it.

>> TANGERINE. RATED R. OPENS FRI 6.17. KENDALL SQUARE CINEMA, 355 BINNEY ST., CAMBRIDGE. 24

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INSIDE OUT It’s a head trip: The new Pixar movie takes place inside a teenage girl’s psyche, where characters like Joy (Amy Poehler) and Anger (Lewis Black) dictate her actions. The stakes are low—her family moves, and some non-humans get lost, just like Toy Story—and the resulting drama is inevitably inert. But who cares?

The beauty is in the details, like in the way the emotions’ bodies are rounded off into amorphous blobs of energy rather than structured by hard lines. Dramatizing chemical imbalances is admirable, but doing it with such aesthetic vigor? That’s beautiful.

JURASSIC WORLD If you didn’t know that ’90s nostalgia has hit critical mass, then see the new Jurassic Park film—judging by the box office receipts, you probably have already. Every single sequence in the Chris Pratt-led sequel is centered around callbacks to Steven Spielberg’s original film. Have you been waiting 20 years for another look at the dino that blinded that film’s secondary villain? You’re in luck! Then the film has the nerve to make jokes about the overbranding of stadiums and theme parks. This whole film’s a branded advertisement—reinforcing our reverence for a film we already saw 20 years ago.

MAD MAX: FURY ROAD Max is almost mute. Car chases fill the entire running time. Backstories are illustrated using only the scars and wounds on character’s bodies.

Fury Road speaks to us visually—it’d work entirely without sound. There’s only one verbal motif: “Who killed the world?” shouted by the film’s six heroines toward the patriarchal figures who scorched their planet.

Scoff at the inclusion of progressive politics in a film this unashamedly violent, but everything eventually clicks together. We see a world in need of tearing down. Fury Road finds great cinematic beauty doing exactly that.

MAGIC MIKE XXL A shift to a different stage: The first Mike was an economic parable (Shampoo for the iPhone set), but XXL presents itself as pop-philosophy.

The strippers treat their work as an art form—after all, they’re audience pleasers. See the way cinematographer Steven Soderbergh shoots these dances—camera low to the ground, overhead lights uniting the bodies into one unified color, men grinding incessantly , dollar bills falling from outstretched arms like autumn leaves from the branches— and leave the movie confusing sex and art yourself.

REBELS OF THE NEON GOD The first film by Tsai Ming-Liang, from 1992, reveals a director with an eye that sees far beyond most: Each shot is built of great depth, from the urban detritus that populates the foreground to the buzzing lights lining the walls in back. Tsai follows Hsiao-keng and Ah-Tse down diverging paths; the latter cycles through girlfriends and criminal acts, while the former—bored and envious—observes from afar. Each struggles for satisfaction and a salary, in between stops at the skating rinks and arcades of Taipei—the physical spectre of the title’s deity.

TED 2 The humor and energy of the first one was strangely specific to the region, but only one note in Ted 2 feels Boston-authentic: Mark Wahlberg plays a divorced Irish guy who drinks too much so he can avoid his feelings. The rest is standard-issue Seth MacFarlane—absurd scenarios (a talking bear suing for human rights) interrupted by random pop references (a study session becomes a shot-for-shot recreation of a Breakfast Club montage). The story concludes with a scene at New York Comic Con, a fitting location: These characters aren’t townies, they’re brands.

THE WOLFPACK Documentarian Crystal Moselle saw five brothers with modelish good looks walking the street, dressed like the cast of Reservoir Dogs. She followed them to their home to find that they rarely left it: Their father raised them as shut-ins, letting them spend their time obsessing about and reenacting movies instead of socializing. Moselle gives them this film; their recreations and visual art command entire passages. The resulting profile is often shapeless, but the story itself—drawing together mass-level commerce and street-level cultishness—is irresistably beguiling.

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THEATER

WORLD PREMEIRE

A Conversation with Waitress book writer Jessie Nelson on her forthcoming ART production

BY CHRISTOPHER EHLERS @_CHRISEHLERS

Thursday JULY 16 8:00 PM

NIGHT

Comedians: Derek Furtado, Zenobia Del Mar, Jeff Smith, Pamela Anne, Adam Deangelo, Kevin Doug Fitzgerald, Ethan Diamond, Mike Fahey, Nick Bradley, Michael Fournier, Alex Courtis, Mike Settlow No Cover Friday JULY 17 9:30 PM

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Cambridge gets another taste of Hollywood this summer—just one year after Harvey Weinstein steered Finding Neverland to Broadway—as the lovely, multitalented Jessie Nelson joins forces with Sara Bareilles, Diane Paulus, and the American Repertory Theater for Waitress, a new musical making its world premiere right here in the Hub. Serving as book writer for Waitress, Nelson is perhaps best known for writing, directing, and producing I Am Sam; other film credits include Stepmom, Because I Said So, and Corrina, Corrina. I got a chance to speak with her about process, bringing a new production to life, and the show’s potential for Broadway.

Thematically, what made Waitress something that you had to be a part of?

It’s an unexpected love story about falling back in love with yourself and what your initial dreams were. I think we all can identify with being in relationships where we have to kind of shrink to fit in order to survive them, and then that wonderful feeling of breaking out of that and becoming your full self.

Were you familiar with Diane’s work? How did you feel when you found out that she was connected?

When my daughter was young I wanted to expose her to musical theatre, so I took her to see Hair, which Diane had directed, and I remember sitting in the audience going, “Wow, this is so beautifully directed,” and the same thing with Pippin, so I had a sense of the boldness of her vision.

VINAL BACKGROUND ORCS Tuesday JULY 21 6:00 PM

WAITRESS COMPOSER SARA BAREILLES AND BOOK WRITER JESSIE NELSON

What has the process been like with Sara Bareilles?

It’s always interesting when you embark on working with a new person, because so much collaboration is about establishing trust, and I feel lucky in that I think Sara and I very quickly were able to establish that trust, and it’s deepened over time. I think we both try to not be precious with each other and just kind of honestly express our ideas.

Considering the kind of work that’s been coming out of the ART lately, do you feel that there’s any kind of added pressure?

Of course those thoughts enter your mind, and I think what I try to do is channel all of that into the work.

And in many ways do you think it’s easier to create in a place like Cambridge, which is such a cradle of intelligence and creativity?

I feel very blessed to have encountered everyone from the ART and to kind of get a sense of the spirit there. They really foster new work and have a real infrastructure to support developing new musicals.

What are you hoping that audiences will walk away with?

I know this sounds corny, but I ultimately think that our journey as people is to learn how to love more openly and open our hearts more. I respond to pieces that leave you more openhearted than when you entered the theatre, whether that’s returning to your own values or about loving more purely the people in your life. I hope the piece, ultimately, is a work on that level.

Are you talking about a future beyond ART for this show?

Yeah, there has been a lot of talk about moving it to Broadway, and we shall see. I don’t know that world the best, but yes, there has been a lot of talk. >> WAITRESS. OPENS 8.2 AT LOEB DRAMA CENTER, 64 BRATTLE ST., CAMBRIDGE. FOR MORE INFORMATION, VISIT AMERICANREPERTORYTHEATER.ORG/WAITRESS THIS IS THE FIRST IN A MULTI-PART SERIES ABOUT BRINGING A NEW PRODUCTION TO LIFE IN BOSTON. VISIT DIGBOSTON.COM FOR THE FULL INTERVIEW

PHOTO BY KATI MITCHELL

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ARTS

LEGENDARY LOCAL

Native professor writes overdue history of East Boston

BY CHRIS FARAONE @FARA1 Dr. Regina Marchi is an associate professor of journalism and media studies at Rutgers, all the way in New Jersey. She doesn’t have much of a New England accent.

But don’t get confused; she’s an East Bostonian to the core, as well as one of the few authors to ever dedicate a volume to her home turf.

Throwback buffs that we are at DigBoston, we enthusiastically thumbed through Marchi’s brand new Legendary Locals of East Boston and reached out for an interview.

Community soul that the author is, she welcomed our request with the kindness of a traditional Italian family inviting friends over for Sunday dinner and explained, among other things, how she went from writing term papers at Boston Latin School about her native stomping ground to publishing an entire book on the topic.

Tell me about your early years. What was your childhood like in Eastie?

In those days, there were tons of kids who played outside on the streets ... there were literally hundreds of kids riding their bikes, playing dodgeball, manhunt, stickball … One of my most fun memories is how when somebody would throw away a large box from a refrigerator or television, we would take the box, flatten it out, and go to East Boston High to slide down the hill. That was the most fun you could possibly have besides running through the hydrants.

“One of my most fun memories is how when somebody would throw away a large box from a refrigerator or television, we would take the box, flatten it out, and go to East Boston High to slide down the hill. That was the most fun you could possibly have besides running through the hydrants.”

Did you feel like you grew up in part of a bigger Boston, or in your own city entirely?

East Boston is originally geographically an island, and even today there is an island mentality for people who were born and grew up there. You need to mentally and physically make the journey to downtown, over the bridge or through the tunnel, and a lot of people in East Boston really don’t leave the neighborhood. Growing up, we didn’t leave that often, and when we did it was sort of a big thing … When I got a little older, when I was 12 and started going to Boston Latin School, I was taking the subway with my brother and my other friends. We were the small Eastie contingent, and from that point on I went in almost every weekday.

You lived this, but what made you say, “It’s time to write a book about Eastie”?

I’ve always wanted to write a book about East Boston. I felt that of all the Boston neighborhoods, East Boston really gets kind of short shrift. There is a book written

by Anthony Sammarco, and it’s also by Arcadia, which is publishing my book.

His book focuses more on the history of particular buildings and streets, much more physical localities in Boston, whereas I tell the history through East Boston residents, the personal stories of individuals who grew up here … I really wanted to write this because growing up, I was always really shocked how many people from outside of East Boston had never been to East Boston, or even heard of it. For too long, people have thought that it was just an airport. >> LEGENDARY LOCALS OF EAST BOSTON READING AND BOOK SIGNING WITH DR. REGINA MARCHI. WED 7.22. ZUMIX, 260 SUMNER ST., EAST BOSTON. 7:30PM/ALL AGES/FREE. VISIT DIGBOSTON.COM FOR THE FULL INTERVIEW. 28

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BY DAN SAVAGE @FAKEDANSAVAGE I have been happily married for 12 years. I’m deeply in love with my wife—she’s amazing, very sexy and gorgeous. I used to be jealous, but about six years ago, I lost my feelings of jealousy. In their place, I developed a strong desire to share my wife with other men. It’s my only fantasy. She knows about this, but she says it’s wrong. I never asked her to actually do it. Am I wrong for feeling this way?

A Shamed Husband, A Marital Erotic Deadlock Objectively speaking, ASHAMED, there’s nothing wrong with your fantasy—hell, there would be a fuck of a lot right with your fantasy if your wife were turned on by it. So when your wife says, “It’s wrong,” try and hear what she should be saying: “It’s wrong for me.”

And if you’re the optimistic type, ASHAMED, you can opt to hear, “It’s wrong for me at the moment.” There are lots of women out there happily cuckolding their husbands—or happily playing the role of hotwife—who rejected the idea when their husbands first shared their fantasies. Don’t allow yourself to be shamed—“It’s not wrong, honey, but I understand it’s wrong for us”—and don’t pressure your wife to do it, and she may surprise you one day.

My boyfriend and I have been together for two years. I moved in a year ago, and we have been happy living together since.

During the past year, I’ve come across a lot of his ex’s old 30

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belongings—letters and pictures. It’s not like I snoop. He’s kind of a hoarder, and I frequently find this stuff tucked in books or drawers. It’s starting to frustrate me. I long ago threw away most of my ex’s things, and the stuff I did keep is stored in a box that’s out of sight and mind. I don’t necessarily want him to throw all this stuff away, but I want to feel comfortable in our shared environment. I also want to be able to think about our life together and not his past. How do I communicate this?

Ex’s Various Items Disturb Entirely New Couple’s Environs I’m like your boyfriend—not a hoarder, but definitely a tucker.

I tuck letters and photos and other keepsakes into books, stuff them in the backs of drawers, set them on shelves or beside the rest of the tchotchkes. I do this because (1) I’m not organized/ depressed enough to scrapbook, and (2) I like running across old photos or letters when I’m looking for something else.

Perhaps your boyfriend feels the same way—or maybe your boyfriend is a hoarder and a slob. Either way, EVIDENCE, my advice is the same: Own up to your insecurities—tell him that there’s nothing about his past that should prevent you from enjoying your present—and then ask him to make a reasonable accommodation. Tell him you would like to place his ex’s pictures and letters, as you run across them, into a box that’s clearly labeled and easily accessed, but out of sight and mind.

If he says yes, EVIDENCE, take that yes for an answer. That means putting whatever you find away, refraining from griping at your boyfriend about the stuff he chooses to hold on to, and reassuring yourself that a day will soon come when your shared environment is completely ex-proofed.

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