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THE MEMORY MOVIES OF

TERRENCE MALICK

JOE DONOVAN FEATURE

PAROLED FROM A LIFE SENTENCE AND NEVER LOOKING BACK MUSIC

HORSE JUMPER OF LOVE IS OFF TO THE RACES

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HEADLINING THIS WEEK! Heather McDonald Thurs-Sat

VOL 18 + ISSUE 10

MARCH 10, 2016 - MARCH 17, 2016 EDITORIAL

DEAR READER

EDITOR + PUBLISHER Jeff lawrence

Dear Reader,

NEWS + FEATURES EDITOR Chris Faraone ASSOCIATE MUSIC EDITOR Nina Corcoran ASSOCIATE FILM EDITOR Jake Mulligan ASSOCIATE ARTS EDITOR Christopher Ehlers COPY EDITOR Mitchell Dewar CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Emily Hopkins, Jason Pramas CONTRIBUTORS Nate Boroyan, Renan Fontes, Bill Hayduke, Emily Hopkins, Micaela Kimball, Jason Pramas, Dave Wedge INTERNS Becca DeGregorio, Anna Marketti

DESIGN CREATIVE DIRECTOR Tak Toyoshima COMICS Tim Chamberlain Pat Falco Patt Kelley

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BUSINESS ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER Marc Shepard SENIOR ACCOUNT MANAGER Jesse Weiss ADVISOR Joseph B. Darby III

The story of Joe Donovan is a harrowing tale of justice gone blind and seriously bad. Locked up for life for a murder he didn’t commit, Donovan’s story is one that will make you cheer for the good guys, cry for the bad ones, and get lost in the conviction and eventual parole of a man seemingly forgotten in time and headlines. Chris Faraone has made sure of this, and in this week’s issue, you’ll read all about it.

Speaking of injustice, we also touch on the Boston Public School student walkout this past Monday and speak truth to the challenges young adults face every day in this city when budgets fall short and dreams are hijacked by political greed and malfeasance, never mind the laziness to do what’s right for our next generation. It doesn’t take a judge’s life sentence to sentence a young adult to a life without opportunity.

The notion that we can blindly go through our day, giving little thought to the world around us, is a selfish hole we dig, shovel in our hands and dirt under our fingernails, but all the while refusing to unearth these injustices just below our feet.

Ignorance may be bliss, but the truth still matters, and the stories still need to be told. At the very least, understand them. Learn about them. And maybe one day, history won’t repeat itself, because we’ll finally realize we can’t allow it to.

Chelsea Lately, 1 Hour Showtime Special

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Saturday Night Live, Staten Island Summer

OH, CRUEL WORLD

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DigBoston, 242 East Berkeley St. 5th Floor Boston, MA 02118 Fax 617.849.5990 Phone 617.426.8942 digboston.com

Comedy Central, America’s Got Talent

ON THE COVER

Tammy Pescatelli Apr 1+2

Not all of our covers feature happy-golucky entertainment types. Case in point the story of Joe Donovan.

Curious? Head to page 10 and read all about him. Photo © The Joe Donovan Project.

©2016 DIGBOSTON IS PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY DIG PUBLISHING LLC. NO PART OF THIS PUBLICATION CAN BE REPRODUCED WITHOUT WRITTEN CONSENT. DIG PUBLISHING LLC CANNOT BE HELD LIABLE FOR ANY TYPOGRAPHICAL ERRORS. ONE COPY OF DIGBOSTON IS AVAILABLE FREE TO MASSACHUSETTS RESIDENTS AND VISITORS EACH WEEK. ANYONE REMOVING PAPERS IN BULK WILL BE PROSECUTED ON THEFT CHARGES TO THE FULLEST EXTENT OF THE LAW.

Comedy Central, Jenny McCarthy's Dirty, Sexy, Funny

Big Jay Oakerson Apr 7-8

Dear Shark Tank, I’m talking to all of you. The whole platoon of wealthy scumbags on that television show who take advantage of inventors and other poor suckers. It’s not that you’re rich, and in some cases obnoxious. It’s that you’re considered brilliant when the only thing you’re really doing is helping pollute the plant with more unnecessary garbage, shamelessly supplying the landfills of tomorrow. I know, I know—you do “green” products too. I’m glad you mentioned that, because your posturing yourselves as socially responsible entrepreneurs is the biggest insult of all.

Just don’t fool yourselves. Great show, but your tank deserves an upper-decker.

Inside Amy Schumer, FX's Louie

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NEWS US

WHAT ABOUT THE 56,000 BPS STUDENTS UNDER 30?

Though hardly the first slap in the face of struggling Bostonians, the Forbes announcement (and its wicked timing) made for the latest twist in the demented joke that has become of Boston in 2016

BY CHRIS FARAONE @FARA1 It was toward the end of this week's Boston Public Schools walkout. A couple hundred of the student organizers who set the afternoon action in motion were still hollering at Faneuil Hall, some taking their complaints to tourists inside Quincy Market who were observing confusedly.

Mostly speaking through bullhorns to each other at that point, with news cameras long gone and the same story published by virtually every outlet in town—students from across the Hub left class to protest budget cuts, and that’s all there really is to it folks—the teens continued to express the kind of feelings they had shared and shouted all around the city.

One young man sporting a Boston Latin Academy sweatshirt told those gathered around him, “You think that we don’t see what Boston has money for even though it doesn’t have money for us?” Moments later, after a rather hilarious interlude about Governor Charlie Baker and Donald Trump being Republican assholes, a student from English High School stepped up to address the crowd and piggybacked the comments about haves and havenots. “We pay attention,” she said. “Why do you think some of us came all the way here? Look at this place. Go to City Hall across the street. See what they have in there.”

They’re onto something. Just hours before BPS 4

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activists led their classmates through the halls of their respective schools and toward Boston Common and then the Massachusetts State House and Faneuil Hall, news broke that the administration of Mayor Marty Walsh plans to bring Forbes Media’s Under 30 Summit to the Hub in October. According to the Boston Globe, “the company hopes to attract 5,000 people to the four days of events, which will include speakers, concerts, a food festival, a business-plan competition, and a ‘service day’ intended to help improve the host city.”

Though hardly the first slap in the face of struggling Bostonians, the Forbes announcement (and its wicked timing) made for the latest twist in the demented joke that has become of Boston in 2016. Public school students, most of whom lack full-time access to a computer and innumerable other critical resources, are protesting austerity cuts; at the same time, as the Globe reported just the day before in a harrowing and thorough account of income inequality in Massachusetts, the rich in town keep getting richer while the poor keep getting poorer. All while the Walsh administration welcomes yet another horde of privileged winners and innovators to the city for a threeday game of show and tell. Needless to say, it’s unlikely that Forbes guests will be touring the facilities where

most of this afternoon’s protesters go to learn every day.

Back outside the Great Hall, I asked individual students about their specific complaints. Several noted the transience of teachers and administrators, saying how uncommon it is to see any of the same adult faces from semester to semester, year to year. “It’s like every time you start to like or trust someone, you turn around and they’re gone,” said one young woman who attends Madison Park High School. One of her peers, a sophomore male with stylish orange hair wielding a bullhorn piled on. “It’s not just the teachers. My school doesn’t even have a clean place to go to the bathroom a lot of the time. If they do, it’s probably locked.”

There’s almost too much to say about the state of BPS (this week there was also a hearing at the State House about lifting the cap on charter schools, which steal funds away from their public counterparts, while the local budget brawl continued the same evening at English High School in Jamaica Plain). On one hand, teachers and students have done relatively well in difficult times, even occasionally yielding nationally stellar test results against all odds. But anyone who pays attention to daily operations—as well as the overall department budget— know the city gave up on its public schools decades ago. There’s no other way to explain the dismal state of buildings, or the glaring lack of technology and even basic books and supplies.

The Walsh administration deflected inquiries about the protests by blaming cuts to state aid, and by claiming the budget hasn’t been finalized. But reporters are asking the wrong questions. More important is why Boston continues to neglect its lower income areas while sucking up to business interests. Walsh’s Chief of Staff Daniel Koh told the Globe that the Under 30 Summit combined with “GE’s relocation of its headquarters to the Seaport” made for a “‘one-two punch’ that should help revitalize the city’s brand.”

A one-two punch indeed. Unfortunately, vulnerable residents are getting knocked out.

PHOTO BY CHRIS FARAONE

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5

MEDIA FARM

OLDE MAGOUNʼS SALOON PRESENTS:

THE GLOBE’S OTHER DELIVERY PROBLEM

MEAT

LOAF MONDAYS

Newspaper of record fails both sides of the digital divide

BY CHRIS FARAONE AND DIG STAFF @MEDIAFARM With the exception of a few small outbursts, we mostly left the Boston Globe alone during its weeks-long failure to drop off newspapers on time (or, in many cases, at all) to subscribers. We’re sure that doorstep glitch remains to be completely fixed. But since so many of the people crying about that customer service fail sound like spoiled older and wealthier readers who can easily engage the wired side of the digital divide, we plan on continuing to stay largely quiet on the matter (as long as Globe writers and editors don’t again martyr themselves for assisting with a token Sunday delivery run).

Nevertheless, it is with great pleasure that we moan on behalf of digital subscribers. Because the latest Boston Globe Android app makes former governor Deval Patrick’s original state Health Connector portal look like the new version of Netflix. In short, the so-called e-paper update is unusable. Literally. The halfway decent application, in which fogies like us could peruse the broadsheet electronically and click through into articles for additional digital depth, no longer works. At all. And we’re not alone in noticing. Here are some sample rants from the symphony of haters seething in the Google Play store comment section:

Different meatloaf every Monday with two sides.

I used the application for three days now and it’s a huge mess. (1) On the first day, after downloading a copy of the paper, I couldn’t navigate beyond the third page without the application crashing. Neither dumping cache or getting rid of the data fixed the problem.

518 Medford St. Somerville 617-776-2600 magounssaloon.com

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Got this new version last week and haven’t been able to read it.

Doesn’t seem to ever finish loading.

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App is a huge step backward This is not just a different app. It’s a terrible one. Loading screen appears and stays MINUTES after your subscription has been verified.

Worst app I have ever used So disappointed and frustrated. Wish I could give it less [than] 1 star.

Globe subscriber since ‘77, but the company may have finally reached the limit of my ability to tolerate incompetence.

This version has more features, but EVERYTHING it claims to do, it does either poorly, or not at all. My breaking point was riding on T from Alewife to South Station. I dutifully download the Globe before leaving for the train. Folks at the Globe - we call that OFFLINE reading! What’s the first thing the app tries to do when I get on the train? It tries to validate my account Alas, I have no internet connection and the application hangs. Dead in the water. Monster fail.

I never write reviews, but this is so horribly bad I have to ask ... what is going on? First, you can’t deliver the paper version.

And now, you can’t deliver the e-paper. The prior online version worked just fine, and now it’s totally broken.

It’s tempting to shame the developers responsible, presumably the latest coder dips in a long line of contractors collecting checks that could otherwise be spent on journalism. They don’t seem to have done much better on the Apple side either, with similarly scathing (although fewer) assessments on iTunes.

Some of the annoyances—awkwardly asking for access to all my contacts, for example, which is an odd request under the circumstances—are unforgivable.

Ultimately, however, the blame lies with whomever at the Globe feels such a native app is necessary.

We thought about making a formal complaint. The Globe, after all, has an entire separate Android app dedicated to customer service. No joke—there’s an entire separate application for users to report problems with their digital or print subscriptions. After attempting to log in with our credentials and being rejected, though, we quit trying and instead just scrolled through the customer reviews.

One summed our thoughts up perfectly. “Totally useless.”

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FREE RADICAL

WHY BOTHER? On renewing urban renewal

BY EMILY HOPKINS @GENDERPIZZA

Last Thursday, Boston City Councilors heard arguments from honchos with the Boston Redevelopment Authority who are pushing for a 10-year extension of the agency’s urban renewal powers. Those powers allow the BRA to develop land that it considers “blighted” and to employ eminent domain authority in seizing privately owned lots.

In his attempt to renew urban renewal in Boston, BRA Director Brian Golden faced opposition from Councilors Michelle Wu, Tito Jackson, Ayanna Pressley, and Josh Zakim, all of whom criticized the agency on a number of fronts. Gripes included the fact that the BRA does not have a comprehensive list of all of its properties. Despite controlling millions of square feet of land, there is no database through which officials and the public can identify exact coordinates and other pertinent details. Building such a database could take years. Councilor Jackson came down especially hard on the BRA for this enormous oversight during Thursday’s hearing.

“I think therein lies an issue relative to efficiency of the agency,” Jackson said.

“We’re saying we give the planning and development functions of the city of Boston [to] an agency where it’s going take two years to get paperwork in order that we knew needed to be in order for [the City Council] to make a decision.”

Rest assured, BRA lawyers say the paperwork is in order—it’s just not digitized or in any way ready for any kind of analysis. In 2016!

Jackson went on to acknowledge how some of the fastest developments around the city are happening outside of urban renewal, like in the Seaport and East Boston. In her turn, Councilor Pressley pointed out that Eastie and the South End are experiencing rapid development without the involvement of the BRA’s urban renewal powers. So what gives?

BRA Director Golden seems to have made earnest efforts to listen to community voices, and he’s proposing a closer relationship between the BRA and City Council. During his short reign, he has already pitched promising proposals to make the BRA a more accountable and transparent body. But in the long and fraught history of the troubled authority—and considering that other cities dismantled their urban renewal outfits decades ago—Golden’s outreach may be too little, too late.

Moreover, it might be time to ask ourselves—and I believe some members of the Council are doing this—do we need the BRA or urban renewal for the city to reap the benefits of large-scale, complex development projects? The answer is tied up in what powers the city has to take land and give it to private interests, something that is unique to the BRA. But Boston, and urban areas throughout the country, are experiencing a complete reversal of the flight to the suburbs, which was the climate under which urban renewal was developed in the first place.

With everyone from college graduates to empty nesters competing for increasingly limited housing stock, the economic and development climate in Boston is completely unrecognizable to that of the 1950s when the BRA was conceived. Why, then, are we looking to retrofit this organization rather than dreaming up something entirely different, something more appropriate, lean, and, dare I say, innovative?

Perhaps that’s too extreme a change to pull off fast enough to catch this moment of development and to impact the current squeeze in the housing market. Maybe it’s even too late. But if the BRA’s urban renewal powers are extended, the agency heads need to look at how they can not only do what they’ve always done much better and with more transparency, but also what they can do to ensure that Boston’s low- to middle-income populations aren’t all driven out before Boston wises up.

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Joe Donovan beat impossible odds in being paroled from a life sentence.

With his release this month, he and his advocates recount the nightmare behind them and brace for a daunting road ahead.

BY CHRIS FARAONE @FARA1 No one ever accused Joe Donovan of killing anyone, but he was convicted of murder nonetheless.

The story of his trial is legend in Cambridge. A 17-year-old student at the city’s Rindge and Latin School in the fall of 1992, Donovan left his home one Friday after dinner with his family and happened upon two neighborhood toughs who were casual schoolyard acquaintances. After deciding to cross over the Charles River to Boston, while walking on the campus side of Memorial Drive near the Mass Ave Bridge, the trio encountered two MIT students from Norway, Arne Fredheim and Yngve Raustein. Full of teenage angst and insecure machismo, Donovan punched Raustein in the head after sensing that the foreign student was mocking him.

In a moment which would haunt all who were there ever after and that would be picked to the nerve in courtrooms over the subsequent three decades, following his punch, one of Donovan’s associates, Shon McHugh, proceeded to stab Raustein to death.

A student’s life lost, with town vs gown blood spilled publicly—even the New York Times dispatched a columnist to cover the trial—meant prosecutors had to show and prove somebody guilty. With the 15-yearold McHugh being a minor and therefore not eligible for the kind of penalty demanded by editorial writers and the mobs inside the courtroom—and with his other associate from that evening, one Alfredo Velez, cooperating with police—the heavy burden of a life sentence fell squarely on Donovan.

Unlike some of his cellmates in the Massachusetts penal system who played God to earn their raps, Donovan was found guilty of the far more technical offense of felony murder for the death of Raustein. In order to justify such charges, the Middlesex County District Attorney’s office apparently forged a storyline 10

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in which the three teenagers had conspired ahead of time to rob college students. Naively convinced that he would be exonerated since McHugh wielded the knife, and since no such plan ever existed, Donovan rejected a deal with the DA. He had no clue at the time that the same prosecutor’s office would do everything in its power to keep him under state supervision for the rest of his life.

I spent the better part of 2009 examining Donovan’s case and also studying the media fiasco that fed the perception that he is (or ever was) a monster. Among other misconceptions stemming from the case, the savage act in which young Donovan participated has been cited as an early example of the so-called “Knockout Game,” an enduring urban legend and press fascination that resurfaces every few years. In the time since my initial plunge into the court records and testimonies, I have revisited the case on two occasions— once to take a reporter to task for botching an account of the Memorial Drive incident in writing a gratuitous Knockout article, and another time when Donovan first came up for parole, and I published my original piece along with a letter I wrote to his gatekeepers.

Despite his being sentenced to life with no chance for release for his involvement in the ’92 slaying, Donovan’s plight brightened in December 2013, when the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts ruled that it is unconstitutional for defendants under 18 years of age to receive life without parole for any crime. After spending more than half of his life in a cage, Donovan found himself before the Massachusetts Parole Board in May 2014. The process wasn’t easy; as a result of the rough adjustment period he had as an adolescent in a vicious prison, which led to his spending seven years total in solitary confinement, Donovan was forced to answer for some violent

I hate asking Donovan, or any inmate for that matter, the same questions that everyone asks them. How do you pass your time in there? How bad does the food suck? Still, I selfishly do just that, both because I’m genuinely interested and because small talk helps alleviate the inevitable guilt I always feel on the free end of these conversations. Since he was soon to be paroled at the time of our last talk, I pried even further, asking Donovan to reflect on those questions all the way back to the ’90s. Always gracious and delighted to chat about almost anything, he walked me through the minefield from his initial maximum security fortress to

PHOTO © THE THE JOE DONOVAN PROJECT

JOEY’S ANGELS FEATURE

behavior from years ago. Parole board members ultimately believed his recovery story, though, and in August 2014 granted him parole.

For anybody following the case, and certainly for those of us who had invested significant time and emotion pushing for Donovan, the news was utterly miraculous. Just five years earlier, a Donovan family friend compared his chances of getting a new trial to “a quarterback completing a 100-yard Hail Mary pass.”

It hadn’t mattered that Velez’s story changed over the course of the prosecution, or that even the judge who handed Donovan his sentence later slammed the verdict as unjust. As a Donovan trial juror recounted years after the trial, “It was awful … I mean yes, there was a murder committed; but, he literally did not commit the murder himself. It was one of his cohorts that did and he ended up taking the lion’s share of the blame for it.”

Donovan’s dire predicament changed after the SJC decision and to a more extreme extent upon his being granted release. Or so it seemed. At a May 2014 parole hearing, Middlesex Assistant District Attorney John McEvoy, who railroaded Donovan in the ’90s, previewed the roadblocks he was planning to erect.

“It seems everyone agrees that Mr. Donovan should not be released immediately to the streets,” the Globe reported McEvoy saying. “I don’t see that he should come out cold turkey.”

I’ve followed Donovan’s tribulations by keeping in touch with advocates like Carol Hallisey, his older cousin, and Jason Pugatch, a documentary filmmaker who is recording every step of the gauntlet. In speaking with them and with Donovan himself, he seems to feel less like a person who escaped a life sentence and more like someone for whom freedom remains as elusive as ever. Donovan was released this week—sent to the Wyman Community Reentry Program in the Mattapan neighborhood of Boston—as the first step on a path to additional independence. Still, his friends and family members aren’t relieved; rather, they’re scrambling as restlessly as they did back when there seemed no chance whatsoever of Donovan seeing daylight. To keep the shade thrown in spite of his parole, Middlesex ADA McEvoy has gone so far as to thwart a pledge via affidavit by McHugh to confess, all these years later, to an alternative account of the story which shatters the felony murder theory. Determined to defend the county’s version against newly surfaced evidence, McEvoy has apparently gone to great lengths to keep McHugh quiet. The Middlesex DA’s office did not respond to requests for comment.

To show the impact that a single case like this can have on those close to incarcerated parties, I interspersed accounts and excerpts from my recent interviews with Donovan and his most devout advocates with parts of heartfelt notes sent out to garner court support over the past six months. Emailed sporadically by Hallisey, his distant cousin who learned about the situation in 2008 and has visited Donovan regularly since, the updates are both promising and crushing. My seminal feature about this nightmare was titled “The Punch That Took Two Lives.” Told mostly through the voices closest to the turbulence, this sequel is about a system bent on sacrificing the same person’s life twice.

the relatively easygoing prison where he wrapped up his stay with the Department of Correction: You have to prove yourself. Some guys, depending on what their sentence was, didn’t have to go straight to Walpole [Ed. note: Massachusetts Correctional Institution–Cedar Junction, commonly referred to as MCI-Walpole or simply Walpole, is a historically infamous hellhole and the subject of several fiction and nonfiction accounts of the Commonwealth’s degenerate heyday in the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s]. But because I was convicted as an adult, they sent me straight to Walpole. I was stuck there. There was no way back then you could do a few years at Walpole and not get in trouble. I’m sure there were a few people who did it, but it didn’t happen often. I had to basically come up in prison and build a rep, that’s how it goes.

the tenacious interference of ADA McEvoy. McHugh has been scared out of potentially jeopardizing his own freedom by contradicting his former account of events in court, as has Velez, who gave an alternative account of the story that vindicates Donovan to former NECN journalist Brad Puffer, but now refuses to follow up. As a result, in pushing for a new trial that could spring him from lifetime parole, Donovan’s best bet may be Fredheim.

An affidavit written by the Norwegian and dated Aug 7, 2015, notes that he is “originally from Norway,” that his “primary language is Norwegian,” and that he “was not provided a Norwegian translator at the time of [his] testimony.” Since his “understanding of the English language at the time [he] testified was much less than it is now,” upon reviewing a transcript of the testimony he provided at the trial 24 years ago, Fredheim noticed “some of the answers [he]

I cook, I draw, I try to do legal stuff and help people if I can … Maybe it’s just my personality, but I don’t get massively depressed or anything. I just don’t. I might get depressed for a day, but I just shrug it off. Life goes on. You have to make the best of what you have.

I always strive for more, but you have to make the best of what you have.

Any prisoner or person in need would be fortunate to have have somebody like Carol Hallisey in their corner. A retired social services administrator who has advocated and fundraised for battered women and children, she’s also a mother and grandmother who, when I met with her in December, had just cooked back-to-back holiday oven-busters for her family. She cares for her two-year-old great-granddaughter twice a week, but she still makes time to keep in frequent touch with Donovan and to serve as his correspondent on the outside: He calls me a couple of times a week. If he has messages for someone, he’ll ask me by email. We mostly talk about life in general, this or that. He protects me from things that are upsetting, because I get upset very easily. He says, “There are things I don’t tell you, Carol.” And I’m glad. Recently he’s talking about clothes, and he’s also not sure what he’s going to be able to bring with him [to the halfway house].

He has all these briefs and legal documents.

When I first met him, when his father picked me up at South Shore Plaza and brought me to Walpole, I felt the vibes of what a kind and lovely young man he was. I was a basket case. It was just awful. I’m a babe in the woods. I worked with the battered women’s shelter, but I’d never been close to it, and now I was close.

No free man or woman could begin to understand the frustration that someone in Donovan’s corner must shoulder. The blessing of parole aside, for the past year especially, every time there is a sunny evidentiary prospect that brings hope of a new trial, some unrelenting power—often the same ADA, McEvoy, who played Velez and McHugh against Donovan in ’92— emerges to clip the wings of Joey’s Angels.

In one struggle, Donovan’s attorney learned of the existence of testimony from a separate juvenile trial for McHugh that was never introduced during Donovan’s proceedings. Getting access to those documents in their original form has proven difficult, with inklings about files that are strangely missing begetting goose chases through labyrinthine legal bureaucracies. Donovan’s advocates have also collected affidavits from two of the three living witnesses—McHugh and Fredheim, the latter the victim’s Norwegian friend—but have thus far been blocked from using the statements in court due to

disregard for Donovan; besides the torture of not knowing when he’d reenter society, their arbitrary holding of him for so many days, weeks, months after the parole board’s decision exemplifies how little the lives of inmates are valued. None of which is news to Donovan: I’m a fan of capitalism. But nobody’s life is really that important unless you have money. The more money and power you have, the more important you are in a capitalist society. They say that your life is important, but it really isn’t … It’s just how the world works. I know my life doesn’t matter as much as somebody else’s. That being said, I think I have gotten more opportunities than some others because of my situation and the decisions I’ve made as far as getting media attention. And having people on my team rooting for me actually helps.

An important feature of Donovan’s story relates to the lack of substantial job and life-training classes in the Massachusetts Department of Correction. In FY 2015, the Mass DOC appropriated less than 1 percent—just $1.1 million in a nearly $600 million department budget—on re-entry programs. Inmates like Donovan, who for most of his stay was believed to have no chance of ever walking free, are typically given even fewer opportunities to learn work and social skills.

With penal purgatory looming in the form of outreach centers and halfway houses, I asked about the (lack of) preparation:

No free man or woman could begin to understand the frustration that someone in Donovan’s corner must shoulder. provided in the transcript surprised [him] as they differ from [his] current memory of what happened.”

Among other revelations noted by Fredheim: “I do not remember seeing Mr. Donovan standing next to or near Mr. McHugh,” and that there was no dying utterance by Raustein about his wallet being stolen—a key component of McEvoy’s felony murder theory. All of which helps confirm what Donovan’s been saying all along—that he neither helped orchestrate nor participated in the homicide: There’s not much pride. If they said they’d give me an involuntary manslaughter, I’m not sure I’m guilty of that, but since I punched [Raustein], I would take it.

It’s the pragmatic thing. I started the thing, I feel bad about it, but if you ask me if I had any idea that any of that was going to happen that night, and I know that’s all the law’s about, I didn’t. I don’t want to say I did. I still to this day do not admit to this crime. I did not do this.

There’s nothing really happening. They gave me a computer course, but it’s like an old version of Microsoft Windows. It’s basically how to log on. It was a five-hour course—I mean, how much could you learn? I learned how to turn the computer on and off. There’s not much that goes on with that stuff. The guys who have a shorter, maybe four- or five-year sentence, they might be able to get into more programs. But they’re flimsy programs in terms of what you would need. They don’t teach you a real skill like they used to, like carpentry. They don’t really have that no more. Now you get your GED and that’s it. There are a lot of drug abuse programs, but that doesn’t fall into my category.

On his first day of freedom since before his 18th birthday, Donovan was let out of Bridgewater Minimum. Reportedly handcuffed and shackled, he wasn’t allowed to have family or friends there for the big day. Instead Donovan was transported to Wyman, a “pre-release” center in Mattapan, in the same kind of caged wagon that’s carted him between a constellation of unwelcoming pens for his entire adult life. He was only allowed to bring one supermarket-sized bag of belongings with him, but Donovan probably had larger worries on his mind during the ride to Wyman.

In a state where roughly one out of every 10 prison admissions stems from a parole violation, he’ll always have to worry about getting pulled back into a system that invests more in retention than it does in reentry.

This story was produced by the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism in coordination with “The Joe Donovan Project,” a documentary being filmed by Cambridge director Jason Pugatch. For an exclusive clip from the doc plus an extended version of this story including interviews with Donovan and his advocates, check DigBoston.com.

Despite his being granted parole in 2014, Donovan was not given an exact release date until last month.

The specific course of his path from medium-security to minimum to parole and halfway programs also remained a mystery. This strikes me as the ultimate

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11

EATS

DONOHUE’S BAR AND GRILL

A Watering Hole and Neighborhood Fixture

BY MARC HURWITZ @HIDDENBOSTON

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Do you remember the children’s book The Little Engine That Could? Well, that phrase often applies to businesses as well, and there is a restaurant and bar just west of Boston that fits it to a T, as it has seen many nearby dining spots come and go, a big chain with similar food and drink move in a few blocks away, and an award-winning eatery just west of it go from being a little-known cafe to a nationally recognized spot, and through it all, it quietly remains a popular local favorite after nearly two decades in business. So what keeps Donohue’s Bar and Grill in East Watertown going strong? Well, it’s a combination of things, really, that make this comfortable watering hole a survivor in an area with lots of ups and downs when it comes to the dining and drinking scene.

East Watertown is a bustling area with many interesting shops and restaurants along Mount Auburn Street near its northern edge by the Belmont line and a mix of chains and independent places along Arsenal Street near its southern edge heading toward the Charles River. In between the two are mostly residential neighborhoods with a few businesses scattered about, including Donohue’s. Located near where two side streets meet (Bigelow Avenue and Nichols Avenue), the place is very easy to miss, and it doesn’t have a physically big presence like the nearby Miller’s Ale House chain (which more or less competes with it) or the destination feel of the wildly popular Strip-T’s, instead being a simple Irish pub/sports bar type of place. Donohue’s has one of those setups that you often find with old-school Boston neighborhood joints, with two separate rooms and two separate entrances; the left side is a bit more “active,” with live music, trivia nights, and the like, while the right room—like the left—has a bar as well as tables for dining, but it is generally quieter and has comfy U-shaped booths opposite the bar. A private-feeling patio that can be accessed from the right room is a popular spot on warm summer nights, while a function room out back is used for everything from paint nights to birthday parties.

Donohue’s is not the place to come if you’re looking for spinach and onion compote or tartare de boeuf (don’t even ask them for that last one, or that first one for that matter), but if you’re a fan of simple American dishes and pub grub, the place has good takes on a number of such items. A few favorites include wings that can be ordered with a blistering-hot sauce (the menu says “don’t say we didn’t warn you”); fried pickles that come from the terrific local company Grillo’s; a big pile of nachos that can be ordered with chili, chicken, or beef, and bring to mind the legendary nachos at Allston’s Sunset Grill; a pair of classic Maple Leaf ballpark-style hot dogs served with handcut fries; a seasoned half-pound grilled burger that can be topped with bacon, cheese, peppers, mushrooms, and onions; and an overstuffed beef burrito with three different cheeses, veggies, and rice, and which should come with a free pillow because it can put you into a post-Thanksgiving-type sleep from all the carbs and protein.

Drink offerings include a few craft beers as well as your basic American brews, and some of the beers offered are very good ones (such as Dogfish 90 Minute IPA).

Donohue’s Bar and Grill has had a few things going against it over the years, including competition from the chains and a relatively obscure location, but the place is still alive and kicking, thanks in part to its loyal customer base, many of whom live within walking distance of the spot. It may not be a world-class eatery like Strip-T’s or a relatively well-known chain like Miller’s Ale House, but what it is is a laid-back, friendly little dining and drinking spot where many patrons are known on a first-name basis, and that’s exactly the kind of place that it wants to be. >> DONOHUE’S BAR AND GRILL. 78 BIGELOW AVE., WATERTOWN. DONOHUESBAR.COM

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ARTS ENTERTAINMENT

14

THU 3.10

FRI 3.11

SAT 3.12

SAT 3.12

MON 3.14

TUE 3.15

Three Headed Monstour w/ Hawthorne Heights, The Ataris, Mest @ Brighton Music Hall

Tours and Tastings @ Short Path Distillery

One Hit Wonder Pole Dancing Class @ Gypsy Rose Exotic Fitness

New England Revolution Season Opener @ Gillette Stadium

Yoga @ Cambridge Health Associates

Tuesday Night Bluegrass @ The Cantab Lounge

The music scene in Boston is a diverse, eclectic brood of twangs and feedback that ebbs and flows with the decades. Right now, it’s a tough road to travel down— quite a few clubs have closed and not enough have opened in their shadows.

But we’re still a rock ’n’ roll town at heart, and that means on any given night, there’s usually a show somewhere hosting bands from somewhere else. This Thursday is no exception, and with Hawthorne Heights leading the charge and joined by the Ataris and Mest, it’s a good excuse to get out and support the scene, even if it’s not local.

It’s still a local venue that supports the local scene.

While the craft beer industry continues to expand and take chunks out of the macro market, the craft distillery world has quietly done the same but without much fanfare. Beyond the now ubiquitous and not-socraft brands like Deep Eddy and Triple 8, there are literally hundreds if not thousands of small batch brands making world-class products, many of them in your backyard. Such is the case with Short Path Distillery in Everett. Named after its pot still method of distillation, it’s producing amazing hand-crafted rum and gin that is worthy of your time and attention.

It’s never too late (or early!) to live vicariously through your dreams of becoming a stripper that have long since been dashed due to practicality and moral conundrums. It’s also fun and great exercise, so there’s always that!

Gypsy Rose offers a ton of classes geared towards the beginner and wannabe professional that are super sexy, a ton of fun, and not at all sleazy or uncomfortable. It doesn’t take a perfect body or lapdance know-how to swing from the pole and have a blast. Check online for a complete schedule, but the One Hit Wonder Class is a great place to start.

It’s easy to forget that Boston has a fifth professional sports team that is as worthy as the other four. After all, the MLS and New England Revolution aren’t made up of egos and recordshattering signing bonuses that capture the headlines every time they happen.

It’s also soccer, and most Americans, while familiar with the sport, just don’t understand how a 1-0 game can be a thriller and a true test of exceptional athleticism. But that’s changing and changing fast. Parking is always free and the tailgate is always kick-ass. Buy tickets online or at the game.

Not just for those extra credit electives in college anymore, yoga offers a unique way to find a sense of peace and wellness among our hellish day-to-day grind. The Monday night session at Cambridge Health Associates isn’t for beginners, but it’s also not for experts. It offers a chance to stretch and lock into your inner downward dog but also mix it up every week and focus on treating things like insomnia, allergies, and a whole host of other ailments that you might otherwise be prescribed pills for or treat by finding solace in a bottle of Jack Daniels. Stay sober at least one day a week and find your personal karma on a floor mat instead

Who doesn’t love the Cantab Lounge?!

Seriously, you’ve got to be a fucking asshole not to like this place. From the beer-soaked floor on a late Friday night to an afternoon drink far from the gentrification that has all but stolen the once-gritty character from the surrounding neighborhood, this place is a must-visit for anyone new to town or trying to finally leave. Along with the legendary Chicken Slacks and Club Bohemia on Thursdays, the bluegrass night on Tuesdays is a musical treasure that continues to make this place a golden god among false prophets.

Brighton Music Hall.

158 Brighton Ave., Boston. 6pm/18+/$25. crossroadspresents.com

Short Path Distillery. 71 Kelvin St., Everett. 5pm/21+/ FREE. shortpathdistillery. com

Gypsy Rose Exotic Fitness. 1 Braintree St., Allston. 10:15am/21+/$30. gypsyrosedancing.com

Gillette Stadium. 1 Patriot Pl., Foxboro.

3pm/all ages/$45+. revolutionsoccer.net

Cambridge Health Associates. 335 Broadway, Cambridge. 6pm/all ages/$17. ComeToYoga.com

The Cantab Lounge. 738 Mass. Ave., Cambridge.

8pm/21+/$7 donation. cantab-lounge.com

3.10.16 - 3.17.16

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DEPT. OF COMMERCE

ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT

15

MUSIC

FAIR WEATHER FAN

How nonprofit Weathervane Music put the art back in artist

MUSIC

OFF TO THE RACES

Slow rock trio Horse Jumper of Love on their debut LP

BY NINA CORCORAN @NINA_CORCORAN There’s a passage in an old Ovid poem where the Roman poet tries to win back a woman. Upset and desperate to revive their relationship, he spews out a bunch of words, hoping they will please her. One of the lines, when translated, is a strange confession: “I am not a horse jumper of love.”

That phrase fit Horse Jumper of Love’s sound so well that the band claimed it as its moniker. Formed at the end of 2013, the slow rock act set out to play music that captured what the members were feeling. Comprised of 22-yearold singer-guitarist Dimitri Giannopoulos, 23-year-old bassist John Margaris, and 19-year-old drummer Jamie Vadala-Doran, Horse Jumper of Love finds itself at the intersection of Silver Jews, Boards of Canada, and Mount Eerie, the latter of which can be heard in nearly all of the songwriting. Since the three were right in the throes of young adulthood, that meant revising their work over and over again until it shifted from shoegaze to folk rock to nearmetal groans. Finally, they have a debut full-length, Horse Jumper of Love, to merit their ruthless revisions. “[Ovid]’s saying that no one in the world could make him feel happier than her,” explains Giannopoulos. “He’s trying to say, ‘I’m not a fickle lover.’” Horse Jumper of Love’s music—much of which toils in love, a lackthereof, and the inherent battle to deal with the wrath that brings on—comes out in a sad, understated way. There are weighted crescendos, ferocious drumming, gentle acoustic strumming, and ambient waves of electronic all thrown together with emotive thread. For such heavy music, the three musicians behind it keep relatively quiet, especially when it comes to talking about themselves.

Inversely, the one topic they all open up about with ease is anxiety. As soon as the nervousness embedded in their music is brought up, they chirp up, talking over one another excitedly. “Me and John’s friendship is based on anxiety, but we comfort each other; Jamie comforts us, too,” explains Giannopoulos. “I feel like songs, for me, are a way to purge certain feelings out of you. I still feel the songs, but I don’t feel how I felt when I made them. That’s a different time in my life. I’m over it, you know?”

Horse Jumper of Love whittles its way through nervous ticks by latching on to sometimes mundane, sometimes lavish, always sharp imagery. There’s spilled bleach on a shirt in “Ugly Brunette.” There’s crumbs in the bottom of a backpack on “Bagel Breath.” There’s a gross mixture of juice and soil in “DIRT.” Every lyric Giannopoulos writes, he writes with the intent of exposing minute triggers welded into our memory. “It’s hard to say what you feel and it’s easier to write a song,” he says. So out come the struggles 19-year-olds—like he was at the time he wrote the songs—go through.

“If you look at Dimitri’s merits in the context of one song, it’s almost like the phrases are describing details in the background of something that could be a consistent narrative, almost,” says Margaris. “It makes the visual sum something kind of abstract, but those details probably have weight and particulars to him. Then the way that it’s sung or performed emotes that. I don’t think they’re ever as simple as being something sad or funny because there’s both of that in the songs, especially since the body of songs we’re talking about were written at a time when you’re dealing with a lot of that at a young age. Being pulled between different feelings can do that.”

Weathervane Music puts the “art” back in “artist.”

The nonprofit organization allows musicians to record anything they choose and format it for all kinds of uses. Streaming, furthering production, or something in between—whatever they choose to do with it, it’s facilitated through Weathervane. At its core, that’s what the nonprofit is about: supporting independent artists however it can.

Weathervane is spearheaded by Brian McTear, a musician, producer, and friend to artists all over Philadelphia. Having worked with Kurt Vile, Dr. Dog, Sharon Von Etten, and many others, his talents are spoken for through the music of others.

McTear has also worked with local Boston folk act Mutual Benefit, who you can catch at the Somerville Theatre on March 16th. Mutual Benefit’s song for Weathervane, “Not For Nothing,” was recorded as part of the “Shaking Through” series—a documentary that details the recording process from a musician’s perspective. The artists are allowed to record their songs and then share the raw files with whomever they please, given the freedom to remix and remaster.

“Not For Nothing” is a characteristic Mutual Benefit song, lush with composition and precise instrumentation. Twangy, galloping guitar underscores Jordan Lee’s wholesome tenor for a warbling folk ballad.

Weathervane is supported through donations from supporters. Without them, it wouldn’t be able to give musicians as much access to top of the line equipment as it already does. So do your part.

Help keep the music alive. Donations can be made at the nonprofit’s website, weathervanemusic.org, alongside its rich trove of recording files, short films, and information about how to get involved.

According to reports, things are looking sunny every day as long as Weathervane Music is around.

>> HORSE JUMPER OF LOVE. AVAILABLE 3.11 VIA GAWK RECORDS AND DISPOSABLE AMERICA.

MUSIC EVENTS THU 3.10

FRI 3.11

FRI 3.11

SAT 3.12

TUE 3.15

[Berklee Performance Center, 136 Mass. Ave., Boston. 8pm/all ages/$8. berklee.edu]

[House of Blues, 15 Lansdowne St., Boston.

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

[Great Scott, 1222 Comm. Ave., Boston. 10pm/21+/$20. boweryboston.com]

[The Sinclair, 52 Church St., Cambridge. 8pm/18+/$12. sinclaircambridge.com]

[Middle East Upstairs, 472 Mass. Ave., Cambridge. 8pm/18+/$12. mideastoffers.com]

YER A MUSICIAN HARRY THE MUSIC OF HARRY POTTER

16

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SHOEGAZE WEEKEND BEACH HOUSE + MOSS OF AURA

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HOUSE JAMS WITH A SIDE OF INDIE BAG RAIDERS + PLASTIC PLATES

POWER POP FEVER AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER + DIRTY BANGS

ALT-COUNTRY FOR DANCIN’ MOUNT MORIAH + SKYLAR GUDASZ

WED 3.16

PSYCH MEETS METAL EARTHLESS + ELDER

[The Sinclair, 52 Church St., Cambridge. 8pm/18+/$15. sinclaircambridge.com]

HORSE JUMPER OF LOVE PHOTO BY CAITLIN MCCANN | WEATHERVANE MUSIC PHOTO BY HILLARY PETROZZIELLO

BY ANNA MARKETTI @ITSANNABANANNA

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512 Mass. Ave. Central Sq. Cambridge, MA 617-576-6260 phoenixlandingbar.com

THU 3/10 - LEAGUE PODCAST PRES.

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MC LARS, MEGA RAN (ALL AGES) FRI 3/11

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WITH DJ CHRIS EWEN SAT 3/12 - BOWERY PRESENTS SAT 3/12

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FRI 3/11, 10:30PM - CSC PRESENTS

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TUES 3/15 - CROSSROADS PRES.

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SERIES OF BOSTON

SUNDAY, MARCH 13

SUDACAS and MIXCLA BERKLEE COLLEGE OF MUSIC NIGHT TUESDAY, MARCH 15

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REMEMBER ME?

On the memory movies of Terrence Malick

BY JAKE MULLIGAN @_JAKEMULLIGAN Rick (Christian Bale), a Hollywood screenwriter, wanders through Death Valley entirely alone, in the same ambling way that characters in Terrence Malick’s movies usually wander—by walking in curved lines and looking downward, as if searching for the imprint of his own feet. He’s wearing a dark blue button-up shirt and black dress pants, the former unbuttoned at the top and the latter adorned by a plain steel belt. Knight of Cups plays out within the moments between his steps, with Malick’s structure (the editing is credited to three separate people) cutting back and forth between Rick’s walk and his past. We meet his distant father and his estranged brother. We see the women of Rick’s life, and we see the detached way that Rick sees them. Thing is, he never seems to change his clothes. There’s maybe one or two alternate attires—a black T-shirt under a blacker jacket, for instance—but throughout all the years seemingly depicted, his apparel remains constant. That’s probably because he’s never changing place, either. Knight of Cups travels from Los Angeles to Las Vegas and back again, but we never really leave Death Valley.

Malick’s film is split up into eight chapters, each named for a tarot card.

That’s one of many densely packed allusions coiled into the film’s structure— other references consider New Testament apocrypha and works of 17th-century Christian allegory, to limit ourselves to but two examples. Yet the filmmaker still has a sense of humor, contrary to his somewhat academic reputation: The chapter titled The High Priestess, in reference to a tarot card typically adorned with unambiguously papal imagery, begins with a shot of a neon-lit erotic dancer. That segment serves well as an exemplar of the way that Knight of Cups travels. The associative editing rhythms typically begin with specific place (in this case, Rick in a strip club), then move to the profile of a specific woman (a dancer played by Teresa Palmer), which sparks other memories of that same women at numerous times and places (we see Rick rolling her down the road in a shopping cart, like kids cutting from school; later her face is flying by the Vegas signboards while they’re on an amusement ride). Small echoes of heady dialogue (“You live in a fantasy world, don’t you?”) give way to voice-overs tinged by comparably philosophical musings (“Get out of the big cloud of dust everybody is kicking up; the only way out is in”). Images of the woman (in different chapters we meet the other partners of Rick’s past, played by Cate Blanchett, Imogen Poots, and Natalie Portman, among others) give way to images of landscape (the Vegas strip, streetlights, and advertisements), which give way to images of a road (which we always return to, as surely as we do the desert). The voice-overs loop over it all, accentuated by musical compositions both classical and modern. Near the end of most chapters we slip back to Death Valley, even if only for a single shot. It’s hardly a skeleton key to the film’s deeper meanings, but Rick’s clothes are how we know that it’s not a narrative that we’re watching. What we’re seeing instead is memories.

He has always been a filmmaker stuck in the past: Malick depicted the ’50s in Badlands, the dawn of the 20th century in Days of Heaven, and the dawn TERRENCE MALICK continued on pg. 20

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TERRENCE MALICK continued from pg. 18

of the nation in The New World. The Tree of Life, his fifth film, was the one that inaugurated the approach that’s taken shape in Knight of Cups. It began with a modern man (Sean Penn) within a landscape of his own making (his architecture) and bifurcated that with memories of the same man as a young boy, yearning for acceptance for his father (Brad Pitt) and mother (Jessica Chastain). It did concern memories, but it did not take place within them, and there was no sense that the past sequences were being rewritten by the present. To The Wonder, Malick’s sixth film, did away with traditional narrative structure to an even greater extent.

It used its central figure (Ben Affleck) the same way that Knight uses Bale—as an avatar at the center of sensually loaded memories. That movie opens with footage shot with low-resolution digital video. On one level, it’s a metatextual joke about Malick’s supposed predilection for the aesthetically beautiful. But it also situates the opening of that film in a past tense—one that is returned to often throughout its whole and that Knight of Cups lives inside.

The transference of the human memory into cinematic form is something that Malick has apparently chased at great length. He’s devised atypical modes of production specifically to capture moments that are defined more by sight and sound than by script. Rick’s profession puts him into close contact with a number of Hollywood comedians. One is played by Nick Kroll, whom we interviewed last year. “He called me a torpedo,” Kroll explained, trying to unpack the process.

“So I would stand next to [Malick] and then he would call me into [a scene] and whisper something really quickly beforehand, like ‘and you know Christian.’ Then my job would just be to disrupt Christian Bale. It’s the same tenets as improv: Don’t think.” When I interviewed Ben Affleck shortly after the production of To The Wonder, he rendered himself positively mystified about the same tenets: “He said this is a movie experimenting in silence, and we’d have these voice-overs occasionally but they really wouldn’t be about what we’re seeing … it was about learning to let go.”

These are scenes not as they play in a movie, but as they play in a mind: skewed away from truth, dominated by color and sound. The editing structure mirrors the very essence of moment-to-moment psychology; the way that people, places, and objects are erratically linked together; the way that favored artworks, phrases, and uncontextualized sights intrude as often as anything else; the way that we place our current selves—even our current clothes—within past memories; the way that a loved one can be remembered as a cherished object more than as a fellow human being; and the way that one former partner can melt into the memory of another one (“[Malick] has this theory from Chekhov about relationships where one is near and one is far,” per Affleck). By virtue of a shape that eschews commercial storytelling to include moments of sense memory and imagined imagery—a dog diving into a pool, or an abstract collage that takes the form of a flicker film—Knight of Cups would likely be classified as “experimental.” As a film, its form is unfamiliar. But in documenting, recording, and exploring an inherently relatable experience—the very act of remembering—Malick speaks with total clarity. >> KNIGHT OF CUPS. RATED R. OPENING AT KENDALL SQUARE CINEMA ON 3.11.

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SAVAGE LOVE

DOUBTS

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BY PATT KELLEY WHATS4BREAKFAST.COM

BY DAN SAVAGE @FAKEDANSAVAGE | MAIL@SAVAGELOVE.NET I had given up on relationships after a failed marriage and another partner trying to kill me (no joke). Then, after five years single, abstinent, and lonely, I met a man who frustrated me, turned me on, and was understanding about my trust issues.

I’m excited about a future with him—except for two things. First, he says he loves me but he’s not sure yet if he wants to spend the rest of his life with me—he’s not sure if I’m “The One.” He also has needs I’m not able to fulfill. It may not seem like a big deal to most people, but swallowing is out for me, as I was orally raped when I was a teenager.

I’ve worked my way up to enjoying giving head, but come in my mouth makes me cry. And I can’t give head after anal. He says these are the things that make him come the hardest. I’ve asked him if my inability to provide these things are a “deal breaker” for him and he says no, but when we get into bed, he talks about me doing them the entire time we’re having sex. I’ve asked him to stop, and he says he will, but it doesn’t stop. He will also have sex only in the positions he likes, and if I ask for something different, he’ll just stop having sex with me, leaving me frustrated. If letting him go so he can find the right person to fulfill his needs makes him happier, then I feel it’s the right thing to do, as much as it would hurt.

Failing At Intimacy/Love You need to let this guy go for your own happiness and sanity.

I know you were alone for a long time—alone and lonely—and you know who else knows that?

Your shitty boyfriend, FAIL, and he’s leveraging your desire to be with someone against your right to sexual autonomy and your need for emotional safety. You have an absolute right to set your own limits, to rules things in and out, and to slap “not open for discussion” labels on some things.

Ruling two things out—swallowing and ATM— particularly for the reasons you cite, is perfectly reasonable. If he can’t accept that, if he’s going to hammer away at those two things endlessly, that should be a “deal breaker” for you.

You see his inability to determine if you’re “the one” as a separate issue, FAIL, but it’s of a piece.

He’s refusing to make you the one—“the one” is an act of will, not an act of God—in hopes that you will submit to his sexual demands. I have a hunch that swallowing and ATM aren’t really the things that make him come the hardest. If it was anal and cunnilingus you couldn’t do, FAIL, then those would be his favorite things. Because the issue here isn’t whether he’s “sure” you’re the one or the sex acts that make him come the hardest. This is about him controlling and degrading you.

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