DigBoston 10.26.17

DIGBOSTON.COM 10.26.17 - 11.02.17

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DIGBOSTON.COM

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OCT 26, 2017 - NOV 02, 2017 BUSINESS PUBLISHER Marc Sneider ASSOCIATE PUBLISHERS Chris Faraone John Loftus Jason Pramas SALES MANAGER Marc Sneider FOR ADVERTISING INFORMATION sales@digboston.com BUSINESS MANAGER John Loftus

EDITORIAL EDITOR IN CHIEF Chris Faraone EXECUTIVE EDITOR Jason Pramas MANAGING EDITOR Mitchell Dewar ASSOCIATE MUSIC EDITOR Nina Corcoran ASSOCIATE FILM EDITOR Jake Mulligan ASSOCIATE ARTS EDITOR Christopher Ehlers STAFF WRITER Haley Hamilton CONTRIBUTORS G. Valentino Ball, Sarah Betancourt, Tim Bugbee, Patrick Cochran, Mike Crawford, Kori Feener, George Hassett, Zack Huffman, Marc Hurwitz, Marcus Johnson-Smith, Micaela Kimball, Derek Kouyoumjian, Dan McCarthy, Adam Sennott, Maya Shaffer, Citizen Strain, M.J. Tidwell, Tre Timbers, Baynard Woods INTERNS Kuresse Bolds, Olivia Falcigno

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Dear Reader, I have been thinking a lot about media and coverage of opiate abuse in general of late. In the micro sense, my interest stems from a new program we are doing with the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism called F.I.G.H.T., which stands for Film Intervening Getting High Team.

It’s an initiative with Boston filmmaker Johnny Hickey through which we hope to train and inspire a whole bunch of people who are deep in recovery—as well as their friends and family members—to make their own media about the crisis at hand. Which brings me to the macro reason that I have been paying extra close attention to the so-called journalism being done around the issue—it sucks! And that’s a very bad thing.

One of the first things I said to people who came out for a F.I.G.H.T. event on the North Shore last weekend was the same thing I say to most groups I speak to: How many times have you seen something in the newspaper, or on television, or on some website that’s presented as responsible and accurate information, but you realize that in reality you know much more about it than the person who’s reporting? It’s true of almost anything, as many journalists are thrown into working on short beats that they don’t know much about. But when it comes to drugs, as anyone who’s ever seen a nightly news anchor fumble around cannabis terms is aware, there’s almost always a huge gap between what’s really happening and what makes it onto the 5 o’clock news.

While it’s one thing to know on instinct that mainstream attempts to relay stories of death and addiction are flawed, if not utterly insulting, it’s another thing to explain why, and to offer resolutions. As I’ve noted countless times before, the first neglectful thing that lazy journos, producers, and editors do is report useless and subjective statistics. I will abstain from citing any number of short-minded headlines from the past month alone that claim some kind of victory, like that overdoses went down in a certain city over so and such matter of months—or, contrarily, which decry some sort of selective sudden boost in deaths because of fentanyl that’s more than 100 times the strength of heroin! That’s all horse race nonsense, though. It doesn’t even scratch the surface of what’s really going on in the Commonwealth’s darkest corners.

Without giving too much away, I will say that the first couple of F.I.G.H.T. installments will focus on things like re-entry after prison, as well as the chemical cocktails that people in recovery are often chasing. As anyone who is close to this junk will tell you, we have a lot more than a heroin problem on our hands. In fact, if you know of anybody who might want to work with us on this stuff, please have them reach out to me directly: fara1@digpublishing.com CHRIS FARAONE, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Need more Dig? Sign up for the Daily Dig @ tiny.cc/DailyDig

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NEWS+OPINION

TOXIC DEVELOPMENT NEWS+OPINION

Somerville officials side with developer in long battle over polluted Davis site On a warm sunny morning last August, Nancy Iappini found herself so nauseated that she says she had to sit. As she recovered by an open window, the Somerville resident heard the sounds of machinery crashing and grinding away next door.

She says she knew something unusual had happened, and picked up the phone.

Like a lot of people in this booming region, Iappini lives next door to a new mixed-use development that is under construction. This project is somewhat unique, though; it’s being built on a toxic waste site, and it required a permit with more than 70 special conditions that the contractor is expected to follow. Developers are supposed to meet such conditions before the municipality issues a building permit. But in this case, Somerville appears to have greenlighted the bulldozers anyway. Even though the site is considered toxic by the state’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), construction is underway.

The disputed property, which formerly belonged to the neighboring VFW hall, passed through an initial approval phase more than five years ago. As was reported by DigBoston in 2013: Somerville’s planning director at the time, Monica Lamboy, went so far as to tout the project as a desperately needed “mixed use” development that could help veterans.

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DIGBOSTON.COM

In turn, the city pitted abutters against veterans. The developers now had a parcel more than double the size of what they started with. Their neighbors, however, were more dismayed than ever, as the new 8,300 square foot VFW building—designed to hold up to 355 people at up to 180 non-member party rentals a year—would be moving in next door.

Fast-forward to last August, when the developer was taking soil samples in accordance with DEP protocol. In the process, a piece of machinery ruptured an underground tank, causing its 60-some gallons of petroleum product to spill into the soil.

“I just became incredibly sick,” Iappini recalls. “I knew something had happened, so I called the DEP, they sent someone out to the site who checked it out, and they saw that [a piece of machinery] had ruptured an oil tank.”

The oil spill is just one of the many issues Iappini and others have endured, and which have been a common topic of neighborhood gossip for years around Davis Square. Complaints, lawsuits, and strange behavior have made the saga of Summer Street stand out—at one point, residents discovered that officials oddly undercharged for application fees; another time, it turned out the business hired to conduct environmental tests had a suspended commercial license. But in a booming city where rents and property costs are comparable to neighboring Boston,

Nancy Iappini is just one of many who feel that the city of Somerville, its officials, and the developers they favor run roughshod over residents, with little to no direct state oversight.

This June, the city’s planning board finally issued a building permit to the Maggiore Construction Corporation, building under the name 351 Summer Street LLC. The permit for the development of 343-349 Summer St and 351 Summer St—as a planned mixed-use building with 29 condominiums, a VFW event hall, and an attached parking lot—only fanned the flames. Not to mention the confusion.

According to Iappini’s neighbor, Karina Wilkinson, there’s something fishy about how the whole thing went down—especially how the permit was issued while a window was still open for neighbors to level concerns.

“I’ve done work on social justice and environmental advocacy … I have never seen a process where the decision gets made before the response gets made in the form of public comment,” says Wilkinson, an environmentalist with 15 years of social justice work under her belt. “It seems like putting the cart before the horse.”

In an email through Somerville’s director of communications, George Proakis, the city’s director of planning, disputed claims that there are unfulfilled mandates. Nevertheless, the site has higher levels of certain chemicals and metals in the soil than what is

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considered normal. Since illnesses and other problems can arise when such soil is disturbed, the DEP expects municipalities to also play their part in making sure that sites are safe. In this case, Iappini and her neighbors say the opposite has happened. *** Following the oil spill last year, Robert Bird, the developer’s licensed site professional (LSP), had to file an immediate response action with the DEP stating what had happened. An LSP is responsible for the oversight and cleanup of a hazardous waste site. They work for developers or municipalities and report directly to the DEP. Bird works with EnviroTrac, the firm hired by the builder.

On May 17, 2017, at the first public meeting regarding the development, Iappini and other site abutters asked Bird to put their fears about the abutting soil’s toxicity levels to rest by testing the soil close to their properties for the DEP report. According to Jeffrey Nangle, the LSP hired by Somerville to oversee Bird, they were denied, but Nangle says he forced some tests anyway.

Asked about the refusal, Bird said that soil testing is an ongoing process, where gaps in data are filled “as need be.” He said the original test was “really just to characterize the soil, so we could dispose of it properly.”

Because the soil along Iappini’s property wasn’t going to be removed, based on construction plans, Bird said there wasn’t any need to sample it.

“That soil had been there for 40 years or more. It wasn’t likely to cause a significant risk in the next month or two, and we wanted to sequence construction and testing activities so that they were most efficient from a cost standpoint, and not run around willy-nilly, testing when somebody said that they wanted something done,” Bird told DigBoston.

Additionally, Bird said Iappini’s property is outside of the spillage zone, so there was no need to test it. He did not respond to a follow-up request for a map of the contaminated area.

Iappini, who has photographs from April showing that the area close to her abutting fence was being cleared for machinery and equipment, said that Bird’s explanation is false. Particularly since in an April 25, 2017, email to her and other abutters, Proakis, the city planner, wrote, “the builder is clearing brush and fences in preparation for conducting Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) tests on the site.” A GPR test uses radar to detect buried storage tanks.

Bird finally tested the soil on Sept 15 and released

results to Iappini two weeks later, but not all of them.

Abutters say they are missing key pieces of information that would make the data furnished understandable, such as comparisons to what has been discovered throughout the rest of the site. The site is deemed toxic overall, but without all of the data there is no way to tell if the toxicity level of the abutting soil is especially dangerous.

Bird said he did not show contamination comparisons because the other data is not yet complete and noted that said testing was only done “to make peace” with neighbors. Specifically, he said Iappini asked “that the data be submitted,” but argued, “That’s not a report. It was strictly just a big data table. And that was provided to her at her request, so we satisfied exactly what she asked for.”

With multiple underground storage tanks already identified beneath the property, abutters are concerned that there may be additional tanks by the property line.

Nangle and Iappini discussed outright excavation but decided it would endanger a tree on her property.

“If you… do any kind of invasive sampling, you’re going to hit the tree roots, so I recommended they use hand-driven [machines]… to make the maximum effort to save and preserve the tree,” Nangle said. “I don’t know if they’ve done that yet or not.”

Bird did not respond to a request for comment about whether he’s performed such tests. As for the potentially unsafe levels of lead and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons on the property: “What I can tell you is that everything we’ve seen out there in terms of the lead and the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons are consistent with coal and coal ash, which are exempt from reporting, under [Massachusetts] regulations,” Bird said.

“They are hiding data from the public, so that our comments are ridiculous and useless, because half the data hasn’t been presented for us in time to meet a deadline,” Iappini said. “We are being kept in the dark, and it might impact our comments and our understanding and our health.” *** There are two cases related to this Summer Street development that are open with the DEP: one addressing the overall toxicity of the site, due to its past history as a service station, and the other addressing the oil spill.

There is a difference; because the oil spill was an incident, it required a more immediate response, whereas the overall cleanup of the site is an ongoing case. The deadline for the overall site cleanup is February 2018.

With a building permit in hand, the developer is now

paving over soil that could be contaminated. Meanwhile, a DEP spokesperson said that neither Somerville nor the developer is technically in violation. Rather, the agency’s position is that it is common for developers to simply seal areas that are deemed hazardous, as a way to avoid disturbing the soil further and to expedite the construction process while other issues are addressed.

“Usually, you have to do whatever cleanup is needed to the point you need it to be done, in order to get that redevelopment moving and moving ahead,” Edmund Coletta, the MassDEP press secretary, told DigBoston.

“We think this is the same as a lot of other sites that get redeveloped … This one really doesn’t jump out among others.”

While the state DEP regulates the cleanup of toxic sites, it relies on the property owners and other “potentially responsible parties” for actual cleanup.

The exception is if the tract is a so-called Superfund site, in which case a largescale, long-term cleanup would be ordered. When places fall short of that pollution mark, the DEP relies on local officials to engage with abutters whose health could be impacted.

According to Coletta, the DEP isn’t directly overseeing the project. In other words, Somerville can issue a permit without state approval—which it did here despite, as Nangle himself noted in internal communications with Bird, certain apparent contamination issues that have gone unresolved, including a mysterious “oily liquid.”

It is then up to the developer’s LSP to create a cleanup plan for the site, if one is deemed necessary, and to report back to the DEP on the progress of said cleanup.

This leaves a strange gray gap for people like the group fighting against the development on Summer Street. In their eyes, local officials haven’t exactly been forthcoming, while the group has had to relentlessly pursue them for information.

“This is my tax-paying dollar,” Iappini said. “I’m paying for this. And they aren’t even giving me the information I’ve been asking for.”

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“We are being kept in the dark, and it might impact our comments and our understanding and our health.”

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DIGBOSTON.COM

Sometimes we sit in our office examining back issues of DigBoston in which we swung fists dipped in Gorilla Glue and glass at horrors like the prospect of a Boston 2024 Olympics, and it feels good to know that we were right. Then we hit the Boston Globe archives to peruse their past coverage, and we wonder how the comfortables at our newspaper of record can live with themselves while knowing the junk they have pumped on innumerable fronts rots with time.

With the Globe almost completely hidden behind an impenetrable paywall these days, we try not to waste as much time as we used to needling the unbelievable hypocrisy and negligence for which so many of their editors should be held accountable. No doubt they still have lots of readers, but it’s nice to think about how people often go to check their stories, only to be blocked by their Henry Hill business model: Fuck you, pay me! Demanding a subscription price point that is out of reach for half the region but mere pocket shrapnel for those who strip to their underwear each morning when they read the Globe to come a little closer to having their tails licked by shills masquerading as biz writers, the paper has become a daily Boston Common magazine, an accessory you might mention at brunch but that can’t really be taken seriously.

Which brings me to the obvious outrage of the past few weeks—the Globe’s sickening red carpet rollout for Amazon, and tandem mating calls to its exalted emperor. Their “Dear Jeff” apple bob was a pathetic cornucopia of thick yellowish liquid produced in infected tissue, bubbling with rhetorical bacteria and mayonnaise. In another case, the following line actually appeared, presumably because its author hasn’t been following the many broken promises of General Electric, which inspired comparable wishful imprudence: “This isn’t to say that the Legislature need give away the store with extravagant tax breaks or incentives.

Instead, it’s a chance to reinvent the relationship between a city and a corporation … The stakes couldn’t be higher.”

Tell us about it. People are being displaced. Construction has roads backed up on virtually every major thoroughfare. Corporations run the show. Our politicians are purchased and bribed in a way that would make the big city bosses of past generations grin, for these contemporary kleptocratic aides have finally figured out how to enrich themselves legally, if not while in office then soon after. So, you bet that the stakes couldn’t be higher. And more than ever before, the Globe is asleep on the job, caught deep in a dream world in which Amazon’s Jeff Bezos adds their edgeless rag to his impressive media portfolio and saves them from the creatively stifling nightmare of life under John Henry.

I could go on and on. Twisting with such minimal spine makes the Globe an easy target, especially following HUBweek. Covered extensively by its chief media sponsor and cocksure enabler, HUBweek’s like a party thrown by the wealthiest kid in your high school whom everyone secretly loathes. Only with this schlock operation, the organizers also invite their obnoxious friends, then ask suckers to sit through exchanges that range from sickening and shortsighted to gruesome. One even featured former Secretary of State John Kerry interviewing Anne Finucane, vice chairman of Bank of America, about—get this—the “future of diplomacy.” That laughingstock was only outdone by a dialogue between Fidelity Investments CEO Abby Johnson and ex-New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. If you missed any of these inner-circle jerk paeans to the HUBweek sponsors and various other monsters of finance and industry, be sure to check the Globe’s dispatches, including one video titled “There’s outside-thebox thinking inside the domes at City Hall.”

Hardly. And as anyone who knows a damn thing about modern media will tell you, the Globe’s engagement-averse approach is the box—square, boring, and far too often sealed off to the world around them. A page-one blumpkin this past weekend argued that “the city’s 218-page proposal, submitted to Amazon by last Thursday’s deadline, made [Boston’s] strengths abundantly clear.” Perhaps, but the shameless boosterism by Globe writers reveals our city’s greatest weakness, which is that far too many people in extremely powerful positions not only routinely neglect to understand the region’s problems, but believe that tax-dodging disruptors and bullies who don’t give a rat’s little boner about Boston will come to the rescue.

They won’t. And from everything we’ve seen over the past couple of years, neither will the Boston Globe.

Twisting with such minimal spine makes the Globe an easy target

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ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT

7

THE VERTEX SHELL GAME APPARENT HORIZON

Pharma’s Donation to Boston, Other Cities Converts Public Funds to PR Gold

Vertex Pharmaceuticals made a big PR splash last week with an announcement of a significant donation to Boston and other cities where it does business. The Bostonbased company, best known for its cystic fibrosis meds, has pledged to “spend $500 million on charitable efforts, including workforce training, over the next 10 years,” according to the Boston Globe, and “much of the money will go toward boosting education in science and math fields as well as the arts.” The company “also wants to set aside money for grants to help young scientists and researchers.”

Well isn’t that nice. Over 10 years, $500 million works out to about $50 million a year. Sounds quite generous, yes? John Barros, Mayor Marty Walsh’s chief of economic development, certainly thinks so: “The establishment of a Vertex foundation is a long-term investment in the people of Boston and the neighborhoods of Boston … That’s ultimately what we hope for when corporations move their headquarters to the city.”

But sharp-eyed locals would disagree. We’ve seen this gambit many times before in the Bay State—most recently when General Electric played it last year: A big business that has gotten bad press for various kinds of questionable behavior and/or outright malfeasance decides it needs to improve its image. And it does so by the simple device of expanding its advertising budget in the form of “charity.”

The important thing to remember with such “donations” is that the corporations in question often get far more money from government at all levels than they ever give back to society. So it’s not really charity at all.

So it’s not really charity at all.

It’s just public relations by other means.

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DIGBOSTON.COM

It’s just public relations by other means. Aimed at being able to continue to dip from the great public money river largely unnoticed by everyone but the few investigative reporters managing to ply their trade in this age of corporate clickbait.

To that point, let’s look at four ways that Vertex has benefitted from public support. Then reconsider its most excellent announcement in that light.

1) Tax breaks and direct aid Readers might remember Vertex as the company that got $10 million in state life science tax incentives between 2010 and 2014 and $12 million in tax breaks from the city of Boston—both in exchange for adding 500 local jobs to their existing staff of 1,350 by 2015 and, quixotically, for moving their headquarters from Cambridge to Boston.

According to the Globe, the Commonwealth also took out a $50 million loan to pay for “new roads and other improvements” to the new HQ’s Fan Pier site.

Why? As is often the case in the wonderful world of corporate finance, Vertex told then-Gov. Patrick that it might leave the state if it didn’t get the appropriate… um… “incentives.” So that apparently played a role in getting state and local government in gear. The deal was based on the expected performance of Vertex’s blockbuster new hepatitis C drug, Incivek. But things didn’t go as planned.

According to MassLive, when the company pulled the plug on Incivek in 2013 after being outgunned by another company’s hep C med, it agreed to pay back $4.4 million of the state money. In 2015, according to the Boston Business Journal, after Vertex failed to meet its job creation target, the city reduced its tax breaks to $9 million—but didn’t ask the company to pay anything back and will keep its deal in place until 2018. Leaving Vertex reaping a windfall of almost $17 million in state and local tax breaks. Oh, and that sweet loan, too.

2) Gouging public health programs With the release of two major successful cystic fibrosis meds and more new related meds set to breeze through the FDA drug approval process, the company is starting to expand. And how could it not?

In July 2017 it raised the price of its newer med, Orkambi, by 5 percent to $273,000 per patient per year, according to the Boston Business Journal. A product that did $980 million in sales in 2016 before the price increase. In 2013, the company had already raised the price of its first major med, Kalydeco, from $294,000 to $307,000 per patient per year.

With some patients paying as much as $373,000 per year, according to an October 2013 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel/MedPage Today article. Cystic fibrosis doctors and researchers have strongly protested, but to no avail.

It’s true that most patients don’t pay anywhere near that amount of money for the meds—because public and private insurance eat the lion’s share of the still-outrageous cost.

But the final sticker price remains tremendously high. And the company doesn’t say much about who does pay a big chunk of the bill: the government, and therefore the public at large. Stick a pin in that. Vertex, like virtually every other drug company, has a business model based on gouging the public with ridiculously high prices that various government insurance programs are mandated to pay.

Programs like, in this case, federal Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). As an Oct 4 letter from the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation (whose eminently questionable role in the funding and development of Vertex’s cystic fibrosis meds will likely be the subject of a future column) to the Senate Finance Committee explained, about half of all cystic fibrosis patients—who used to die young before the new treatments came online—are under 18 years old. So they’re generally covered by CHIP. That program, sadly, was defunded on Sept 27 by our psychotic Congress as part of the Republican Party’s crusade against Obamacare. Most states will run out of their 2017 CHIP money early next year, and unless they find money in their own budget to replace it or Congress manages to do the right thing, over 4 million kids—including thousands of cystic fibrosis patients—are in danger of losing their health coverage.

Vertex is not directly to blame for that crisis, but the situation does make its promise that some of its $500 million donation “will be spent helping cystic fibrosis patients get access to Vertex drugs that help them breathe easier and live a more normal life” look even more ridiculous than it otherwise would. Because Vertex and other pharmas certainly have no plans to lower the outrageous prices of their top meds for any reason. They’ll give some destitute patients “access” to their drugs. But everyone else pays—primarily through government insurance, often in tandem with private insurance. After what the pharma industry terms “discounts”… that still result in usurious prices. So even if one takes whatever portion of the donation actually goes to helping patients get cheaper meds as an inadvertent giveback of some

PHOTO BY DEREK KOUYOUMJIAN

BY JASON PRAMAS @JASONPRAMAS

of the lucre they’ve leeched off the government, it’s going to be even less helpful than it otherwise would have been if half the patients on those meds lose their insurance next year.

3) Government-backed monopolies Moving on, there’s another key way that Vertex makes bucketloads of money with government help: gaming the Orphan Drug Act. Passed in 1983, it was meant to create a strong incentive for pharmas to research drugs that treated conditions suffered by less than 200,000 patients. In practice, it’s become a standard way for pharmas to get a seven-year monopoly on many of their meds. And while it’s certainly true that cystic fibrosis afflicts about 30,000 people in the US—well below the 200,000 patient threshold—it’s also true that it’s no accident that Vertex chose to focus on the disease. Because, according to its 2016 10-K annual report filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission, the company has won orphan drug status for both Kalydeco and Orkambi. Guaranteeing it seven years of monopoly production and distribution of both of the desperately needed and wildly overpriced meds. And 10 years in the European Union, under similar laws.

As Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine researchers commented in the American Journal of Clinical Oncology in November 2015, “it’s hardly surprising that the median cost for orphan drugs is more than $98,000 per patient per year, compared with a median cost of just over $5,000 per patient per year for nonorphan status drugs.” The same study demonstrated that “44 percent of drugs approved by the FDA [in 2012] qualified as orphan drugs.” So winning orphan drug status is one structural mechanism that makes it possible for pharmas like Vertex to charge crazy high prices for many meds.

4) Public science, private profit Finally, there’s the fact that much of the basic research that allows pharmas to exist is done by the federal government through the National Institutes of Health. In the case of Vertex, a direct connection has already been demonstrated. A May 2013 article by Milwaukee Journal Sentinel/MedPage Today explains that the company’s first cystic fibrosis med, Kalydeco, was only possible thanks to “a hefty investment from taxpayers through grants from the National Institutes of Health, which underwrote the cost of early research, which identified the gene that the drug targets.”

If one were to put a price tag on all the basic science Vertex uses to develop its cystic fibrosis meds—and other meds—that comes straight from the NIH, what would it be worth? Tens of millions? Hundreds of millions? It would be a great research project to estimate the total, but suffice to say that it would be a great deal of money. Money that Vertex could never have leveraged on its own back in 1989 when it was a startup.

Conclusion: the racket and the damage done Add it all up: tax breaks, direct aid, profits from price gouging CHIP and other public insurance programs, profits from orphan drug status, and profit based on research directly attributable to NIH research. How much money will Vertex ultimately get from government at all levels? A hell of a lot more than that $500 million it proposes to give back to communities like Boston—mostly in ways that either benefit the company directly by providing it with a new generation of trained researchers or indirectly by gilding its public image. Assuming that it ever actually gives that much money away. Which the public has no way of knowing at this juncture.

Any more than we can know how much Vertex spends on lobbying annually to guarantee a constant flow of fat stacks of public cash. Since its shareholders at its most recent annual meeting in June thoughtfully shot down an initiative by a small number of religious shareholders to force the company to report its actual lobbying budget going forward, according to the Boston Business Journal. Not long after Vertex successfully colluded with 10 other pharmas to get the SEC to allow them to quash shareholder resolutions from the same religious groups that would have made the company’s drug pricing formula public, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Then, taking all the above into consideration, check out Vertex’s annual advertising and promotions budget for the last three years: $16.2 million in 2014, $24.5 million in 2015, and $31.4 million in 2016, according to its latest annual report.

Going up, right? So tack $50 million a year onto that last figure and we get an $80+ million ad budget. Totally doable for a company with cash, cash equivalents, and marketable securities worth $1.67 billion on hand on June 30, 2017. A company that’s now becoming profitable after years of running in debt—all of which has only been possible with massive public support.

Now come back to Vertex’s “donation.” Doesn’t look so generous anymore, does it?

Reforming the twisted wreckage of our drug research and distribution systems in this country will take a massive grassroots effort lasting years. But there’s one way that local advocates can get going on that project fast: demand that municipal and state officials stop giving public money to pharmas like Vertex, or participating in pharma PR stunts like promising to recycle some of that money to educate local kids—more of whom would have a fine education already if our elected officials stopped throwing money at giant corporations that should be going to social goods like public schools.

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9

BOSTON ROCK NOIR FEATURE

Clea Simon’s scenester mystery has been simmering for decades

BY CHRIS FARAONE @FARA1 Sometimes it feels like half the people I know around Boston have contributed to the newspapers and magazines I have written for over the past couple of decades. Even if it’s only been a music or arts review or two, reporting on one’s scene is something of a rite of passage for a lot of hardcore culture fiends. And for those who have considered themselves to be scenesters at some point or another, there is always quite a bit of dirt that gets buried with time, for better or worse.

Clea Simon, whom I know from my former gig with the Boston Phoenix, has been a regular on several scenes and knows where lots of sketchy nooks are hidden. In addition to being a novelist of note around these parts, she also did her time, mainly as a music fan, in the legendary nightclubs of the Hub’s grimier halcyon days. When the Boston Globe needed someone earlier this year to revisit the Rat, the iconic Kenmore Square venue that shuttered in ’97, for a major spread on bygone Boston music eras, Simon got the call, and she penned one heck of a tribute.

The author happened to be in the right mindset for an adventure down memory lane. Her latest mystery novel, the newly released World Enough from which she will read at Harvard Book Store next Thursday, dives deep into the brightest, as well as many of the darkest, shadowy sides of Hub life from the late ’80s on through the aughts—from A&R vultures to parties on the waterfront before glitz and glam seized the skyline. A snippet: Scott snorted as he scribbled notes, pawing through a pile of fliers from fledgling bands. But Tara was hopeful.

Every week, the rumors promised that a contract was near. Epic. Elektra. MCA. All the labels had come courting.

Numerous professional management firms, as well. But like some airhead debutante, Chris Crack had kept them all at bay. Playing them against each other, as if for the sheer fun of it. They’d been flown out to LA—down to New York—so often that their gigs were becoming rare occurrences, and between the slush and the cold, the on-again, off-again of clubland’s new favorites was straining everyone’s nerves.

Simon’s details and backdrops—finely tuned by her contemporaries who were also there while real-life versions of these bands were getting wined and dined by major labels—are in some ways reflective of modern Boston.

Forget the bourgeois makeover the city has experienced over the past several decades; facts of life like crowded T cars, the nightmare of “rush hour and the Sox,” and the sketchy innocence of Allston house parties remain.

We sat down with Simon at Lord Hobo, formerly the B-Side Lounge as older heads who will dig her new book may recall, to ask about her life and career as a creative on the Boston scene that led to this rather epic departure from her usual work.

All the incidents probably happened.

I don’t recall ever seeing a band get on stage so drunk that the drummer puked and fell off his stool before his set, but I am sure that happened.

On getting started as an author I write a lot. I started as a journalist, and my first three books were nonfiction—I wrote Mad House, about growing up with mentally ill siblings, and that grew out of a Boston Globe magazine story. That was 1997. I was at the Globe and 10

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I was looking to write bigger things, and it was liberating, because that was right around when my father died … That was my first book, and the response to that was great …

My third book was The Feline Mystique: On the Mysterious Connection Between Women and Cats.

That was 2003, and it was a local bestseller.

On writing mystery novels I started writing mysteries because a bookseller, [Kate Mattis] who used to run Kate’s Mystery Books, she basically gave me permission. I used to read a ton of mystery, but I was writing nonfiction.

She had a holiday party every year, and a ton of local writers would come and sign their books. This is after The Feline Mystique came out, and she said I should come sign copies, and said, ‘Believe it or not, there is a big overlap between women who love cats and mystery readers.’ They were always wild parties. You couldn’t even get to your own books to sign them. So at the end of the night, after we had been drinking, she said, “Clea, you should write a mystery.”

And I went home that night and started writing.

On inspiration for World Enough This is my 23rd book, but all of my other mysteries have involved animals. They range from softer to harder ones, and this is definitely the darkest one. It’s the same genre [as previous books], but a different end of the spectrum.

Publishers of mysteries want series, and I have one series that’s set in a dystopian world that’s roughly based on Boston. It features a homeless girl and this black feral cat that sort of adopts her, and that’s the hardest book [before World Enough].

This is a much darker book, and much more reality based. It’s all prime fiction in that a problem is set up, there is a question, a possible crime, a death, and some kind of mystery. We don’t know if it was an accidental death, we don’t know what happened. And that will be, if not resolved then at least explained by the end … [Mystery writers] set the world awry, and then we set it right again. This is one of the darker ones because there is no resolution, and I’m not saying justice will be done, but you will understand what happened by the end. It will be clear …

I finally got to write about the rock scene, but it’s also about the fallibility of memory, and that weird nostalgia.

We all look back on our youth as some kind of golden time, but we’re all subjective, we’re all flawed. How much of that is real?

Ripped from the headlines?

None of these bands are real. All of my early readers have said, “Yes, yes, I understand that it’s fiction, but who are the Aught Nines based on?’ All the incidents probably happened. I don’t recall ever seeing a band get on stage so

drunk that the drummer puked and fell off his stool before his set, but I am sure that happened.

I certainly tried to make it real. And I wanted to get the feel of it. The book is set between 1987 and 2007; Tara [the main character] is younger than I am now, and she needed to be because she’s a lot more passive than I am, and a little more naive. A friend who is a literary novelist described it as my comingof-age novel. This is a woman who is entering her 40s, and she’s looking back on what really was the high point of her life. Basically, where does she go from here? And she really comes alive when she’s back in that era.

They are memory collages.

A lot of the smells, the sounds, they’re real. I was a Rat girl.

I certainly went to the Channel a lot, but the bouncers there beat up kids and I didn’t like it. I liked Storyville when it was open, but in lieu of anything else, I would go to the Rat. And the Rat had an upstairs, so you could just go and hang without paying a cover. I loved it.

If you were there, it will evoke it for you. But I also think that people who weren’t there can live it vicariously. I mean, I don’t live in Venice, but I read Donna Leon. Boston in those days was this perfect little rough city, a mix of college kids and working class people, and it was affordable.

On process [World Enough] is a book that I’ve been working on for a long time, and that I put it aside. I started writing about the scene 25 years ago because I loved it, but I was just way too close. And then maybe 10 years ago I had the idea for this, and it just sort of happened because I didn’t have the chops then as a writer to do it. Also, I didn’t have the emotional perspective. I had to write a dozen books first.

And the reason I revisited it finally was utterly prosaic—I was having drinks with my publisher, and they said that I should write romantic suspense. I didn’t want to, so I had to come up with something different. I was like, “Oh, I have this.”

I don’t storyboard. It doesn’t work for me. If I plot it all out, there’s no juice. It’s flat. If I can plot it all out, then I have no interest in writing it. In the mystery community, they say you’re either a plotter or a pantser—as in you write by the seat of your pants. Sometimes your characters do things you didn’t know they were going to do, and that makes it fun. It’s the thing you didn’t expect. I’m a very disciplined writer; I write Monday through Friday, and I usually give myself a word count, like 1,500 words a day, and some days that’s like pulling fucking teeth…

There is a twist at the end of World Enough, and I really didn’t expect it. But by the end everything was pointing to something, and it was like, “Oh shit.” That’s what I love.

That’s what I live for. That’s why I don’t plot things out.

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WHAT RHYMES WITH ORANGE? FEATURE

The most seething protest songs in all the land that you should hear but probably haven’t

BY DIG STAFF AND FRIENDS FROM ACROSS AMERICA @DIGBOSTON

You may technically be reading DigBoston, your trusty alternative news source in these parts, but marching right beside us in more than 100 other cities nationwide are our peers at comparable publications. Bound through our trade organization, the Association of Alternative Newsmedia, our papers are the first friend that you look for when arriving on an exciting new scene, and we are also pretty often the initial arbiters of independent music who heap praise on artists who then go on to become national heroes. As well as those who don’t, and who are freaking awesome anyway.

At our last gathering of editors and writers, a bunch of us agreed to fight more as a team in these unpredictable times. So in addition to a number of us using Baynard Woods and his Democracy in Crisis columns as an alternative lifeline to DC, we are aiming to collaborate on more coast-to-coast creative orgies like this one, a grab bag of unique tracks for the front lines of Donald’s America. Spearheaded by Baynard, consider it an expert list of handselected indie diamonds that with any luck and help from readers all across the country will reverberate as loudly as the apolitical and controversy-averse drip polluting the commercial airwaves. -Dig Editors

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Keith Morris (Charlottesville, Virginia) “What Happened to Your Party?”

Known to at least one of his fellow musicians as “our rockin’ protest grouch in chief,” Keith Morris has a slew of protest songs, such as “Psychopaths & Sycophants,” “Prejudiced & Blind,” and “Brownsville Market,” from his Dirty Gospel album, plus “Blind Man,” “Peaceful When You Sleep” and “Border Town” from Love Wounds & Mars.

His latest release: “What Happened to Your Party?” (Erin O’Hare) Thunderfist (Salt Lake City, Utah) “Suck It” Sure, there are more articulate ways to denounce Trump. And revolution by example—countering blustery, bigoted bullshit with artfully composed, well-reasoned takedowns—is how we’ll effect change. That doesn’t mean we can’t occasionally vent our rage by strapping on Les Pauls, cranking up Marshalls, raising middle fingers and offering a blues-based, punk-rock invitation to fellatio. And maybe also, as the final, snarling chord slides into silence, calling him a “fat baby fuckface.” (Randy Harward) Dooley, Lor Roger, and TLow (Baltimore, Maryland) “CIT4DT” This Boosie-tinged Donald dis from Baltimore which dropped long before inauguration still thrills: “Boy ain’t even white, you yellow / You said you’d date your own daughter you a sicko.” Stakes are high here too—the mastermind behind it, Dooley, is Muslim, for example— and right-wing semifascist snowflakes took the song totally seriously, denounced it as a “death threat” (“CIT4DT” stands for “chopper in the trunk for Donald Trump”), and

bemoaned its Baltimore origins, where protest morphed into property damage and as far as a lot of us were concerned verged gloriously on revolution. Meanwhile, the trio responsible for it thought the shit was hilarious.

(Brandon Soderberg) Trombone Shorty and Dumpstaphunk (New Orleans) “Justice” Trombone Shorty and Dumpstaphunk teamed up on a song called “Justice,” which they released on the day Donald Trump was inaugurated president. A melange of funk, jazz and New Orleans brass band sounds, the video for “Justice” slyly marries video footage of Trump against pointed lyrics. “Inauguration day seemed to be an appropriate time to voice the need for equal say and opportunity for all people,” said Dumpstaphunk’s Ivan Neville. “We entered a New Year with a lot of unanswered questions on the subject of ‘justice’ that we all felt a little uneasy about. But there’s only so much we can do, and this track is our way of expressing our worries.” The song is available on most streaming services.

Lonely Horse (San Antonio, Texas) “Devil in the White House” Shots fired! Lonely Horse come out guns-a-blazing with the track “Devil in the White House.” Opening with a sludgy cadence that crescendos into a tumultuous rock ’n’ roll explosion, the “desert rock” duo of Nick Long and Travis Hild make very clear their feelings about the 45th POTUS. (Chris Conde)

Mal Jones, J. Blacco, Lost Firstborne, and DJ Shotgun (Jacksonville, Florida) CODE RED (“Hands Up, Don’t Shoot”) “We came up with this song after all of the recent acquittals in the cases related to the steadily rising murders of unarmed black men in the hands of law enforcement in America,” Mal Jones says. “We wanted to protest about this issue in the most effective way we know how: through song. Hands up don’t shoot!”

“My inspiration for writing my verse was first the climate of events going on at the time. It was right after the Alton Sterling situation. When my man’s Lost Firstborne played the beat that’s just what the track was speaking to me. It had a haunting soulful vibe about it so once I heard it everything flowed rather easily,” Blacco added. (Claire Goforth) Lingua Franca (Athens, Georgia) “A Man’s World” Shortly after Inauguration Day, two Athens studios invited 19 local bands to commemorate the dawn of the Trump Age, tracking 20 songs in a marathon 48-hour session. While much of the resulting album, Athens Vs. Trump Comp 2017, is suitably bleak, ascendant emcee Lingua Franca’s “A Man’s World” stands out for its sheer defiance. “Frenzied and indiscreet,” it’s a fiery feminist anthem for the resistance. (Gabe Vodicka) OG Swaggerdick (Boston, Massachusetts) “Fuck Donald Trump” Among diehard hip-hop heads as well as artists, Boston’s rap scene is renowned as one of the most lyrically elaborate anywhere. To that end, over the past year, such acts as STL GLD (Moe Pope + the Arcitype) and more recently The Perceptionists (Mr. Lif + Akrobatik) have released their most compelling works to date, largely inspired by the mess that Donald Trump has made (though not always namechecking Dolt 45 directly). But when it comes to straight up protesting and verbally impaling the potty-mouthed POTUS, there’s something undeniably satisfying, even admirable, about the Hub’s own OG Swaggerdick’s simple and straightforward election anthem, “Fuck Donald Trump.”

From the fittingly filthy rhymes—“never give props to a punk ass trick / motherfuck Donald Trump he can suck my dick”—to the strangers on the street who gladly join along in rapping in the video, they’re protest lyrics that you’ll still be able to remember and perhaps even rap for relief on occasions when the president leaves you otherwise speechless. (DigBoston) Clint Breeze and The Groove (Indianapolis, Indiana) “Blood Splatter” Featuring over a dozen guest contributors, including poets, rappers and jazz musicians, Nappy Head weaves a phantasmagoric assemblage of words and sounds into a razor-sharp critique of racial oppression in modern America. “I wanted to symbolize the state of oppression that Black people experience every day. From not getting fair treatment in the justice system, to getting shot and killed by law enforcement, to being unfairly treated in the workforce—you name it. I wanted to make a statement on how we as Black people view this oppressive society that we live in. I also wanted to give a different perspective from white people. I have a couple of my friends who are white on the album speaking about the nature of white privilege,” Breeze says. “Blood Splatter” is the record’s most cutting track, featuring spoken word artist Too Black with cascading cymbal cracks and careening sax. (Kyle Long / Katherine Coplen) The After Lashes (Coachella Valley, California) “We the Sheeple” The After Lashes is a new all-female punk band from the Coachella Valley that features Ali Saenz, the wife of former Dwarves and Excel drummer Greg Saenz. Frontwoman Esther Sanchez explained the inspiration behind the band’s song “We the Sheeple.” “‘We the Sheeple’ was an easy song to write, because it came from a place of frustration and growing resentment toward the current powers that be, and, of course, more specifically, Donald Trump,” she said. “We have a president who calls anything he doesn’t like ‘fake news’ while

simultaneously spending an insane amount of time tweeting nonsense and lies like a crazy person.

“The policies he intends to establish are harmful to pretty much everyone who is not wealthy; unfortunately, so many who voted for him were unknowingly voting against their own best interests. The song is very much about uniting against a tyrant, because that is precisely what we believe Trump to be.” (Brian Blueskye) Priests (Washington, D.C.) “Right Wing” There’s been no shortage of scathing political protest songs coming out of DC since, well, the birth of punk. But in recent years, post-punk quartet Priests have succeeded in reminding the rest of the country that DC is, and always has been, pissed the fuck off. “Right Wing,” off the band’s breakthrough EP Bodies and Control and Money and Power, so perfectly captures the ass-backwardness of living in a country controlled by capitalists, fascists, racists, and warmongers. “Everything everything / So right wing / Everything everything / So right wing / Purse searches, pep rallies / Purse searches, SUVs,” sings Katie Alice Greer.

It reads like a short, poetic treatise on how the toxicity of right-wing ideals infects everyday life. (Matt Cohen) Withdraw (Columbia, South Carolina) “Disgust” On their 2017 debut EP Home, Columbia’s Withdraw oscillate violently between bristling, pedal-to-the-floor emo (think At the Drive-In) and brutal, clawing crust punk. And on “Disgust,” the band proves the virtue of their versatility, shifting from an unflinchingly blackened hardcore blitz that bashes sexual abusers to a more expansive, anthemic coda that seeks to lift up the victims—“You are not tarnished!” It’s a potent statement, a searing declaration of allyship in musical realm more often derided for problematic gender politics. (Jordan Lawrence) NODON (Burlington, Vermont) “Alt-Wrong” NODON are an anti-fascist, anti-hate power-punk duo born out of the 2016 presidential election. Seething with caustic epithets, their songs condemn xenophobia, sexism, homophobia, white supremacy, and, above all, President Donald Trump. “Alt-Wrong,” from their 2017 EP, Covfefe, delivers a swift and vicious kick to the alt-right’s figurative crotch. Over razor-sharp guitar riffs and seething drums, they scream their battle cry: “Annihilate this hate! Not right!

Alt-wrong!” (Jordan Adams) Rmllw2llz (Louisville, Kentucky) “So Amerikkkan” Nationwide, when you think of the Louisville music scene, your mind probably bounces to My Morning Jacket, Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy, or maybe even White Reaper—who are all great—but our city’s hip-hop scene is packed with poignant artists, and if you’re looking for a pure protest song, look no further than Rmllw2llz’s “So Amerikkkan,” where he says “Fuck Trump, he’s a bum and Hillary trash, too.” The song was released a few months ago, but, if you give it a listen, you can hear a lot of the country’s past, present, and future angst packed into a few powerful minutes. (Scott Recker) Michael Bone (Chico, California) “My Peace Will Outlive You” Michael Bone is a Chico musician, husband, and father who has a day job teaching music to developmentally disabled kids, a night job playing drums for jazz combo Bogg, and dozens of side projects, including running the 1day Song Club. The latter is a songwriting group that receives a one-word prompt every other week, after which participants are tasked with writing, recording, and submitting a song to be posted online (at 1dayclub. com) within 24 hours. “My Peace Will Outlive You,” an angst-ridden yet hopeful slice of psychedelic pop, is Bone’s contribution to the prompt of “Trump.” (Jason Cassidy) Dais (Rochester, New York) “Atrocity” Dais tells you exactly where it stands on “Atrocity,” the first track off its self-titled debut EP. The post-hardcore band NEWS TO US

makes a racing, pounding apology to the Earth before (sort of) slowing down to confront the powers that be. “Show us a tyrant / And we’ll show you our grievance / Fuck that, we will fight this” vocalist Travis Rankin yells and strains in defiance. “The person who the States had elected was talking about withdrawing us from the Paris climate accord,” Rankin says. “We felt betrayed and began writing this song. It’s an apology to the Earth for us not being as good to it as it has been to us.” (Jake Clapp) Iris DeMent (Iowa City, Iowa) “We Won’t Keep Quiet” Back in February, Iowa City held a Solidarity Rally Against the Ban, proclaiming support for immigrant populations and refugees in the wake of Trump’s first and most ridiculous attempted travel ban. In between the community leaders, local politicians, and youth speakers, a variety of area musicians performed, including the brilliant Iris DeMent. She debuted a song, “We Won’t Keep Quiet,” that captured the feeling in the crowd that day in a really powerful way.

Joshua Asante “No Time For Despair” Asante, best known for fronting the bands Amasa Hines and Velvet Kente, is also a photographer, someone who delights in the tangible process of making art. It’s in his latest work as a solo artist that this becomes most evident, Asante hunching down over a briefcase stuffed with loop stations and processors. Of “No Time For Despair,” Asante says: “In times of distress and turmoil, it’s easy to get kinda caught up in the collective despair, so the lyrics are very much about, like, ‘Yeah, times are tumultuous, but there’s also a lot of really wonderful magical things that are going on in your life…’ That is probably the supreme act of defiance—to be joyful, to be loving.” (Stephanie Smittle) The Whiskey Farm (Madison, Wisconsin) “Flag Pin” The Whiskey Farm is an Americana/folk rock band from Madison, Wisconsin. Formed in 2010, the band has produced four albums and won Madison Area Music Awards in the Folk/Americana and Ensemble Vocals categories. The band’s most recent album, Songs of Resistance (2017), is their first record comprised entirely of social and political music, covering topics including immigration policy, faux patriotism, money in politics, gun control, equal rights and gerrymandering. “Flag Pin” is a tongue-in-cheek blues-inspired indictment of opportunistic patriots, including Trump. The band released Songs of Resistance as a benefit for the ACLU of Wisconsin.

(Catherine Capellaro) MC E-Turn (Orlando, Florida) “Ill Legal Alien” Everything about Orlando MC E-Turn is a particularly eloquent middle finger in the face of Donald Trump. The Persian-American, outspoken, femme emcee is a firebrand on the mic, and her lyrics deftly meld the personal with the political in ways that hardcore dudes could only dream of.

The fury and technique with which she drop bars—and other, usually male, MCs—on stage is the proud definition of a nasty woman. Her anthemic “Ill Legal Alien” may predate Trump’s election, but the Swamburger-produced track (Solillaquists of Sound) is still furiously of the moment. (Matthew Moyer and Bao Le-Huu) Cheap Perfume (Colorado Springs, Colorado) “Trump Roast” Cheap Perfume are a four-piece Colorado Springs band who follow in the tradition of feminist punk acts like Le Tigre and the Slits. “Trump Roast” is, not surprisingly, one of their biggest crowd-pleasers, as Stephanie Byrne and Jane No deliver a “Dear Don” letter to the resident president, culminating in a final verse that grows more timely, and more serious, with each passing day: “You wanna ban Muslims? Well, we wanna ban you / Your fascist ideas wrapped in red, white, and blue / Your KKK clones won’t be the ones to choose / Enjoy your last gasp cause racism’s through.” (Bill Forman)

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TASTY ON THE HILL, MEDFORD EATS

| RESTAURANT | INTIMATE CONCERT VENUE | | URBAN WINERY | PRIVATE EVENT SPACE |

upcoming shows

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KINDRED THE FAMILY SOUL

A little cafe that features a big (and hard-to-find) sandwich

BY MARC HURWITZ @MARCHURBOSTON

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11.28 - 29 RUFUS WAINWRIGHT and Much More! city winery Presents

11.27

11.2 cowboy junkies at The Regent Theatre

11.3 Shawn Colvin at T h e C a b o t

11.9 Leftover Salmon at t h e R e g e n t T h e at r e

11.10 11.14 11.16 12.6

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RIDGE WINE DINNER CITY WINERY AND AMERICAN AIRLINES PRESENT GREEK WINE DINNER CITY WINERY AND AMERICAN AIRLINES PRESENT SAKE DINNER CITY WINERY AND AMERICAN AIRLINES PRESENT SUSANA BALBO ARGENTINIAN WINE DINNER

email eventsboston@citywinery.com for more info

Sometimes the most unassuming dining spots happen to hold secrets—it could be an extraordinary dish that rivals those found at more popular restaurants, or perhaps a hidden back patio or basement dining area, or maybe a food item that can’t be found anywhere else in the region. This last example is what puts the otherwise unknown Tasty on the Hill in Medford on the map just a bit, as this humble little cafe by Tufts University offers a sandwich that not only can’t be found anywhere else in the Boston area, but really anywhere else in the entire United States except for a few spots in New Jersey, California, and elsewhere. And what exactly is in this sandwich that makes it so unique? More on that in a bit, but the better question may be, what isn’t in it? (And why don’t more places offer it?)

Tasty on the Hill—also known as Tasty Cafe and Tasty Cafe on the Hill—sits in a block of businesses along the edge of Tufts in the Hillside section of Medford, which makes it a popular spot for students, along with residents of nearby West Medford, South Medford, and Somerville, which is just on the other side of the hill where Tufts resides. The place doesn’t look like much from the outside and could easily be mistaken for your basic sub shop, pizza spot, or deli—and mistaking it for a deli is certainly easy to do, considering that a deli called Tasty Gourmet had formerly been in the space. The interior of Tasty on the Hill is simple but pleasant, and while this is definitely a place where you can have a leisurely meal, a lot of customers do opt for takeout or delivery in part because of its small size and its location by Tufts.

The cuisine at Tasty on the Hill tends to have Portuguese influences, and this includes its signature sandwich, which is called a francesinha. Don’t be embarrassed if you’ve never heard of this item because, frankly, few others in the Boston area have heard of it either, mainly because it simply cannot be found anywhere else in the region, at least not on a regular basis. And what is a francesinha? It’s a Portuguese sandwich that includes a lot of ingredients, with the traditional version offered here having the following: steak, bacon, ham, a hot dog, American cheese, and a fried egg, all somehow stuffed into two pieces of bread and covered in a brightly colored tomato-based sauce made with beer and other ingredients. Other versions of the francesinha can be ordered here as well, including ones with salted cod, ground beef, chicken, and salmon, and all versions can be ordered as a full sandwich (if you want to take a 12-hour nap after eating it) or a half sandwich (if you’re only up for a 6-hour nap). Tasty on the Hill is not a one-trick pony, by the way; the eatery has a number of other options, including waffles, pancakes, French toast, egg dishes, oatmeal, and more for breakfast, and all kinds of wraps, subs, and clubs as well as salads, burgers, pasta dishes, flatbread pizza, and grill items for lunch and a very early dinner (as of this writing, the restaurant only stays open until 4 pm each day). A few highlights in addition to the aforementioned francesinha include the steak and eggs with ham—which is almost as sleep-inducing as the sandwich—and reuben panini with plenty of corned beef. Alcohol is not served at Tasty on the Hill, but smoothies, coffee, tea, and a particularly good hot chocolate are offered.

If you like unique food items and you’re a big fan of sandwiches, Tasty on the Hill is a must, though be forewarned—this is not a sandwich that you pick up with your hands, unless your main goal is to gross out an entire restaurant. But the francesinha here is something special, and even if you decide not to opt for it, there are some other tasty Portuguese-influenced eats at this friendly little spot in the shadows of Tufts University.

1 canal St. Boston Ma 02114 | (617) 933-8047

w w w . c i t y w i n e r y. c o m / b o s t o n

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>> TASTY ON THE HILL. 321 BOSTON AVE., MEDFORD. TASTYCAFEBOSTON.COM

PHOTO BY OLIVIA FALCIGNO

LOUDON WAINWRIGHT III

NEWS TO US

FEATURE

DEPT. OF COMMERCE

ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT

15

A NIGHTMARE ON CHURCH STREET MUSIC

The top 10 concerts you won’t want to ghost this Halloween

BY NINA CORCORAN @NINA_CORCORAN

WHO: Glitterki and CupcakKe WHERE: Middle East Downstairs SPOOK-O-METER: A rental vagina costume.

Hypersexualized comedic verses put CupcakKe on a platform in 2015, and she doesn’t plan on coming down anytime soon. Expect utter chaos in the basement of the venue when her songs get played at full volume, or show up early for a meet and greet at 8 pm.

TERA MELOS

Just because Halloween falls on a Tuesday this year doesn’t mean there’s nowhere to party. It’s easier to soak up the scares when it’s filtered through songs, so we went out to the graveyard and dug up the best concerts to rattle and rock at. From goth music to cover sets, here are the top 10 Halloween shows worth creeping out of your coffin for.

WHO: Tera Melos, Speedy Ortiz, and And The Kids WHERE: The Sinclair SPOOK-O-METER: A box of Suspiria-grade aesthetics.

Melodic math rock trio Tera Melos return to Cambridge with a lifesize, stuffed hot-dog man in tow. Before they blow your mind, original aesthetic queens Speedy Ortiz will bring poppy rock to life with a hint of grunge after And The Kids get your heart rate up.

WHO: Boris, Endon, Mutoid Man WHERE: Brighton Music Hall SPOOK-O-METER: A dungeon with dimly lit torches.

Japan’s loudest experimental doom metal band returns to the US to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Dear. The trio will mix experimentation with distortion, noise, and feedback, with just the right amount of ambient drone mixed in to keep you cozy in the darkness.

WHO: Van Railin, Fuzagi, Prince, and Weezer WHERE: O’Brien’s Pub SPOOK-O-METER: One latenight monster mash. The 21+ cover set will see members of Aneurysm play Roth-era Van Halen, Ghost of Sailors at Sea 4th covering Fuzagi, Bedtimemagic playing all of Prince’s Purple Rain, and members of Depressors, Kitner, and Now Denial moonlighting as Weezer. Plus there’s free candy for those in costumes.

WHO: Warning, and Morne WHERE: ONCE Somerville SPOOK-O-METER: A SPEEDY ORTIZ graveyard during witching hour.

UK doom metal band Warning will rise from the dead after playing their final show in 2009.

Post-traditional doom metal is back, and it will rattle your bones and comfort the buried during a lengthy, highly anticipated set. Don’t be surprised if their feedback haunts you the rest of the night.

WHO: Lily Black, Exit Academy, BadGüd, and more WHERE: Middle East Upstairs SPOOK-O-METER: A fun-size Snickers bar. While they may not have a creepy vibe, Lily Black and the rest of their friends have prepped themselves to throw a proper Halloween party. The pop punk locals channel early aughts acts like Paramore while donning punk prom getup. Expect similar antics from the friends that join them beforehand.

BORIS

WHO: Grateful Dead, Neil Young & Crazy Horse, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, and Lesley Gore WHERE: Deep Thoughts JP SPOOK-O-METER: The attic of a four-story haunted house. This free show sees some of Boston’s best covering the radio classics: Deep Thoughts JP’s house band as Grateful Dead; members of Quilt, the Yawns, and Soft Eyes covering Neil Young and Crazy Horse; Steep Leans as Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers; and members of Birthing Hips and Blau Blau doing Lesley Gore. It’s a packed house. Plus the costume contest winner gets a $20 gift certificate to the record store.

WHO: Helms Alee, Courage Cloak, and Lesser Glow WHERE: Great Scott SPOOK-O-METER: A dozen tiny goosebumps.

Helms Alee may have beautiful harmonies, but the combination of thick guitars and the occasional guttural yell makes for a shadowy type of heavy rock. When crammed inside the Allston venue, it will all boil over into a witch’s brew you’ll actually want to sip on.

WHO: Cypress Hill WHERE: House of Blues SPOOK-O-METER: A skull and a pile of bones. The Latino rap group return to rep Latin, hip-hop slang, and stoned beats like they did long ago. What scares you won’t be their unstoppable vigor, but that their music is as hard-hitting in 2017 as it was back in the ’90s.

WHO: A Plus, Aceyalone, Equiptom, Z-man, and True Justice WHERE: Sonia SPOOK-O-METER: The biggest weed lollipop you’ve ever seen. Come for the rap, stay for the antics when ’90s hiphop returns with the Souls of Mischief founding member and his crew of pals. The California Harvest Tour has the right amount of pumpkin spice and freshly cut pot to put you in a daze all night long.

MUSIC EVENTS THU 10.26

FRI 10.27

SAT 10.28

[Middle East Upstairs, 472 Mass. Ave., Cambridge.

7pm/all ages/$12. mideastoffers.com]

[Brighton Music Hall, 158 Brighton Ave., Allston.

7pm/all ages/$16. crossroadspresents.com]

[Somerville Theatre, 55 Davis Sq., Somerville.

7pm/all ages/$25. somervilletheatre.com]

WHISPERED WORDS OF LO-FI FLORIST + HORSE JUMPER OF LOVE + PEOPLE LIKE YOU

16

10.26.17 - 11.02.17 |

NIGHTMARE BEFORE SKA-LLOWEEN BIG D AND THE KIDS TABLE + SPRING HEELED JACK + MORE

DIGBOSTON.COM

HOLDING BACK TEARS WITH A SPRAINED ANKLE JULIEN BAKER + HALF WAIF + PETAL

SUN 10.29

MON 10.30

WED 11.01

[Middle East Upstairs, 472 Mass. Ave., Cambridge.

7pm/all ages/$13. mideastoffers.com]

[The Sinclair, 52 Church St., Cambridge. 7pm/18+/$28. sinclaircambridge.com]

[Middle East Downstairs, 472 Mass. Ave., Cambridge. 7pm/18+/$16. mideastoffers.com]

THE BAGEL BITES OF POPPY ROCK MICROWAVE + BIG JESUS + BLIS

ITALIAN MASTERS OF THE HORROR MOVIE OST GOBLIN + MORRICONE YOUTH

HAVE A POST-HALLOWEEN CRY THE HOTELIER + OSO OSO + ALEX NAPPING + PUSHFLOWERS

MUSIC

SERPENTWITHFEET

The experimental gospel artist talks horror tropes and must-haves in heaven

BY NINA CORCORAN @NINA_CORCORAN There are more eye-catching parts to serpentwithfeet’s music than there are tattoos on his face. At 29 years old, the musician—who, if you’re wondering, has a pentagram, “suicide,” and “heaven” inked near his skull—has finally found the right outlet through which to express himself, and he’s using every instrument imaginable to get the points across.

While serpentwithfeet started out in neo-soul-tainted groups, trying to wed the styles of Gnarls Barkley and John Legend with his own, he realized several years ago that it was time to move on. He didn’t plan on changing. It just hit him. His body wanted to move differently. “I don’t know how else to explain it,” he says over the phone. “I wanted to traverse the world differently and inherit my body in a new way.”

That meant trying his hand in writing orchestral parts, string movements, and woodwind decrescendos. He took his time, and over two years, he eventually funneled those songs into his debut EP under the moniker blisters. While it pushed him sonically, having to decide between things like live strings versus electronic strings, the slow process granted serpentwithfeet the time to rehearse the songs to perfection. In fact, they still feel fresh to him.

“It’s because I was trying to think clearly about my relationship with men, with power dynamics, and with traditions,” he says.

“When I [worked] with [the] Haxan Cloak, we had a long talk offhand about what we wanted it to sound like and feel like. The first thing I said was that I wanted to feel nice. That sounds strange, yeah. But so often, men, specifically black men, are encouraged to be loud and big. When do we get the chance to be small and focus on the minutia? To be petty? I think it’s important to be superfluous too and to do things with abandon. I don’t know if black men give themselves that permission. If you saw a worm run across your toe, you can complain about it! You don’t have to play it off!”

To dig deeper into the EP’s themes before serpentwithfeet unveils them when opening for Grizzly Bear at House of Blues, we interviewed him for a round of Wheel of Tunes, a series where we ask bands questions inspired by their song titles. Of course, he was just as imaginative as the music he sews.

1. “blisters” What’s the farthest distance you’ve walked?

I take long walks often, to be honest. I love walking. One trip I take every few weeks is that I’ll walk—I don’t know how familiar you are with New York, but—from the Bronx to Brooklyn. There’s several parks up there I love. So I’ll walk up there, on through Manhattan, take a little break to grab a snack, and then walk all the way down and to my home in Brooklyn. I’ve done it! And it’s amazing. I love it. I love walking. There was one time where I did it at night, though, and I walked along the bridge. It got cut off because of construction and I had to hop in traffic. That route isn’t for me.

2. “flickering” Can you name two horror tropes that always scare you?

There’s a film I always forget the name of—I don’t know if it’s The Others or The Strangers or The Neighbors, something about being next door —where they hear a knock on the door and the people want something. That movie terrifies me, and what terrifies me is the sound. Still to this day, when I hear it on big speakers? You hear that crunch of the grass. That is scary. I don’t think a lot of horror movies scare me, but that one does, and it’s because of the sound design.

Another trope that I love is in those mainstream horror films. Whenever they want to scare you, they use some seemingly innocuous child to sing a lullaby. I. Love. That. It’s so beautiful! I hope in my career that I can do lullabies like that. It’s the most amazing thing. Maybe not scary, but it’s profound, and that’s a trope I hope never dissolves soon.

I don’t know what it is about children that scares us—maybe that’s some American or Western psychology that we should honestly really interrogate—but it really is beautiful.

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Check out the full tracklist at digboston.com >> GRIZZLY BEAR, SERPENTWITHFEET. WED 11.1. HOUSE OF BLUES, 15 LANSDOWNE ST., BOSTON. 7PM/ALL AGES/$37. HOUSEOFBLUES.COM

NEWS TO US

FEATURE

DEPT. OF COMMERCE

ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT

17

MOVIE JOURNAL: OCTOBER 2017 FILM

Notes on Brawl in Cell Block 99, Lucio Fulci, and a midnight movie marathon

BY JAKE MULLIGAN @_JAKEMULLIGAN

S. Craig Zahler has written and directed two movies to date, and you’d struggle to find a review of either one that does not mention the graphic violence therein. This critical fixation is not entirely unjustified. His films Bone Tomahawk [2015] and Brawl in Cell Block 99 [2017] do not quite belong to the horror genre, but they are nonetheless the most bothersome and disturbing pictures I’ve seen this month. In Bone Tomahawk, a western, the violence most often comes in the form of a hasty medical procedure: a protruding bone that needs to be reset with blunt tools, or a gushing wound that needs to be tied off in haste.

And during Brawl in Cell Block 99—a film which begins with a man being unceremoniously laid off from a deadend workplace then ends in a more literal prison—the violence usually involves the instruments of human labor: Arm bones are snapped near the elbow, and skulls are crushed by a boot. “If there is violence, I don’t want it to be ‘somebody is shot in the head and falls,’ or ‘somebody is stabbed in the chest and tips over on a table,” Zahler explained during an interview recorded in 2015. “I want it to be [violence] that is distinct to the pieces I am doing.”

To borrow one of Zahler’s words, Brawl in Cell Block 99 is separated into a number of distinct segments. In the first, Bradley Thomas (Vince Vaughn) is let go from his job at a scrapyard, then returns home to discover his wife Lauren (Jennifer Carpenter) has been cheating on him. In the next segment, Bradley has returned to his former profession as a drug runner, repaired his marriage with the nowpregnant Lauren, and is living in a far nicer home, all of which is rendered moot by an inevitable Deal Gone Bad, which results in him being sentenced to seven years in a minimum-security prison. The prison is the site of the third segment, where Bradley is extensively oriented to life as an inmate and then visited by the Placid Man (Udo Kier)— who informs Bradley that Lauren has been kidnapped and that to ensure her survival, he must get himself transferred into a nearby maximum-security prison, so that he can

then assassinate a target inside (to motivate Bradley, the Placid Man utters the most vile threat that I’ve ever heard in a movie, claiming a title long held by Brotherhood of Death [1976]). That maximum-security facility, overseen by a Warden Tuggs (Don Johnson), is the location of the final segment, where the promise of the title is fulfilled.

Vaughn’s Bradley is a man both lumbering and loquacious. When he fights, Zahler lets it play out in spacious, full-bodied frames, and Vaughn’s movements have a heavyset momentum to them. His tree-trunk limbs offer a unique sight: He fights like a heavyweight, so far removed from a modern action-cinema that’s drowning in ultraswift combat. As for the loquaciousness: When Bradley’s not literally fighting, he’s trying to defuse his own rage with pithy rejoinders. What’s special is the way these two qualities (the weight and the wit) are unified in the performance. Vaughn plays Bradley as though he were caught between two personalities—on one side, the dickishly eloquent nature of a private investigator from a paperback novel (“I’m reading pulps from the ’20s and ’30s in my spare time,” Zahler once noted), and on the other side, Frankenstein’s monster (I read two separate reviews that compared Vaughn’s performance to those of Boris Karloff—the Somerville Theatre will play Frankenstein [1931] and Bride of Frankenstein [1935] this Friday night, details below). You can truly see him trying to calm himself down after just about every line of dialogue that’s spoken in his direction.

Brawl in Cell Block 99 is a deliberately garish film, but one that’s careful and patient with how and when it exhibits that garishness. Zahler is credited as its writer, director, and as the composer of its soundtrack; his prior credits included eight published novels, more than 20 unproduced screenplays, some work done as a cinematographer, numerous music projects (mostly metal), and of course Bone Tomahawk, which stars Kurt Russell, Richard Jenkins, Matthew Fox, and Patrick Wilson as hobbled frontiersman on a suicide mission to rescue a number of captives from a tribe of cannibalistic “troglodytes.” “We’re in hell,” Jenkins utters once that film reaches its conclusion—the cave in which those captives are held—and that sentiment is one that I expect will recur throughout Zahler’s growing filmography. His color palette

degrades over the course of Brawl’s running time, starting with domestic spaces bathed in blue and green, then moving through the faded gray of the first prison, before finally progressing toward the dingy red and black of the maximum-security facility, which is hardly subtle about its hellishness.

The director’s creative sense for violent scenarios has clearly been shaped by a long tradition of movies that got by on the same kind of creativity. Zahler’s wide range of cited film influences include Dario Argento and Lucio Fulci, the August Underground [2001] video series, and innumerable other sick-mind touchstones. And while considering a superficial description of his work—medium shots that emphasize the full-body performances of actors, a contemporary treatment of classical pulp genres, patient aesthetic rhythms which lead up to depraved moments of violence, releasing a western starring Kurt Russell in 2015—there is a comparison which can’t be avoided: Quentin Tarantino. In interviews, Zahler has respectfully downplayed the comparison, but The Hateful Eight [2015] shares affinity with Bone and Brawl: All three are nonhorror genre pieces which patiently creep toward the horror genre, mostly via the use of decaying palettes and grotesque imagery, before finally concluding with absurdly blood-soaked apocalypses. So much like Tarantino in his post-Jackie Brown [1997] years, Zahler has repurposed the techniques of exploitation cinema to give visceral weight to narrative treatments that are probably more literary— or at least, more patient—than the actual exploitation market would’ve ever allowed for.

But while viewing Zahler’s movies, it was a true exploitation filmmaker that I was reminded of most: the aforementioned Lucio Fulci. This is perhaps because the Coolidge Corner Theatre will play a Fulci film this weekend—Zombie [1979] (aka. Zombi 2)—during its annual 12-hour Halloween Horror Marathon (that marathon will begin with Night of the Living Dead [1968], a film that Zahler once cited as being “my favorite horror movie”).

And the Coolidge has played three other Fulci movies this month as well: The House by the Cemetery [1981], City of the Living Dead [1980], and The Beyond [1980]. Each of these Fulci movies, like Zahler’s, is made distinct by the specificity of the violent acts contained within—where Bone and Brawl focus on arms, legs, jaws, and skulls, Fulci was utterly fixated on scenes which documented the destruction of his character’s eyes. And the later three Fulci movies share another quality with the two films by Zahler: Like Bone and Brawl, their narratives descend into settings that are decidedly more unreal than what preceded them, leading finally to the violent breakdown of whatever reality they seemed to have already established. House, City, and Beyond have come to be known as the “Gates of Hell trilogy.” With Bone Tomahawk and Brawl in Cell Block 99, S. Craig Zahler appears to be two-thirds of the way through his own.

>> BRAWL IN CELL BLOCK 99 & BONE TOMAHAWK ARE BOTH CURRENTLY AVAILABLE TO STREAM ON VOD OUTLETS. >> FRANKENSTEIN AND BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN. PLAY AT THE SOMERVILLE THEATRE ON FRI 10.27, 7:30PM. 35MM. $10. >> THE COOLIDGE CORNER THEATRE HALLOWEEN HORROR MARATHON 2017. FEATURING NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, ZOMBIE AND FIVE OTHER FILMS, BEGINS ON SAT 10.28, 11:59PM. 35MM. $25-30.

FILM EVENTS FRI 10.27

‘STRANGE INSPIRATIONS’ BEGINS AT THE BRATTLE ALIEN [1989] AND THE THING [1982]

[Brattle Theatre, 40 Brattle St., Harvard Sq., Cambridge.

Alien at 7pm, The Thing at 4:30 and 9pm/R/$11-13.

35mm. brattlefilm.org]

18

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FRI 10.27

A WILLIAM WELLMAN RETROSPECTIVE BEGINS AT THE HFA BEGGARS OF LIFE [1928]

[Harvard Film Archive, 24 Quincy St., Harvard Sq., Cambridge. 7pm/NR/$7-9.

16mm. hcl.harvard.edu/ hfa]

DIGBOSTON.COM

SAT 10.28

TIM BURTON’S FRANKENWEENIE [2012] [Harvard Film Archive, 24 Quincy St., Harvard Sq., Cambridge. 3pm/PG/$5.

35mm. hcl.harvard.edu/ hfa]

SAT 10.28

ANDRE DE TOTH’S MONKEY ON MY BACK [1957]

[Harvard Film Archive, 24 Quincy St., Harvard Sq., Cambridge. 9pm/NR/$7-9.

35mm. hcl.harvard.edu/ hfa]

MON 10.30

‘KING OF HALLOWEEN’ DOUBLE FEATURE AT THE COOLIDGE CARRIE [1976] AND CHRISTINE [1983]

[Coolidge Corner Theatre, 290 Harvard St., Brookline.

7pm/R/$12.25. 35mm. coolidge.org]

TUE 10.31

ACTOR DENISE CROSBY IN PERSON PET SEMATARY [1989]

[Coolidge Corner Theatre, 290 Harvard St., Brookline.

7pm/R/$12.25. 35mm.

Crosby will participate in a post-film Q&A, to be moderated by John Campopiano. coolidge.org]

VISUAL ART

GALLERY REVIEWS Three current shows to check out

BY DAVID CURCIO AND FRANKLIN EINSPRUCH

Regent Theatre

Dana Schutz: Dana Schutz—Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston Dana Schutz has not yet painted a canvas that didn’t make me wish that I was looking at a Judith Linhares instead. That said, I’m glad I could see any Schutzes at the ICA, which wouldn’t have happened if it were up to some local busybodies bent on punishing her for her abortive Emmett Till painting (which is not on display) until the end of time.

These are genuinely ambitious attempts to create big historical dramas two centuries after The Raft of the Medusa through surrealist allegory. Almost every picture has at least one passage of real flair: the crimson and viridian flesh tones in Big Wave, the oddly Hittite look of the figures in Car Pool (2016).

But taken as a whole they are cacophonies. Not even Picasso could pull off multifigure, life-size, high-chroma cubist paintings, and Schutz can’t do it either. The ensuing freakishness looks affected and her ventures into vorticism, such as Shaking Out the Bed (2015), are a mess. Call it, if you will, a Schutzshow.

Show runs until 11.26. Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston, 25 Harbor Shore Drive, Boston. icaboston.org —Franklin Einspruch Steve McQueen: Ashes—Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston In 2002, Steve McQueen met a charismatic fisherman named Ashes in Grenada.

When the British artist returned to the island eight years later, Ashes was dead, gunned down by a drug kingpin after the fisherman discovered a cache of narcotics on the beach.

Ashes’ tale is the subject of a two-sided video installation at the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston. On one side, the protagonist sits on a fishing boat as it rocks up and down on azurite waves. Like a marine sprite, Ashes prances on the prow of the vessel, impervious to salty sea spray. On the other side, two concrete-slingers build a whitewashed sepulcher for the dead protagonist while a narrator recounts Ashes’ bloody end.

This is a meditation on the destruction of the body and the construction of memory. Ashes is a comment on mortality—“ashes to ashes, dust to dust”—and the vagaries of time. Here, youth and annihilation, life and death, are presented at the same moment.

Show runs until 2.25.18. Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston, 25 Harbor Shore Drive, Boston. icaboston.org —Christopher Snow Hopkins

s ie v o M e h t o t s e o G ic t The Technoskep

©Universal Pictures

DANA SCHUTZ, CARPOOL, 2016, OIL ON CANVAS, 66 X 108 INCHES, COLLECTION OF CAROLE SERVER AND OLIVER FRANKEL, COURTESY OF THE ARTIST AND PETZEL, NEW YORK, © DANA SCHUTZ

Tickets online @ regenttheatre.com

Info & Showtimes (781) 646-4849

7 Medford St Arlington, MA 02474

a in h c M a x E : P 0 M 3 7: , 9 th Thu. November 40 Brattle St., Harvard Square

TheTechnoskeptic.com

Screening and discussion

with writer, public speaker, and tech critic Sara Watson; Harvard Associate Professor and computational neuroscientist David Cox; and The Technoskeptic ’s Mo Lotman.

The Philosophy Chamber: Art and Science in Harvard’s Teaching Cabinet, 17661820—Harvard Art Museums In the early days of the republic, the Philosophy Chamber at Harvard College housed an assortment of natural specimens, scientific instruments, and various objects of curiosity and delectation. This was a place to apprehend the logic of the universe and to ruminate on divine influence in the natural world.

It was also a laboratory for national identity, where scholars invoked classical literature to legitimate a rupture with the House of Hanover. At times, this was a violent affair, as when miscreants vandalized a painting by John Singleton Copley of royal governor Francis Bernard.

The surprise of this exhibition is that it proposes a critical assessment of the social and political character of Harvard College at the time. One object, Stephen Sewall’s Copy of Inscription on Dighton Rock (1768), lays bare the Western bias of the period imagination. While Enlightenment scholars took the markings to be Levantine in origin, they are now believed to be Wampanoag petroglyphs.

Show runs until 12.31. Harvard Art Museums, 32 Quincy St., Cambridge. harvardartmuseums.org —Christopher Snow Hopkins These shorts are being simultaneously published at Delicious Line, deliciousline.org.

Franklin Einspruch is the editor in chief of Delicious Line. Christopher Snow Hopkins is an independent writer and critic living in Boston.

NEWS TO US

FEATURE

DEPT. OF COMMERCE

ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT

19

A LOVELY SOUVENIR ARTS

Souvenir returns to the Lyric a decade later

BY CHRISTOPHER EHLERS @_CHRISEHLERS

After 20 years as producing artistic director of the Lyric Stage Company of Boston, there’s plenty of material that Spiro Veloudos could have chosen for the production that would commemorate his milestone. For Boston’s resident Stephen Sondheim expert, I’d have put my money on any one of the many Sondheim masterworks that have come to define both the Lyric and Veloudos’ tenure.

He chose, instead, to revive a small play about a woman with an—er—big voice that was popular with Lyric audiences and a personal favorite for Veloudos.

Stephen Temperley’s Souvenir: A Fantasia on the Life of Florence Foster Jenkins is a sort of imagined look at oddity and cult figure Jenkins and her relationship with longtime accompanist Cosmé McMoon. Recreating (or refining) their performances are Leigh Barrett and Will McGarrahan, two beloved stalwarts of the Boston stage.

Florence Foster Jenkins has proved to be one of the unlikeliest and most enduring cultural oddities of the 20th century. A music lover her entire life, Jenkins’ father refused to bankroll her vocal studies, insisting instead that she focus on what she was already good at: playing the piano. But when her father died in 1909 and Jenkins came into control of a trust that her father set up for her, she poured all of her time and money into becoming a singer.

The thing is, Jenkins had absolutely zero talent for singing.

(One critic called her the “anti-Callas.”)

She met McMoon in 1932 and began to perform regularly at private concerts around New York City and annually at the Ritz-Carlton. She was an eccentric socialite that immersed herself in the wealthy New York society, and over the next decade amassed a certain kind of fame and a bevy of devoted fans, one of whom was Cole Porter, who reportedly never missed a concert.

There were plenty of detractors, hecklers, and bad press surrounding Jenkins’ performances, but those close to her did their best to protect her from all of that. Whether or not she knew she couldn’t sing is something that is still debated today, but she once said: “People may say I can’t sing, but no one can ever say I didn’t sing.”

Jenkins’ odd place in pop culture was cemented in 1944 when she famously rented out Carnegie Hall for the biggest performance of her life. Tickets sold out in two hours.

The New York Post called it a weird mass joke, and another critic wrote that “Jenkins was exquisitely bad, so bad that it added up to quite a good evening of theater.”

Of course, Jenkins didn’t do it for the critics. Five days after Carnegie Hall, Jenkins suffered a heart attack; the following month, she died.

She lived on, though, through anecdotes of her friends and supporters and through recordings she made that are still available today. Just last year, Meryl Streep was Oscar-nominated for playing Jenkins on screen. Say what you will about her “singing,” but Lady Florence has demonstrated remarkable staying power.

But Souvenir, which Veloudos first directed at the Lyric a decade ago in 2007, is less a look into the life and times of Jenkins and instead focuses on her fascinating relationship with McMoon. Set 20 years after her death, McMoon looks back and tries to figure out just why he stuck with her for so long and why, after so many years, he is unable to totally shake her off. “People used to say to me, ‘Why does she do it?’” asks McMoon in the play. “I always thought the better question was, ‘Why did I?’” The question I had, though, was, why Souvenir? Why again and why now?

“I wanted to do something for my 20th anniversary season that was really special to me,” said Veloudos.

“There were a number of shows that I could have chosen, but I chose Souvenir for two reasons: One, I find the story fascinating; the other reason is that I get to work with two of my favorite actors. And it’s grown up a little bit. We’re all 10 years older, and we’re all 10 years more experienced.

Even the set has grown up from what it was 10 years ago.”

Oddly enough, Souvenir is also the most requested show by Lyric audience members. But so special was the experience the first time around that Veloudos only wanted to do the show again if Barrett (who won

>>SOUVENIR. THROUGH 11.19 AT THE LYRIC STAGE COMPANY OF BOSTON, 140 CLARENDON ST., BOSTON. LYRICSTAGE.COM

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an Elliot Norton Award for her performance) and McGarrahan were on board. If not, he says, he’d have chosen something else.

“I like it because it’s so compact and intimate, and we can work on the acting as opposed to a big musical where it’s all about everything else,” said Veloudos.

“But this? I’ve got the best of all worlds. I’ve got Leigh Barrett singing badly, which I think is a really wonderful thing, and I’ve got Will McGarrahan playing piano like a virtuoso.”

But this Souvenir is no mere lazy remount. While much of the staging will be similar, there are aspects of the play that resonate differently a decade later for all involved. And for Veloudos, he looks forward to peeling back the layers of these complex people in a way that he simply ran out of time to do the last time around.

“It’s a live medium,” said Barrett, “and like we keep saying, you’re just naturally going to find new things. I will say that it’s still basically the same lovely piece that people enjoyed 10 years ago and people want to come back and experience that again. They’re going to get the same thing, only deeper.”

For Barrett, who is fresh off an incredible run in the Lyric’s production of Gypsy, it is the vulnerability of artists that is resonating with her differently this time.

And for McGarrahan, this production does a better job of answering some of his character’s questions.

“He’s telling the story at the club on the anniversary of her death,” said McGarrahan. “The main question is: Why do I still care about this crazy lady? She was a horrible singer, she can’t be of any consequence. She’s a joke, right? Everyone laughs, so why is it important? And why is it important to me? There’s lots of reasons that he does what he does, the first one being he needs a job, but it keeps changing as the play goes on. Why do you still care about things 30 years later?”

The challenge with Souvenir is that while there are campy and cartoonish moments, the tenderness of these real people must float to the top. Otherwise, it’s not much of a play.

“That can get very long and boring,” said Barrett. “To me, the play has always been, yes, she sings and doesn’t sing well, but it’s about this relationship. I think it’s an interesting journey for the audience to take, to start out at that laughing, pointing place and get to the next place, which is about seeing the artist as a human being.”

“It has the tendency to be stereotyped,” added Veloudos. “It’s easy to make Florence Foster Jenkins a cartoon. Easy. We saw Meryl Streep do it. But the thing is, it’s difficult to find the reality of this person, the kind of fears that she has, the confidence that she has. It would be easy to make Cosmé a character of a gay piano player that’s in love with some eccentric woman, but that’s not the story that I wanted to tell, and I know that’s not the story that Leigh or Will wanted to tell. But it would be easy to do that, and I think lesser actors would have jumped at that chance. I’m glad I don’t have lesser actors.”

COMEDY

WHY SCREAM WHEN YOU CAN LAUGH? Halloween humor, from the sexiest to the messiest

BY DENNIS MALER @DEADAIRDENNIS Comedy and horror have been two sides of the same coin since the beginning of history. Everyone enjoys a good laugh, and we can largely agree that being laughed at is a terrifying nightmare.

Meanwhile, blending the two genres together harmoniously seems to work for everyone involved. From Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein to Tucker & Dale vs. Evil, the movies have always been filled with blood-curdling screams one minute and uproarious laughter the next. As have theaters, like the many around here hosting Halloween-themed shows over the next week.

First up is the old standby, your trusty GoreFest XV: Horror House—The House Always Wins at ImprovBoston in Central Square. This year, for the 15th installment of GoreFest, live studio audiences will witness a terrifying season of the faux TV reality game show, The House Always Wins!

“The reality show is a combination of all the tropes from an assortment of reality shows,” says director Nate Lopez. “On its base level, it’s a competition show where all of the contestants live in the same house. As the contestants are eliminated, they are sent to the cellar of the house, where they are digested by the house itself for a thousand years.”

By “digested,” Lopez means that their remains will be regurgitated all over the audience. It’s Evil Dead 2 meets Big Brother. It’s like if watermelon-smashing comedian Gallagher was the lead singer of Gwar. What I’m saying is, bring a poncho… and a strong stomach. Preferably your own. A warning from producer Josh Garneau: “Audience members will be splattered in fake blood, guts, and gore. Dress for the season … While most of our corn-syrup based (and gluten-free!) fluids will come out in the wash, we can’t be held responsible for clothing that doesn’t survive. Don’t wear your grandma’s mink coat. Unless you hate your grandma’s mink coat.”

Not to be outdone by its own show, ImprovBoston is also featuring the Halloweenthemed stand-up comedy show Laughing in the Dark. Check out two nights of Boston’s funniest wrestling with the skeletons in their closets for your amusement. On Thursday, Oct 25, the 10 pm show stars Nonye Brown-West, Ryan Chani, Joe Kozlowsky, Tyler Morrow, Paul Landwehr, Jiayong Li, Rich Dembowski, Dylan Krasinski, and Chris Player.

On All Hallows’ Eve the 8 pm show features Casey Crawford, Laura Burns, RA Bartlett, Sam Ike, Alex Giampapa, Val Kappa, Molly Dugan, Tooky Kavanagh, David Thomas, and Johnny Burns.

For a Halloween show not at ImprovBoston, check out GrownUp StoryTime - Ghostly GhUST. It’s an hour of funny, heartwarming, crazy, and amazing stories read aloud.

Created by the original BooTown in Houston and now in Boston, a few of the haunted tales for this month’s ghostly grandstand of fables and orators—handpicked by Colleen Moore and Kelly Smith—include Caberyuyu Diaries by Annalise Cain as read by Alison Turner, Bump in the Night by Austin Lourenco as read by Eric McGowan, and Why I Hate Halloween by Emily Hynds as read by Jackie Arko.

Not all the stories at GUST are funny, but have enough pints of Aeronaut’s homemade brews and I’m sure you’ll bust a stitch or two by night’s end. Grab a comfy spot before the readings start on Thursday, Oct 26, at Aeronaut Brewery in Somerville.

And there are more reasons to abstain from trick-or-treating for candy in favor of a beer and humor. In addition to laughs, the hosts of Brew Haha in the Taproom at Aeronaut brewery, PJ Westin and Vanessa Meyer, will be giving out loads of candy to audience members. Featuring both fun-sized and full-on snickers from Zach Brazaõ (Boston Comedy Festival Finalist), Brianna Classen, Chloe Cunha, James Huessy, Mariel Cabral, and others.

Also, instead of walking the crowded streets of Boston with the ghouls on Halloween, you can have a seat and a laugh in the basement (the scariest room of any building) of McGreevy’s in Back Bay. At 8 pm, Brian Higginbottom hosts a free showcase of comedians, from local favorites to some of the biggest and best in the country. Seriously, Louis CK and Roastmaster Jeff Ross have stopped by to do sets, so there’s no telling who might show up. If someone does go on stage with a mask, expect a surprise.

Finally, why put on a costume when you can watch other people remove theirs?

Random Variety gets spooky with its annual Halloween show at the Midway Cafe in JP. This pagan pageantry of comedy, burlesque, and music features dancers Elsa Riot and Switchblade Sadie, music from Frank Fox, ridiculous musical comedy from Mickey PG, art

by Propsero, and a set by ringleader Roxy Shake. Get random.

“It’s Evil Dead 2 meets Big Brother.”

LIVE MUSIC • LOCAVORE MENU PRIVATE EVENTS 2017 “Intimate Live Music Venue of the Year” Nominee Vote for us at:

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CENTRAL SQUARE CAMBRIDGE

10/26

Boy Harsher, DJ Devil’s Advocate Gritty dance music 10/27

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Spacey Presents

Record Release Party

(617)864-EAST

With Air Traffic Controller, Starman, Suncruiser & more 10/28

The Young Americans, Bikini Whale, The Ad Seeds

THU 10/26 - 7PM BLACK KIDS, SURF ROCK IS DEAD FRI 10/27 - 8PM SONEX DJ CO SAT 10/28 - 8PM

Play David Bowie, B52’s & Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds 10/29

Boston Stands with ACLU

Guitarmy (2 - 7pm) With Club D’Uke, Matthew Stubbs & the Antiguas, Guitarzan & more 10/29

Ego Likeness, The Rain Within, Adoration Destroyed

SAUCE BOSTON FT.

Darkwave industrial

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THU 10/26 - 7PM FLORIST, HORSE JUMPER OF LOVE FRI 10/27 - 8PM BLINDSPOT, FIRE IN THE FIELD, NO HUGS SAT 10/28 - 11PM GHOULELUJAH! HALLOWEEN SOULELUJAH!

SUN 10/29 - 7PM MICROWAVE, BIG JESUS, BLIS MON 10/30 - 8PM IZOTOPE PRESENTS:

DAN & THE WILDFIRE TUE 10/31 - 7PM LILY BLACK, EXIT ACADEMY, BADGÜD, & MORE WED 11/1 - 7PM HUMMING HOUSE, BECCA MANCARI, GRIFFIN ROBILLARD /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

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SAVAGE LOVE

HANES HIS WAY

BY DAN SAVAGE @FAKEDANSAVAGE | MAIL@SAVAGELOVE.NET

My boyfriend of four months is great, we’re in love, and the sex is amazing. Now for the but: A strange man takes my boyfriend out once or twice a year for a fancy lunch and gives him a lot of expensive new underwear. At these lunch “dates,” my boyfriend returns the underwear the man gave him last time, now used and worn. It seems obvious to me that Underpants Pervert, as I’ve dubbed him, is masturbating with these old pairs of underwear. This has been going on for SEVEN YEARS, and it makes me so uncomfortable that I asked my boyfriend to stop.

He agreed, but he went back on the agreement the next time Underpants Pervert snapped his fingers.

You’ll probably take Underpants Pervert’s side—since you’re pro-kink and an older gay man yourself—and tell me to get over it. But what if I can’t?

Having Issues Stopping Boyfriend’s Underpants Man P.S. My boyfriend is 28 and straight. I’m a 25-yearold cis bi woman.

Get over it.

P.S. And if you can’t get over it? Well, I guess you could issue an ultimatum, HISBUM: “It’s me or Underpants Pervert.” You would essentially be asking your boyfriend to end a successful longterm relationship (seven years)—a relationship of a different sort, yes, but a relationship nonetheless—in favor of a short-term relationship (four months).

You’ve already asked your boyfriend to stop seeing this man, and he chose the perverted fag over the controlling girlfriend. If you can’t get over it and you decide to issue that ultimatum, HISBUM, don’t be surprised if he chooses the pervert over you a second time.

Just wondering why I can’t find any coverage in your many years of letters concerning the effects of pubic lice on sexual health and relationships.

Asking For A Friend No one has ever asked me about pubic lice, AFAF. Some people believe pubic lice have been driven to extinction—at least in the West—by the shavingyour-pubes trend, which is now in its second or third decade and shows no sign of abating. But that theory, which I once believed myself (and could explain why no one asks me about it), has been thoroughly debunked. So I can’t tell you why pubic lice haven’t come up in the column. It’s a mystery.

The one thing I would have added to your advice for MISSCLEO, the mom who caught her son stealing panties: If she can afford it, after the talk about where the bra came from, she should give him an Amazon gift card. Maybe $50 to $100? No matter how close they are, he’s not going to ask his mom to buy panties for him, but she can give him the means and then assiduously ignore boxes that show up with his name on them.

People Are Nice To You Thanks for sharing, PANTY. On the Lovecast, Dan interviews victims’ rights lawyer Carrie Goldberg, our hero: savagelovecast.com

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COMEDY EVENTS THU 10.26

BUBBY’S BASEMENT @ MAMALEH’S DELI

Featuring: Bethany Van Delft, Mark Gallagher, Vally D., Matt Kona, Gabe Stoddard, & Alan Richardson Hosted by Elisha Siegel

1 KENDALL SQ., CAMBRIDGE | 7PM | FREE THU 10.26

STAND UP BREAK IN @ THE RIOT THEATER

Featuring: Danny Vega, Awet Teame, Maeve Press, Adam Abelson, James Lindsay, Erik Anker, Vally D., Nicole Lucca, & Dan Donohue Hosted by Ethan Marsh

146A SOUTH ST., JAMAICA PLAIN | 9PM | $5 FRI 10.27 - SUN 10.29

DREW LYNCH, WORLD GONE CRAZY & MORE @ LAUGH BOSTON

In 2015, Drew Lynch captured the hearts of America with his Golden Buzzer performance on Season 10 of America’s Got Talent. “The person I was before would probably never hangout with who I am today” is the statement that resonated most in capturing audiences across the country, as they fell in love with Drew’s charming wit and genuine vulnerability every week of the competition. “Do something every day that scares you” is a motto Drew lives by.

425 SUMMER ST., BOSTON | 8PM & 10PM | $25-$29 FRI 10.27 - SAT 10.28

LAMONT PRICE @ NICK’S COMEDY STOP

Lamont Price has shared the stage with comedy powerhouses Dane Cook, Pablo Francisco, Patrice O’Neal, Bill Burr, Rich Vos, Donnell “Ashy Larry” Rawlings & more. Price has been invited to the prestigious Aspen Rooftop Comedy Festival and Montreal’s Just For Laughs Festival, as has been named one of Comedy Central’s “Comics to Watch.”

100 WARRENTON ST., BOSTON | 8PM | $20 SAT 10.28

COLIN JOST @ THE WILBUR

Colin Jost returns for his third season as co-anchor of SNL’s “Weekend Update,” alongside fellow cast member Michael Che. Jost has won three Writers Guild Awards, a Peabody Award and has been nominated for multiple Emmy Awards for his writing on SNL. He also wrote and starred in the Paramount/ Netflix film, “Staten Island Summer,” based on his days as a lifeguard growing up in New York.

246 TREMONT ST., BOSTON | 7PM | $33 SAT 10.28

THE COMEDY STUDIO

Featuring: Rick Canavan, Josh Day, Dan Hall, Myq Kaplan, Val Kappa, Jiayong Li, Tim McIntire, & Emma Willman Hosted by Rick Jenkins

1238 MASS AVE., CAMBRIDGE | 8PM | $15 SUN 10.29

THE PEOPLE’S SHOW @ IMPROVBOSTON

Featuring:| Emily Ruskowski, Kristen Logan, Jeff Smith, Danny Vega, Zach Brazaõ, Caleb Kempf, Brendan Gay, & Maeve Press Hosted by Kindra Lansburg

40 PROSPECT ST., CAMBRIDGE | 9PM | $10 SUN 10.29

BREW HAHA IN THE TAPROOM @ AERONAUT BREWERY

Featuring: Zach Brazaõ, Brianna Classen, Chloe Cunha, James Huessy, Mariel Cabral, & more Hosted by PJ Westin

14 TYLER ST., SOMERVILLE | 7PM | FREE TUE 10.31

LAUGHING IN THE DARK: HALLOWEEN STANDUP @ IMPROVBOSTON

Laura Burns, RA Bartlett, Sam Ike, Casey Crawford, Alex Giampapa, Val Kappa, Molly Dugan, Tooky Kavanagh, David Thomas, Johnny Burns 40 PROSPECT ST., CAMBRIDGE | 8PM | $12

WHAT'S FOR BREAKFAST

BY PATT KELLEY PATTKELLEY.COM

HEADLINING THIS WEEK!

Drew Lynch

America’s Got Talent runner-up Friday - Sunday

COMING SOON World Gone Crazy

Song parodies + stand-up comedy

Special Engagement: Fri, Oct 27

Betches Who Brunch Special Engagement: Sat, Oct 28

THE WAY WE WEREN’T

BY PAT FALCO ILLFALCO.COM

Andrew Santino

Showtime’s I’m Dying Up Here, Comedy Central Presents

Nov 3+4

Comics 2 Cure

Feat. Donnell Rawlings from Chappelle’s Show + Guy Code Special Engagement: Fri, Nov 3

OUR VALUED CUSTOMERS

BY TIM CHAMBERLAIN OURVC.NET

Michael Ian Black

VH1’s I Love The... series, Wet Hot American Summer franchise Nov 9-11

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