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HEADLINING THIS WEEK! Joe Matarese Thurs-Sat

VOL 18 + ISSUE 12

MARCH 24, 2016 - MARCH 31, 2016 EDITORIAL

DEAR READER

EDITOR + PUBLISHER Jeff lawrence

I don’t expect reporters at the Boston Globe to appreciate our work. They have a starkly different philosophy, which is that all sides of an issue—even greedy, shitty ones—must be represented equally and fairly. Mainstream media types call this practice of citing token opposing viewpoints objectivity, but I call it laughable. As things already stand in this country, news at nearly every level gives big business the benefit of the doubt and ignores the devastation often wrought by major industries.

All things considered, I was not surprised that DigBoston was attacked on Twitter by a Globe business reporter for using research from the Roxbury nonprofit Epicenter Community in “The Thirsty Games,” our two-part series about liquor licensing, which wraps this week. As for comments by said Globie that our story was “literally sponsored by its sources”—pure nonsense. The article wasn’t “sponsored,” or underwritten by any “sources.” No money was exchanged. Just ideas.

While the Globe is stuck in the dark ages of striving for an objectivity that doesn’t exist, we’re proud to be engaging the community through organizations that represent small businesses and residents. We’re not the only operation that’s pursuing such partnerships, and for an excellent example of the potential power of cooperation, I recommend the Herald-Bulletin (Madison County, Indiana) series on poverty wage workers done with the United Way. In fact, we’re not even the only operation seeking these collaborations locally. Any Globe reporters who take issue with our tactics might also want to check their own newsroom, which is teaming up with the nonprofit Solutions Journalism Network for education reporting.

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

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Dear Asshole, You cut me and an octogenarian WWII veteran in line at the doctor’s office. You made it seem like it was an emergency. But I’m an eavesdropper, and it turns out that you were trying to get a lastminute appointment for your 25-year-old daughter who had “flu symptoms.” That was your emergency, and you clogged the queue like cholesterol as a result for five minutes. But when I called you a “fucking asshole” for this behavior, I suddenly became the bad guy, reviled by receptionists and onlookers alike. This in a country where two out of every two morons applaud Donald Trump for just “telling it like it is.” I have bad news for all of you—there’s no cure for the common cold, and there’s no cure for stupid.

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NEWS US

LICENSE AND REGISTRATION PLEASE NEWS TO US

Everyone from architects to barbers needs to be licensed in Mass—should police have the same standard?

BY CHRIS FARAONE @FARA1 Mental health and human service workers. Barbers, chiropractors, massage therapists, podiatrists, and optometrists. Cosmetologists, nutritionists, and hearing specialists.

Sanitarians and embalmers.

To legally operate in the Commonwealth, all of the above professionals need to be certified by the state’s Division of Professional Licensure (DPL). Regulating and approving more than 350,000 people belonging to 28 boards of registration in about 50 professions, the DPL keeps an eye on virtually all tradesmen and women from Winthrop to Williamstown. From social workers to home inspectors, architects, plumbers, sheet metal fabricators, electricians, and real estate brokers—as well as the instructors who train many of them.

Other careers have dedicated overseer agencies.

Attorneys answer to the Massachusetts Board of Bar Examiners, teachers to the Office of Educator Licensure.

Considering that such permissions are used as a public safety mechanism, it comes as a surprise to some that law enforcement officers have no comparable state oversight.

“We were getting nowhere with holding police accountable,” says Roxbury activist Jamarhl Crawford.

On Monday, March 28, Crawford’s group Massachusetts Police Reform will host a town hall forum at Roxbury Community College to raise awareness about licensing.

He continues, “Looking for a way to sensibly address [police misconduct], I was talking to [Boston civil rights attorney] Howard Friedman. He asked if I had ever heard of decertification, and I found out Massachusetts was one of the only states that doesn’t have it. That was strange.

Kentucky, Mississippi, Alabama—they figured it out, but we haven’t?”

Crawford’s deep dive into law enforcement licensing led him to Roger Goldman, a professor of law emeritus at Saint Louis University and the country’s leading expert on the subject. Well aware of the gap in Commonwealth authority over those charged with protecting the public, Goldman explained that while state law prevents the hiring of officers with felony convictions, there’s nothing to prevent undesirable cops who rack up ethical or even misdemeanor offenses from leaving one place of employment and resurfacing elsewhere.

“You’re one of six states that doesn’t have a system that’s really analogous to 150 different occupations and professions,” Goldman tells DigBoston. “It’s just standard stuff, not rocket science … There is no way to decertify an officer for any kind of misconduct. Under current law, another department could hire this officer.”

Goldman notes that Mass has “the first component” of statewide licensing, which is “training through a municipal police council which sets forth standards.” In order to join every state besides New York, New Jersey, California, Rhode Island, and Hawaii in adding what is often called a Police Officer Standards and Training (POST) board, according to a “Model Licensing and License Revocation Law” recommended by Goldman, the Commonwealth would additionally need to “establish by law a commission with the power to certify or license law enforcement and … to revoke the license or issue lesser discipline for officers who have been found to have violated standards of conduct set forth in the statute.”

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Such a POST mechanism would also “have the authority to certify that individuals have met the state selection and training standards” and establish a process through which complaints of misconduct could be reported to a designated state commission. The body would “investigate all allegations from hiring agencies or other sources that certified officers have violated commission standards” and “depending on the type of violation, the facts and circumstances of the case, and any prior commission discipline, the commission should impose the most appropriate administrative sanction, to include suspension or revocation of the license.”

Goldman says a statewide set of standards would allow for easier and more efficient background checks and noted an Associated Press report from last November showing that hundreds of cops across the country have lost their law enforcement licenses due to sexual misconduct. Since Mass has no such standard, there’s no real way to track officers who are predators or have violent but non-felonious histories. Adds Crawford, “When a lawyer is disbarred, that doesn’t necessarily mean there’s criminal charges. That’s what this would do.

Charges be damned.”

Nationally, there is some appetite among police administrators to support POST boards, and Crawford has secured a letter of endorsement for such oversight from the International Association of Directors of Law Enforcement Standards and Training, which helps synthesize such licensing efforts. In many cases, chiefs and superintendents have to face journalists when rank and file cops fumble, and it could make their job easier if an independent board yanks the offending officer’s patrol license. Nevertheless, Crawford and others pushing for reform can count on coming up against a fight in the Commonwealth.

“We don’t have a problem with standardized training, but what people don’t realize is it’s basically a license,” says James Machado, executive director of the nonprofit Massachusetts Police Association. “Once someone has the certification, they’ll leave one department for another where there’s better pay.” In addition to saying small departments with less money would suffer, Machado also argues that such measures wouldn’t make it easier for brass to dump unsavory anomalies, adding, “If someone commits an offense, whether it’s certified or uncertified, there’s still going to be a process. Unions aren’t just going to allow it.”

Goldman, who plans to testify about police licensing at a hearing on Beacon Hill next Tuesday, says public advocates will need to get past such enduring disagreements with law enforcement agencies if they hope to turn their conversation into legislation.

“It’s usually a coalition—a combination of grassroots organizations and others,” says Goldman, who has seen successful campaigns to install POST boards in other states. “But to make it through the legislature the police chiefs have to be on board. It has to be viewed as a step toward professionalism. You would think that to be a true profession you would need a way to remove the bad apples.”

“I don’t think anything’s going to happen tomorrow,” Crawford says. “We’re injecting an idea now for a really serious push in 2017. As soon as [the legislature] rolls around again, we are going to be right up on it.”

Join Jamarhl Crawford and Roger Goldman for a Community Town Hall Forum on Monday, 3.28 at 6pm in the Media Arts Auditorium at Roxbury Community College. More info on that event and the 3.29 State House hearing at blackstonian.com and masspolicereform.com.

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SATIRICAL SPECIAL

THE CANNHATTAN PROJECT Executive Order #420

BY JOHN DVORAK

The White House, Office of the Press Secretary For Immediate Release In the spirit of the Manhattan Project which took innovation and collaboration to unseen levels and helped the Allies win World War II, the United States government is starting a program to fund research and development into all aspects of the cannabis plant at an accelerated pace as we also end a War on Drugs that has negatively impacted millions. To address several significant societal issues, by the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, the creation of the Cannhattan Project is hereby ordered as follows: Section 1. Legalization. The plant genus cannabis, including but not limited to its divergent subspecies cannabis sativa and cannabis indica, is immediately legalized and removed from the schedule of controlled substances. Cannabis is now legal to cultivate, possess, transport, process, use, consume and sell by individuals 18 years of age and older. All treaties to which the United States of America is a party and which include undue restrictions on cannabis are declared null and void.

Sec. 2. Clemency/Expungement. All individuals currently incarcerated for any cannabis possession charge will be immediately released. All other cannabis convicts imprisoned for cultivation or distribution will be freed unless there are extenuating circumstances involving crimes of violence. The criminal records of all individuals released and of those who have ever been arrested for a nonviolent cannabis offense will be expunged.

Sec. 4. Easing Catch-422 Restrictions. Cannabis companies must have access to the same basic economic tools afforded every other business. As such, they shall henceforth be considered a part of mainstream American commerce and are now allowed to obtain loans, process credit cards, and deduct business expenses.

All interstate and international shipping restrictions are lifted. Insurance companies are required to cover medicinal cannabis treatments. Testing positive for cannabis will no longer result in the automatic loss of one’s job or government benefits.

Sec. 5. Harm Reduction. The Cannhattan Project guarantees immediate treatment on demand to be covered by all insurance plans.

THE CANNHATTAN PROJECT continued on pg. 8 6

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EDITORIAL CARTOON © JAKE FULLER

Sec. 3. Reparations. The Cannhattan Project will make every effort to compensate people who have suffered as a result of prohibition. Free tuition, interest-free loans, counseling on demand, and financial remuneration for lost income will be available. The Department of Justice’s asset forfeiture program will cease and all monies confiscated without due process will be returned with interest.

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THE CANNHATTAN PROJECT continued from pg. 6

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Sec. 6. Endocannabinoid Research. A cornerstone of the Cannhattan Project is intensive research into how the 85+ cannabinoids found in the cannabis flower interact with the endocannabinoid system. Through a Cannabis Curriculum, I am authorizing the granting of one hundred billion dollars for cannabis research at all educational levels from K-12, undergraduate and graduate university studies, teaching hospitals and commercial grade research and development.

Sec. 7. Veteran Affairs. Our veterans fought for us and it’s high time we fight for them. Because cannabis is so effective for treating traumatic brain injuries and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, the Cannhattan Project will provide our veterans with Cannabis free of charge wherever needed.

Sec. 8. Indigenousness. Like our veterans, Native Americans have been mistreated and disregarded. The Cannhattan Project seeks to bestow respect to this proud people. Just as they used all parts of the buffalo to survive, Native Americans are free to use the entire Cannabis plant to produce food, fuel, paper, clothing, building materials, biodegradable plastic, high strength composites, and medicine.

Sec. 9. Hemp. The Cannhattan Project will focus on the myriad industrial uses of hemp to address several environmental and societal problems. To help kick-start the hemp industry, all new government buildings will have hemp incorporated into their construction whenever feasible. This includes hempcrete, hemp particle board, insulation and composite shingles in conjunction with hemp carpeting and upholstery to create comfortable, clean environments for government workers and the public they serve. All new government vehicles, including thousands of U.S. Postal Service trucks, will be made with hemp bio-composites and fueled with hempseed oil biodiesel, hemp stalk-based ethanol or hemp fiber supercapacitors. Hemp fiber will be used to create tomorrow’s superconducting batteries which will supercharge the economy. U.S. currency will be printed on hemp paper. All government facilities and public schools will prominently feature healthy hemp foods and healing hemp based body care products.

Sec. 10. Reinvigorating Rural America. The Cannhattan Project will reverse the decades long erosion of America’s farming communities. Incentives will be given for growing, processing and manufacturing hemp locally. This will create a multiplier effect and self-sustaining, regenerative farming economies.

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Sec. 11. Hemp for Victory Redux. The legacy of World War II’s Hemp for Victory campaign is still growing wild throughout the Midwest. Feral hemp will provide the germplasm of tomorrow’s hemp industries. The Cannhattan Project creates USDA bounty stations to pay patriotic Americans for locating feral hemp.

Sec. 12. Reefer Gladness. Our government has spent billions demonizing marijuana and stigmatizing an entire class of Americans. The Cannhattan Project will help turn Reefer Madness into Reefer Gladness. Frequent smokeouts will be held on the front lawn of the White House and there will be epic Extravaganja celebrations on the National Mall in Washington DC every year on 4/20. The Cannhattan Project will also be sponsoring a series of festivals and hemposia across the country for celebrations and education.

Sec. 13. Remembrance. We will build a hempen memorial that contains the name of every prisoner of prohibition, every victim of prohibition related violence, every patient that struggled to obtain their medicine and every anti-prohibition pioneer that selflessly fought for everyone’s rights. They will number into the millions, yet we must recognize them to illustrate the scope of the tragedy that is prohibition and to provide some closure.

Sec. 14. Canna-Cabinet. For the Cannhattan Project to succeed, the right people must be involved. Eapen Thampy will coordinate reparations, Vivian McPeak will organize the Reefer Gladness campaign and Hempologist John Dvorak will continue to document The Cannhattan Project for posterity. I will also be appointing a Canna-Cabinet consisting of individuals committed to normalizing cannabis.

Hempologist John Dvorak has been reporting on cannabis hemp and its prohibition for over 25 years. He created the hemp history website Hempology. org and developed the Cannabis Curriculum.

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ERIN ANDERSON (LEFT) AND MALIA LAZU OF THE ROXBURY-BASED EPICENTER COMMUNITY HAVE PLAYED WATCHDOG AT BOSTON CITY HALL LIQUOR LICENSING MEETINGS FOR TWO YEARS.

THE THIRSTY GAMES: ROUND II FEATURE

An exploration into the questionable future of Boston’s modern prohibition

The Boston Licensing Board’s hearing room in City Hall is bland. Gray walls, high school-cafeteria-style linoleum, rickety beige chairs.

There is a long table in front of rows of chairs where applicants and their attorneys sit, more than a few of them with dark circles of sweat under their arms, to make their cases before the board. A safe distance away, on a makeshift dais of sorts, the three mayor-appointed members of the board—Lisa Maki, Keeana Saxon, and Chairwoman Christine Pulgini—plus their executive secretary, Jean Lorizio, sit at a large wooden desk backed by an American flag and a sky-blue City of Boston banner.

Erin Anderson, program manager of the Roxburybased nonprofit Epicenter Community, has been in this room for almost every hearing and voting session of the BLB since October of 2014, one month after Boston City Councilor Ayanna Pressley helped free up new licenses for disenfranchised neighborhoods. While meetings of the board are open to the public, Anderson is often the only spectator and has many times been the only nongovernment employee in the room when the board votes.

Spurred by seemingly sketchy BLB dealings of the past, Anderson’s goal in attending each hearing is to gain a clear understanding of who is being granted

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each of the licenses introduced by Pressley’s 2014 legislation. In doing this, Epicenter hopes to increase transparency regarding the number of licenses that are actually available (and where they are going). [For the 100-year history of where liquor licenses have gone in Boston and why, read the first installment of “The Thirsty Games” at DigBoston.com.]

After nearly two years, Anderson’s work is nowhere close to done. “It just shouldn’t be this hard,” she says.

Even for an organization attempting to track the process diligently, the liquor license application and distribution system appears to be a discombobulated disaster. As proof, consider the residual inconsistency in media reports about how many licenses are available in Boston: “Today, there are 1,031 liquor licenses in Boston,” says Boston Magazine.

“Boston has just 970 of those licenses,” reports the Boston Globe.

Most perplexingly, according to a 2015 article in Boston Business Journal, “Boston has a little more than 600

licenses that allow the serving of any type of alcoholic beverage. Another 200 allow the sale of only beer and wine. Another 300 allow the sale of various alcoholic beverages with restrictions such as neighborhood.”

According to the most recently updated Mass General Laws, there are currently 665 full liquor licenses (not all of which have the same permissions) and 320 wine and malt licenses allowed. But that does little justice to the labyrinth of subsections and exceptions. For starters, airport facilities, social clubs, and hotels all have their own designations within those restrictions. Factor in the licenses added in 2006, plus those continuously coming online through the fruits of Pressley’s petition, and the picture of what’s truly available gets even blurrier.

“I don’t know what is what,” Anderson says.

From the outside, the process seems fairly routine. City of Boston guidelines require all businesses applying for a liquor license to complete an application, undergo a background check, hold a public hearing in the neighborhood where the establishment will open, notify abutters, attend the Wednesday hearing at the BLB to demonstrate a “public need” for the establishment’s license, and

PHOTOS COURTESY THE BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY | ANDERSON AND LAZU PHOTO BY JAYPIX BELMER

BY HALEY HAMILTON @SAUCYLIT

finally “pay a variety of fees.” In practice, however, there’s another layer of confusion added, since applications need approval from boards at both the city and state levels.

“It’s not official until the state signs off on it as well,” explains Jean Lorizio, executive secretary of the BLB since 2000. “The law states how many can be given out. And we count. We count what’s in our records, but at the same time you have to keep in mind that if the board grants a new license, the state has to approve it also. So I might tell you we have 91, but one is pending with the [state].”

Which would leave the real number of licenses available in Boston at 90. This could cause the BLB to approve a license that was already spoken for, thereby causing an application to be “denied without prejudice” (basically, “you’re approved, but nothing’s available”).

It gets shadier.

The BLB tracks licenses by address. In the office at City Hall, the members keep paper files, some thick with renewal applications, for every liquor licenseholding business in Boston.

“It’s a huge waste of time to be tracking things with just a folder on each business,” Anderson says.

“Whenever I ask, ‘Can you give me more information on the hearings?’ I would pull the hearing agenda and then [have to] pull every single restaurant file in order to find out anything.”

The Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism had a similar experience in our own investigation for this article. When asked if the BLB could generate a list of addresses attached to the 2006 restricted licenses, Lorizio said she isn’t “sure that would be possible.”

“We don’t track when something was issued or when something was given out,” the BLB’s executive secretary added.

Which means, among other things, there is no way of knowing how many of the neighborhood-restricted licenses have actually wound up in the city’s original designated zones. The only information available, it seems, is simply that a business at a particular address does or does not currently have a license.

It’s a file-keeping loophole you could drive a bus through.

“There’s never a smoking gun,” says Malia Lazu, also of Epicenter Community. “But you can’t watchdog something that doesn’t have rules and regulations.”

In the past few months, the Board has been much more responsive, Anderson says, but she still can’t get a clear answer about where the 2006 licenses ended up or why some businesses are approved before others.

“Efforts are being made to improve documentation, and they’re being responsive to the conversation about transparency, but the issue is that there’s still a limit on economic development if you restrict [the number] of licenses.”

MAY THE ODDS BE EVER IN YOUR FAVOR

Christopher Lin, owner of Seven Star Street Bistro in Roslindale, knows what it’s like to be one of those nervous, slightly sweaty business owners sitting before the BLB—he’s done it twice.

“The Board will take it under advisement and vote on this tomorrow. Good luck to you,” Chairwoman Pulgini said at the end of each one of Lin’s testimonies, like she does after every applicant’s presentation.

Seven Star Street Bistro is a small, family-owned business. Until recently, the Asian street food restaurant had only eight seats. When the beauty salon next door closed, Lin jumped at the opportunity to expand and began the application process for a liquor license, knowing that new, neighborhood-restricted opportunities had been made available through Pressley’s legislation.

“Having a liquor license is transformative, especially for a small business,” Lin says. “We knew we couldn’t open the dining room without one.”

After two rounds with the BLB, however, Lin came up empty-handed.

“We had overwhelming neighborhood support; city councilors were there to support us,” he recalls. “I really felt like it was kind of a sure thing.”

Turns out Seven Star sits just outside Roslindale’s Main Street district, making his family business ineligible for one of the new restricted licenses.

“We tried to buy licenses in the past, but it always seemed like a big crapshoot,” Lin says. But because these new licenses were restricted to certain areas, including Roslindale, he thought this time things would be different.

“There was so much confusion with the details of the licenses,” Lin says. “A lot of people involved in the process seem to be in the dark, not by any fault of their own but just because the process is super confusing and not very transparent.”

Lin ended up purchasing a beer and wine license from a neighboring business for roughly $40,000— much lower than market value but still a strain on a small enterprise. In the end, he did it because he knew he couldn’t successfully maintain a larger establishment without one.

“It’s super frustrating to have all the support you need but getting a license can still be uncertain because of confusing laws,” he says.

Lin is one of dozens of disappointed restaurant owners who have been denied a license from the city.

We contacted others who faced similar situations, but many were unwilling to share their experiences due to fear of political repercussions.

“The city and all its departments are political,” says one Roxbury business owner who recently secured a license. Like others interviewed for this story—including an Allston restaurateur who has been repeatedly denied a license and who says he fears being shut down if he complains about the process—they asked that their real name not be used.

The Roxbury owner adds, “You have to be aware of your voice, or you’re dismissed as a malcontent.”

SEPARATE AND UNEQUAL

In January, the Brookings Institution think tank declared Boston the city with the highest income inequality in the country.

While some of the Hub’s wealth disparity is attributed to the high student population, the facts remain stark: Between 2013 and 2014, the rich got richer and the poor got poorer. Boston’s wealthiest residents now make almost 18 times more than the poorest do each year—an earnings spread of more than $250,000. And the city is developing in a way that allows that chasm to widen.

There’s currently more than $7 billion in major construction underway in Boston, most of that action begetting high-rise luxury condominiums and retail spaces being plugged into Fenway and the Seaport District. Unlike in Dorchester or Hyde Park, anybody visiting the invigorated, innovative waterfront will find numerous places to stop for a cocktail, and a great

one at that. Tavern Road, Drink, Pastoral; the list goes on. New nightlife spots are popping up on Northern Avenue and Sleeper Street as well, drawing crowds and money to the former industrial wasteland.

By designating the so-called Innovation District as “municipal harbor plans” in 2006, lawmakers effectively paved the way for a South Boston waterfront where AmEx black cards are thrown on bar tops like pennies into a fountain. Consider the recently approved Seaport Square, a 6.5 million-square-foot complex with 2.5 million square feet of residential units, plus new office space, two hotels, a “cultural and educational center,” and 1.5 million square feet for “multi-level retail, restaurant and entertainment” venues.

Roxbury has seen some big development as well, with a few of its own immense projects in the works.

But the playing field still is far from level, with only beer and wine licenses going to new restaurants in the Bolling Building in Dudley Square.

Some have made the arguments that not enough business owners in Roxbury, Mattapan, and Dorchester are applying for licenses. By that logic, it’s not the city’s fault that licenses aren’t going there, since you can’t get what you never ask for. According to those who have studied the historic lack of nightlife opportunities in Boston’s neighborhoods of color, though, the problem can’t be written off that easily.

“We have a pipeline problem,” Pressley says. “We are not going to undo 100 years of hurt and disparity from a broken and unfair system in one year.”

Pressley is calling for full local control of the quota.

She hopes that she can find support on Beacon Hill before the end of next year, after all the licenses from her initial home rule petition are accounted for and the city is back where it started. “If we don’t have full control, we don’t have the agility to prioritize neighborhoods with a higher need,” she says. “We need to have the agility as the City of Boston to best economically revitalize our neighborhoods.”

With the cap in place, Boston does not have that agility. With the cap in place, Boston does not have the opportunity to capitalize on the wealth of talent in the local restaurant industry. With the cap in place, in a city that boasts its dedication to innovation, one of the Hub’s most vibrant creative industries is being kept in check.

And with the cap in place, segregation endures.

“When people say, with all the handouts and resources committed to Roxbury, Dorchester, and Mattapan, how come the residents aren’t doing better, tell them this story,” says former Roxbury Sen. Dianne Wilkerson. “What one hand giveth, many hands taketh away.”

This story was produced in collaboration with the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism and with research assistance from Epicenter Community. Please join both nonprofits for a discussion about liquor license disparity at Dudley Dough in Roxbury on Tuesday, March 29 at 7pm.

THOUGH FEW OF THE LICENSES MADE AVAILABLE FOR MATTAPAN AND ROXBURY HAVE ENDED UP ACTUALLY GOING TO ESTABLISHMENTS IN THOSE NEIGHBORHOODS, NEW RESTAURANTS ON THE SOUTH BOSTON WATERFRONT HAVE NOTABLY BENEFITED FROM LEGISLATION MEANT TO HELP STRUGGLING BUSINESS DISTRICTS.

NEWS TO US

FEATURE

DEPT. OF COMMERCE

ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT

11

EATS

NEWBRIDGE CAFE

A Decades-Old Institution, Steak Tips, and More

ONCE Lounge & Ballroom 156 Highland Ave. ONCEsomerville.com 4/3-4/22 The Rock & Roll Rumble

is here @ ONCE! Check out the bands at ONCESomerville.com. Presented by Boston Emissions/WZLX Individual tickets for preliminary rounds on sale now!

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3.24.16 - 3.31.16

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DIGBOSTON.COM

When tourists and business folks come to Boston, they often think of trying such regional items as clam chowder, lobster, baked beans, and the like. To those who live in and around the city, however, the term “regional foods” tends to bring to mind such things as roast beef sandwiches (mostly on the North Shore), bar pizza (mostly south of the city), and steak tips, which tend to be found in mostly working-class neighborhood joints throughout the area. And to some, there is only one place to go for this distinctly regional dish—the NewBridge Cafe in Chelsea, a cash-only local fave that has been serving up transcendent versions of tips for more than four decades.

The NewBridge Cafe is located in what some people call the heart of steak tip country, which includes a swath that cuts through such places as East Boston, Revere, Chelsea, Everett, and Malden. It is fitting that the watering hole sits near where three of these communities meet—Chelsea, Revere, and Everett—and like many spots for steak tips such as Floramo’s in Chelsea and Stewart’s in Everett, the NewBridge isn’t all that easy to find, being in a residential neighborhood that is more or less cut off on the east by Route 1 and on the west and north by a couple of huge cemeteries. From the outside, the mostly windowless place looks like it could be a sketchy dive bar, but it really is more of a family-friendly dining and drinking spot, with its main room having rows of seats on one side and a bar on the other (and a low partition complete with old-fashioned bar rail separating the two), and a separate dining area above the main room that is good for larger groups and diners who want to be away from the bar. Expect lots of “honeys” and “sweeties” from the waitstaff, which is usually friendly, sometimes gruff, and often full of humor.

It would be easy to say that it’s all about the steak tips at the NewBridge Cafe, but a lot of other favorites can be found on its menu as well. The antipasto served with the restaurant’s legendary house dressing is a good place to start, and it is absolutely huge and piled in such a way that it could probably be considered the highest point in Chelsea at any given time. The house-made meatballs happen to be among the best in the Boston area (this is a very wellkept secret) and the red sauce they sit in is also as good as that of many if not most Italian restaurants nearby. As with the meatballs, the old-school steak fries can be ordered as an appetizer or on the side, and the fries are so big that one wonders what the original potatoes may have looked like. Main courses at the NewBridge include chicken parm (again, with the marvelous red sauce), baked scallops, tripe if you are so inclined, mild and slightly sweet Italian sausage, and a variety of tips, with the lean turkey tips, rich-tasting lamb tips, and savory pork tips all being excellent choices—and you can do combo plates if you don’t know which tips to choose. Finally, there are the NewBridge steak tips, and much of the goodness here comes from the outstanding marinade whose recipe is a heavily guarded secret, though half of all people in the Boston area claim to have the recipe or have “successfully recreated” it (don’t listen to any of them). However the marinade is made, it brings out the flavor of the beef without overwhelming it, giving the right amount of “zest” to go perfectly with the char from the grill.

Alcoholic beverages go very well with the steak tips—and everything else at the NewBridge—and a few craft beers are offered along with the mass-market options, while plenty of hard stuff is available for shots and mixed drinks.

You don’t hear much about steak tips outside of New England, and even in New England itself steak tip places seem to become fewer and farther between as you head away from the Greater Boston area, so it really is a regional dish that often gets lost among all the talk of roast beef, bar pies, and yes, clam chowder and lobster. And while you can certainly make an argument for Floramo’s in Chelsea having the region’s best tips, the NewBridge Cafe seems to be—to many, anyway—the premiere spot for them, making this a place that meat lovers really need to seek out. >> NEWBRIDGE CAFE. 650 WASHINGTON AVE., CHELSEA. NEWBRIDGECAFE.COM

PHOTO BY MARC HURWITZ

BY MARC HURWITZ @HIDDENBOSTON

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DEPT. OF COMMERCE

ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT

13

ARTS ENTERTAINMENT

MEET HIROMI WAKABAYASHI, CREATIVE DIRECTOR OF SPACE PATROL LULUCO AT ANIME BOSTON!

14

WED 3.23

THU 3.24

FRI 3.25

SAT 3.26

TUE 3.29

TUE 3.29

Opening Night!

Boston Underground Film Festival @ Brattle Theatre

Fucking Sea Turtles @ New England Aquarium

Anime Boston @ Hynes Convention Center

Cocktail/Magic @ The Castle at Park Plaza

Dudley Dough @ Haley House

Jazz & Contemporary Improvisation Depts.

Performance @ Jordan Hall

Every year the freak flag flies during BUFF, the official unofficially coolest film fest around. Kicking off this year is a love story of mayhem and suspense with The Lure, a slightly vampiric and occasionally mermaid tale of sisters that get all wet in their own special way. The list of films this year is a dizzy mix of brilliance and bungle, but don’t waste too much time letting us explain that here.

Our own film guru, Jake Mulligan, goes into great detail in this week’s issue, describing the ins and outs of this year’s festival lineup. Save some dates as the fest runs through Sunday, and read up on all the goodness that’s just a few pages away.

You gotta love those goddamn sea creatures. All the fishes and crustaceans and crazy ass bitches like starfish and fucking octupussies and holy crap so many other weird shit freaky things swimming around in that huge fucking tank!

And turtles. Man. Fucking sea turtles. Those are the the most badass little beasts around. Big ol’ beaks or hard lips or whatever they are, just crushing little kids’ fingers and kelp like there’s no tomorrow. And they don’t give a fuck about you.

They float around and flap those funky wing arms they got, bobbing to the top for a fresh breath of air or just chilling on a rock thinking, “Look at my ass?! I’m a fucking sea turtle.” Leave work early and go say hi to those rockstar beasts!

Japanese animation and the pop culture around it is an acquired taste, like any subculture.

However, with over 20,000 attendees expected this weekend, anime has become mainstream and a passion for the young and old. While you might immediately think of Hello Kitty, and there should be no shortage of that, Anime Boston goes deep into the well with J-pop and J-rock, as well as Japanese history and culture in general. Pre-registration is preferred and there’s a limited number of day-of registration and tickets available, so sign up early if you still can or show up early Friday for day-of.

And please don’t show up dressed like Dora. That’s just awkward.

Alcohol is best served with a side of illusion, good food, and some funky shit playing on the ray-deeoh! Tied together with a charitable component, the Well Dunn Foundation, as well as a host of local restaurants and the best bartenders in town, this is a mini Taste of the Cocktail without the boozy stench of Bourbon Street. Not that anyone has a problem with that. Pull out your Saturday best, throw some tickets on your credit card, and gather a friend or three for a night of pulling rabbits out of hats and other drink names you didn’t think were possible.

Did you read “The Thirsty Games,” our double feature on the history of liquor licensing in Boston? It’s the first journalistic attempt ever to understand why some neighborhoods have lots of bars and restaurants while others don’t. Next week join the Dig, as well as the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism and Epicenter Community, for a discussion about this phenomenon at Dudley Dough in Roxbury. No such conversation could have taken place in Dudley Square at this time last year, so there have been some wins in terms of getting new beer bars. As for the future of liquor licensing in Boston, you can count on the issue being front and center.

Student exhibits and performances at area colleges can sometimes leave you with a yearning… for more talent. It’s not as if we could do better, but rather it can be unpolished, raw, or just complete shit.

The students at the New England Conservatory do not suffer from that, thankfully, and as such the annual performance of incredibly talented musicians is a must for anyone seriously interested in music or trying to raise their lowbrow image.

Improvisational jazz and music as a whole can be strained and unlistenable to the untrained (or severely sober) ear, but to those in the know, it’s pure harmony.

Brattle Theatre. 40 Brattle St., Cambridge. 7pm/18+/$12. bostonunderground.org

New England Aquarium.

1 Central Wharf, Boston.

9am-5pm/all ages/$26.95. neaq.org

Hynes Convention Center. 900 Boylston St., Boston. 9am/all ages/$65. animeboston.com

The Castle at Park Plaza.

130 Columbus Ave., Boston. 5pm/21+/$124. cocktailmagic.com

Dudley Dough.

2302 Washington St., Roxbury. 7pm/all ages/ FREE. medium.com/@BINJ

NEC’s Jordan Hall, 30 Gainsborough St., Boston. 7:30pm/all ages/ FREE. cantab-lounge.com

3.24.16 - 3.31.16

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DIGBOSTON.COM

NEWS TO US

FEATURE

DEPT. OF COMMERCE

ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT

15

MUSIC

MUSIC

Seven bands that didn’t need PR to win us over

Indie pop or power folk, the gray area between emotion

SXSW SWEETHEARTS

LUCIUS

BY NINA CORCORAN @NINA_CORCORAN

NAKED

Electronica that’s afraid to get too loud is the type of electronica that washes over you with an entirely different set of rules than you’re used to.

Dream pop maker NAKED gives Edinburgh a good name, creating sedative waves of electro-pop somewhere between Beach House and the xx. Give the band time. By the end of the year, it’ll be popping up as an artist you need to know.

INGRIDA DANIELIUTE

Every year, Austin sees its streets flood with overeager journalists, overly hip promoters, and bands trying to play five shows a day. SXSW brings everyone there to discover new music—but can we call it discovering when people like Iggy Pop and the Strokes, bands that certainly don’t need extra exposure, sit at the top of bills?

We scoured house shows and city-limit bars to do some real discovering. Without further adieu, say hello to the seven bands who impressed us without a promoter telling us to be impressed.

BY BECCA DEGREGORIO @BECCADEGREGORIO

Zürich, Switzerland, houses an experimental pop band called Disco Doom. Instead of playing their usual material, two of the band’s members flew out to Austin to perform as J&L Defer, a beautiful slow rock act that sounds somewhat like Low and the Antlers. It’s intimate and thoughtful— something we didn’t think we’d find during the hecticness of SXSW.

Patio

Brooklyn trio Patio plucks its way through minimal lo-fi pop rock that charms you in under a minute.

Self-described as pastel post-punk, the trio of Loren DiBlasi, LindseyPaige McCloy, and Alice Suh is prepping to release its debut EP later this spring. We’ve got a feeling we’ll be listening to it way past that season.

DYLAN JOHNSON

JONAH ROSENBERG

J&L Defer

KING

The art-pop rockers of Weaves are too hard to pin down with any genre tags. The four stuff funk, punk, and garage into their sound, whipping through songs you couldn’t create unless you were tripping—or just really, really creative.

As much as we love a good colorful rendezvous, Weaves seems to fall in the latter category, if only because frontwoman Jasmyn Burke rocks calculated lyrics that prioritize fun over revelation, giving us an excuse to goof off to seriously talented music.

Nature pop sounds like an odd genre, but Lomelda of Waco, Texas, turns it into something too beautiful and pure to laugh at. The duo’s music springs to life with the bursts of guitar strums and percussive drumming. It feels like Frankie Cosmos had she permanently placed herself in happy memories and taken the spiritual medicinal herbs Diane Cluck must make in her downtime.

Yung

JEPPE BERG

MADELINE HARVEY

Lomelda

Weaves

NINA CORCORAN

ALEX KING

KING is more than an R&B trio; it’s a dream pop act with groove, floating between the atmospheric worlds of Janet Jackson and Solange. Live, the sound becomes even more liquified. Missing it live will forever go on your permanent record.

Yung is the type of band you wander into an overcrowded room stale with sweat, hear thirty seconds of music by, and decide to stick around. Led by 21-year-old frontman and songwriter Mikkel Holm Silkjær, the Denmark group rocks the confidence of an older band with the energy of a younger one, whipping out hook-based rock bursting with all the feels. In other words, it’s perfect for any mood.

MUSIC EVENTS THU 3.24

A TRULY VUNDERBAR TIME VUNDABAR + CROSS COUNTRY + STRANGE MANGERS

[Great Scott, 1222 Comm. Ave., Boston. 9pm/18+/$8. boweryboston.com] 16

3.24.16 - 3.31.16

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FRI 3.25

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DIGBOSTON.COM

Lucius is a folk-pop outfit of many memorable outfits: metallic dresses, perfectly sculpted bobs, and monochromatic tan suits that would never fly in any self-respecting bridal party but somehow work on stage. The five members make up an artistic, intense breed of sound and style, which makes sense given the group’s allusive name.

But that quality in Lucius is falling back to earth this year. The band’s sophomore release, Good Grief, presents something new. It’s relatable, hauntingly so as vocalists Jess Wolfe and Holly Laessig stray a bit from their traditionally in-unison singing.

Harmonies sound warm and ungathered, much like each song’s honest, unfabricated lyrics. If a label’s necessary, the album’s some sort of intentionally unfiltered pop that should be enjoyed one track at a time.

“I’m afraid another heart is hard to find,” sing the duo in the heavyhearted track “What We Have (To Change).” They started writing together as students at Berklee College of Music, and the rest was sonic history. That said, lyrics like these are the work of not just learned musicians but of introspective writers. The track accomplishes what the entire album does. It says a feeling, specifically the one we get when “should” and “want,” “happy” and “satisfied” don’t align. Wolfe and Laessig describe trading in a wedding bouquet for car keys, driving home, and realizing the party’s over. The verse gets more ambiguous from there: “Find me a mountain or any grand canyons. Find us an igloo, and I’ll freeze in you.” The thought is beautiful, but the reality is cold. To stay or not to stay with the person who traps your heart. That is the question Lucius leaves unanswered.

Another relatable open door the band leaves open in Good Grief is genre. Vocals swing from soul to rock to choral at different checkpoints in the album, and neither the chords nor the beat follow in tandem. Because of this, the album can sound a bit confused in full. Songs like hard-driving “Better Look Back” and back-seated “Dusty Trails” shouldn’t be next to one another, and yet they are.

They simply sound like different moods. However, each song stands strongly on its own. The album’s strength doesn’t come from cohesion but rather its individual entries.

Inevitable indecision is the backbone of Good Grief, lacing an emotional thread through each key change and skip. Single songs hold power, making a collection of epic, emotionally blurry examples: album into tracks into verses into forks in the road.

When the listener reaches “Gone Insane,” Wolfe and Laessig subdivide further by singing out of synch for what never fails to sound like the first time. It sounds like an argument over who’s more insane. Whimpering loud, soft, then out of rhythm, the song concludes at a tie: “We’re all alone in this togetherness.” >> LUCIUS. TUE 3.29. ROYALE, 279 TREMONT ST., BOSTON. 7PM/18+/$25. ROYALEBOSTON.COM

FRI 3.25

SAT 3.26

MON 3.28

[Red Room @ Cafe 939, 939 Boylston St., Boston.

8pm/all ages/$5. berklee.edu]

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[Out of the Blue Too Art Gallery & More, 541 Mass. Ave., Cambridge. 9pm/all ages. outoftheblueartgallery.com]

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FOR THE FOLKS OUT THERE JOE PURDY + GARRISON STARR

SHOW MOMS FOR SOFT ROCK HORSE JUMPER OF LOVE + SOFT FANGS

WED 3.30

SURF ON LOCAL TURF TIJUANA PANTHERS + DINOCZAR + ANDY SADOWAY

[Great Scott, 1222 Comm. Ave., Boston. 9pm/18+/$10. boweryboston.com]

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17

FILM

STILL B.U.F.F.

Your Guide to the 2016 Boston Underground Film Festival

BY JAKE MULLIGAN @_JAKEMULLIGAN “Underground” is one of those words, like “hardcore” after it, that connotes extremism in all its forms. Aberrant sexuality, disturbing bloodshed, radical politics, whatever; find it all in the mythical, all-meaning underground. How can a film festival do justice to such a descriptor? The Boston Underground Film Festival takes its shot each year with programming that spans both forms and formats: It’s a specialty festival that’s open to all specialities, a haven for the deepest cuts of dangerously gonzo film culture. Short films, music videos, features, and cartoons (served on Saturday morning with cereal) are mixed together in an egalitarian manner throughout the five-day festival (March 23-27) with each day punctuated by special appearances, live performances, or parties (see the sidebars). The fest itself is branching out even deeper this year, literally speaking—a second location has been added, with screenings now split on either side of Harvard Yard (most are at the Brattle Theatre, with the rest at the Harvard Film Archive). Some individual films are considered below, but the experience is the thing: To best experience BUFF, one grabs a pass and staggers along, until all the deviancy starts to bleed together. Maybe you even find the underground.

WENDIGO

Directed by Larry Fessenden Thursday, 3.24. Brattle Theatre. 9:45pm. 15th Anniversary Screening. 35mm.

On New York land that’s been ill gotten at least three times over, Fessenden illustrates a lineage of cultural theft: City people George (Jake Weber) and Diana (Patricia Clarkson) travel to an upstate vacation home with their eight-year-old son (Erik Per Sullivan), the father clad in a sweater adorned with decorative deer antlers, the mother wearing an animal-skin cap, the outdoorsiness of it all as insincere as a country welcome. They get one of those welcomes soon enough, after their Volvo strikes a deer that Otis (John Speredakos) had been tracking for 18 hours, when the townie responds with a rifle framed as big as a movie screen. He used to own the home they’re staying in, so he adds an accoutrement to the welcome (bullet holes in their windows). Waiting behind Otis, in turn, is an Algonquian spirit who appears and disappears at will, imposing a judgmental heft toward all these half-educated white men arguing about stolen land. He warns George’s boy about the eponymous beast—an immortal flesh-eater—then leaves the rest to their due judgments. Fessenden renders their chases and tortures in individual frames, often cutting up suspense sequences into split seconds; interspersed among the confrontations are domestic scenes with the family trio, all composed with a morally minded arm (Sam Raimi, meet Samuel Fuller) and perceived by a youthful eye (who seems sure to inherit all the hate he’s witnessing from these low angles). A campfire horror tale about dangerous intersections of class, region, and color, and the hatred that can brew between all those distinctions over the course of lost generations. The boy’s perspective is the one that Wendigo keeps, and it proves rather enlightened: The people fade, the land wins out.

CASH ONLY

Directed by Malik Bader Friday, 3.25. Brattle Theatre. 9:30pm.

The convenience store clerk in this neighborhood works behind a bulletproof panel; maybe that’s the only safe place that the working class has to offer. Elvis (Nickola Shreli, who also wrote the screenplay) is an Albanian landlord in Detroit, the widowed father to a young daughter, and the overseer (via video camera) of a slum that’s not gentrifying quick enough for his tastes. Three enemies catch up to him—his mortgage, his personal debt, and a local crime boss—so he’s left to squeeze money out of every outlet available to him (fraud, theft, and outright violence). Bader follows him with a handheld camera, invoking the Dardenne brothers—other tellers of tales about working-class people who are pushed to illegal limits—and framing this immigrant-heavy pocket of Detroit as a heavily trafficked intersection of worseoff wage workers, where everyone subsists off their own chosen cultural comforts (European soap operas, Asian pop music, and American video games). The finale is Grand Guignol; the tragedy is that it’s no bleaker than the dog-eat-dog day jobs seen before it.

SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL

Directed by Neil Edwards Saturday, 3.26. Harvard Film Archive. 12:30pm.

They funded magazines and bands to spread their message; they hosted black masses that were described as “Dada meets Aleister Crowley”; they attracted artists like George Clinton and John Waters, even going so far as to get a member on a salaried post with the Beatles.

They were the Process Church of the Final Judgment, and they preached of an inevitable union between Jehovah, Lucifer, Christ, and Satan that would hasten the end of human existence; in Sympathy for the Devil, they’re rewarded with the talking-heads nonfiction-film treatment. Edwards gathers surviving members (like selfdescribed psychic “Sister Greer” and magazine designer Timothy Wylie) of the short-lived collective (it was most widely active in the ’60s and early ’70s) to reminisce about old times (shocking hippies and bourgeoisie alike in Britain, witnessing the existence of otherworldly beings while starving in Xtul, catching post-Manson heat while soaking up the last moments of the real ’60s back in New Orleans). Offkilter sound design and prankish visual creations accentuate all their memories (jagged hisses, record scratches, digitally treated archival footage, warped corners—the usual info-doc jazzing up, but gone satanic). Wylie, with a beard fit for a Christopher Lee stand-in, speaks most insightfully about the group’s curious (and partially unexplained) journey “from psychological to psychic to spiritual.” A decade-long historical record is melted down into chapter-based segments small enough to fit between commercial breaks—one on their robed fashion, another on their Scientologyadjacent personality games, the next on their publicityminded shock tactics. As numerous primary sources have either died or chosen to remain silent, this red-hued shock doc remains more an afternoon memory than a comprehensive record. A subject for further research, then, and Wylie’s recollections are a hell of a start.

CHASING BANKSY

Directed by Frank Henenlotter Saturday, 3.26. Brattle Theatre. 7pm.

Post-Katrina New Orleans circa 2008 is the dormant tomb; a Banksy piece spray-painted on the side of an abandoned building the buried gold. It’s 2008; hyperprivileged Williamsburg art bros—“Fuck money!” one of them rages sincerely while orating in front of street art, while on the way home from what was surely a hefty bar tab—see their one big score slathered across a series of wind-ravaged boards. By plane and by car they travel, first to Birmingham, then to New Orleans—the whole south rendered as a series of dilapidated buildings under picturesque sunsets, where black neighborhoods peer at the latest round of tourist looters. All this is advertised as a “true story” (Anthony Sneed is the screenwriter, the lead

actor, and the primary character), and some preliminary research indicates that at least a few of these works have indeed gone missing (though the image used in the film is fictional, Banksy did leave a series of pieces in the South during ’08). There’s a modicum of self-awareness in the peering, but more often it’s just another adventure yarn.

Two black women—a New Orleans native and an NYC art figure—get to tell the main characters what for, with one or two sentences each. A few more sentences and that self-awareness might’ve gotten us somewhere.

ANTIBIRTH

Directed by Danny Perez Saturday, 3.26. Brattle Theatre. 9:30pm.

A cavern-based cabal of drug-dealing pseudo pimps forcibly implants an inhuman seed into a chosen female mark, then conspires against her to ensure that it is delivered and not aborted—pro-choice protest, à la Cronenberg. The first sequence has a patriarch dragging Lou (Natasha Lyonne) out of party staged around flaming garbage cans; she wakes up the next morning within the id of American trash culture: a hellish landscape of castoffs, tube televisions, cheap smokes, whip-its, reruns of Cops, and oncefashionable fishnets (the set decoration is

by Louise Bergeron, the production design is by Peter Mihaichuk, and the costume design is by Alex Reda). Lyonne’s Lou comes down from her bender, then works her way through the ensuing conspiracy like a good noir heroine: with untrusty friends at her side (Mark Webber and Chloe Sevigny, as Bonnie and Clyde gone heroin-grunge) and with flippancy on her tongue (a trusted partner says that her alien pregnancy has caused tears in the psychic atmosphere, and Lyonne deadpans that she’s “definitely been seeing some shit” in response). But then comes the body horror—the results of an unwanted pregnancy, cheekily rendered as a creature from the black lagoon.

RAIN THE COLOR OF BLUE WITH A LITTLE RED IN IT

Directed by Christopher Kirkley Sunday, 3.27. Harvard Film Archive. 2pm.

An American filmmaker directs a West African remake of Purple Rain, shot in Niger and performed in the Tuareg language, with one of that culture’s prime musical artists playing the Prince role—Rain the Color of Blue with a Little Red in It is cultural appropriation made endlessly confounding. That promotional film’s plot is restaged in the Sahara—there’s an artist (Mdou Moctar) strolling into a new town, a rival (Kader, playing the Morris Day role) who threatens to steal his music, a girlfriend who supports him, a father that burns him down, and even a favorite romantic hangout (the desert stands in for Lake Minnetonka). Both the worldwide vise grip of Hollywood influence and the stalwart spirit required to drive away from it are combined into one ethereal symbol: a budgetpriced motorcycle, adorned with purple Scotch tape.

>> BOSTON UNDERGROUND FILM FESTIVAL. 3.23-3.27 AT THE BRATTLE THEATRE AND THE HARVARD FILM ARCHIVE. SEE BOSTONUNDERGROUND.ORG FOR FULL SCHEDULE, TICKET INFORMATION, AND MORE. 18

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Tony Humphries, Alfredo, Brenden Wesley, Jabulani, Spencer4Hire, McFly HOUSE, DISCO, TECHNO & MASHUPS

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ARTS

SIZING UP THE SEASON Big plans ahead for local theaters

BY CHRISTOPHER EHLERS @_CHRISEHLERS For a theater buff, there are few times of the year as exciting as when companies begin announcing their plans for the next season. With most announcements having just been made, here are the 2016-17 theatrical events that you should get excited about now:

Barbeque, The Lyric Stage

Racial stereotypes and family dynamics collide in the latest from Robert O’Hara, whose Bootycandy is currently playing at SpeakEasy. The great Summer L. Williams will direct.

The Bridges of Madison County, SpeakEasy Stage

Sure, it’s basically a Hallmark card on stage, but Jason Robert Brown’s sumptuous, Tony-winning score is the draw here.

The ever-reliable M. Bevin O’Gara will direct. May 2017.

Company, The Lyric Stage

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Under the direction of Sondheim aficionado (and Lyric artistic director) Spiro Veloudos, you can bet that this is going to be intimate and electric. Everybody rise! September 2016.

Edward II, Actors’ Shakespeare Project

Christopher Marlowe’s rarely performed play about King Edward II, whose reign is threatened when he brings his male lover out of exile. February 2017.

Fiddler on the Roof, New Repertory Theatre

All right, this one’s major: Broadway’s original Motel, Austin Pendleton (who also directed Elizabeth Taylor on Broadway in The Little Foxes) will mount this beloved classic “with striking intimacy and simplicity.” The terrific Jeremiah Kissel will star as Tevye. December 2016.

Hamlet, Actors’ Shakespeare Project

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How often do we have the chance to see the greatest play ever written? Hamlet’s not easy to pull off, but I have faith in the always-good Actor’s Shakespeare Project. Doug Lockwood (perfect as Richard II this season) will direct.

October 2016.

Hand to God, SpeakEasy Stage

Nominated for five 2015 Tony Awards, including Best Play, Robert Askins’ comedy about a boy and his hand puppet who takes on a life of his own will be making its New England premiere. January 2017.

The Little Foxes, The Lyric Stage

Lillian Hellman’s 1939 masterpiece about the greedy Hubbard family isn’t revived nearly as often as it should be.

Scott Edmiston, whose My Fair Lady was a major highlight of last season, will direct. January 2017.

The Scottsboro Boys, SpeakEasy Stage

Kander and Ebb’s (Cabaret, Chicago) riveting, chilling musical about nine African-American boys jailed in Alabama in 1931 for a crime they didn’t commit is one of the most powerful musicals I’ve ever seen. October 2016.

Sunday in the Park with George, Huntington Theatre Company

After striking gold last season with A Little Night Music, Huntington artistic director Peter DuBois will again be at the helm for another Sondheim masterpiece. It isn’t only my favorite Sondheim musical, but my favorite musical of all time. If you see only one show next season, this should be it.

September 2016.

Topdog/Underdog, Huntington Theatre Company This one put Suzan-Lori Parks on the map and won her a Pulitzer, making her the first African-American woman to win for drama. March 2017.

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SAVAGE LOVE

FIXATIONS, ORAL AND OTHERWISE

WHAT'S FOR BREAKFAST

BY PATT KELLEY WHATS4BREAKFAST.COM

BY DAN SAVAGE @FAKEDANSAVAGE | MAIL@SAVAGELOVE.NET I’m a 24-year-old male, married three years, monogamous. My wife and I are religious and were both virgins when we got married. I’m sexually frustrated with two things. (1) How can I get her to give me oral sex? (She has never given and I have never received oral sex. I regularly give her oral sex.) She is afraid to try it, saying she’s not ready yet. About every six months, I bring it up and it leads to a fight. She is a germophobe, but I think she believes fellatio is done only in porn. (I used to look at porn, which nearly ended our then-dating relationship.) (2) I feel like I’m always giving and never receiving any type of affection: massages, kisses, caresses, you name it. It’s like having sex with a sex doll— no reciprocation. How do I broaden our sex life without making her feel like we’re in a porno?

Sexually Frustrated If you don’t already have children—you don’t mention kids—please don’t have any, SF, at least not with your first wife.

You’re a religious person, SF, a lifestyle choice I don’t fully understand. But you’re also a sexual person, and that I do understand. And if you want a lifelong, sexually exclusive, and sexually fulfilling relationship, then you must prioritize sexual compatibility during your search for the second Mrs. SF. Because your next marriage is likelier to survive for the long haul if you’re partnered with someone who is attracted to you physically and is aroused—roughly speaking— by the same sex acts, positions, and fantasies you are.

In other words: Don’t marry someone and hope she likes sucking your dick. You tried that, and it didn’t work. Find someone who likes sucking your dick and marry her.

On the Lovecast, Debby Herbenick on anxietyinduced orgasms: savagelovecast.com

THE STRANGERER

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