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NEWS

THE BATHROOM BILL BAKER EARNS MORE BOOS

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LAWREN HARRIS CANADIAN MODERNISM AT THE MFA

EATS

SANTARPIO’S

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LITTLE HOUSES FEATURE

BUILDING THE AMERICAN DREAM. SMALLER.

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HEADLINING THIS WEEK! Nikki Glaser Fri+Sat

VOL 18 + ISSUE 18

MAY 5, 2016 - MAY 12, 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

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I heard about the latest round of Boston Globe buyouts while sorting through my collection of more old magazines and newspapers than a person my age should probably own. Though I often make my gripes with the local newspaper of record public, it still pains me to see any cutbacks and downsizing in the dailies and across media in general. So it’s that much more depressing to hear such news in the middle of flipping through throwbacks of everything from The Source magazine, which in the ’90s dispatched someone to the Middle East to cover Palestinian hip-hop, to National Geographic, which survives but under the ownership of the repulsive Rupert Murdoch. There’s a lot of wisdom in those yellowing pages, from the Boston Phoenix and other iconic Mass alt mags like The Avatar (look it up!), to the OG cornball teenybopper rag Dynamite, a zine ‘for the ‘’80s kid’ that my mom just found in the closet (the cover story was about Tony Danza, and purported to get to the bottom of the “Who really is the boss?” conundrum once and for all). I’m no Luddite, and have covered the future of music and reading for years; I even have four e-books for sale, which I encourage you to cop on Amazon or iTunes. But as somebody who really loves to hold everything from encyclopedias to moldy newspapers to pamphlets, it saddens me to see the options of my daily catch diminish. At one point, this city had at least a dozen publications like this one.

Now, including online alternatives, I can count the number of trendsetting culture publications on one paw. Don’t misunderstand me—I’ll always cherish the relics, and hope to one day open up my archives and collection to the public in a place where they can be appreciated. For now, I guess I’m just reminding you to support your print pubs that are still around—whether scrappy indie ones like the Dig or the wretched good-for-nothing neoliberal hackbots at the Boston Globe.

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©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.

OH, CRUEL WORLD Dear Poser, That’s right—you’re such a goddamn poser that I had to break the word out of my ‘98 bag. While we’re speaking about cultural icons that haven’t received nearly enough mention in the past couple of decades, please remind us—are you the biggest Prince fan in the world? Or are you the biggest David Bowie fan? According to different posts on your Facebook wall (with roughly five months in between of you posting nothing but the lamest trend-mongering contemporary indie rock crapola), you’re the world’s leading appreciator of both, which is seismically impossible—especially for somebody who had to ask where they could stream Prince albums online. Epic poseur. That’s you.

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Mike Mitchell is a carpenter on Martha’s Vineyard who has built a community of tiny houses. Read all about this movement of smaller living on page 10.

Photo by Alison Mead.

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NEWS US MORE BOOS FOR BAKER NEWS TO US

When it comes to transgender issues, there’s more than just a ‘bathroom bill’ at stake

BY MAYA SHAFFER I don’t typically touch transgender issues, because I tend to focus on issues of governmental transparency and accountability. But we’re at a unique point where the transgender conversation meets with the governmental accountability conversation. The other reason I generally avoid the subject is because I’m transgender, and I already get enough threats for my reporting.

Transgender rights are a pressing national issue, especially after North Carolina passed the notorious HB2.

The law does a number of vile things, including forcing transgender people to use bathrooms that don’t match their gender identity and barring municipal governments from passing ordinances that protect transgender people’s right to use the appropriate facilities. The law is bad enough that it prompted the Washington Post to report on the potential health crisis that it may cause among the state’s transgender youth.

The fallout since HB2 became law has been incredible.

There have been travel bans and boycotts. Many businesses have canceled plans to move to or expand their interests in North Carolina, and many entertainers are refusing to perform there. Several other states have banned their employees from nonessential travel to North Carolina and Mississippi, the latter of which has a similar law. But not “progressive” Massachusetts.

Though the Boston City Council passed a travel ban for its employees, Governor Charlie Baker refused to add Mass to the list (boo!). Maybe Baker refused because he understands that banning travel to another state over its abuse of transgender people would be hypocritical since Mass continues to sentence transgender women to torture and sexual assaults (boo!).

Massachusetts is considering a bill, dubbed the bathroom bill, that would protect everyone’s right to use the bathroom that matches their gender identity. It would mandate that establishments that are open to the public and offer gendered restrooms must allow everyone to use the bathroom that matches their gender identity. The bill has been held up by Baker and the state legislature, which led to some folks, who I assume just want to use the correct bathroom, booing Baker off the stage last month at Boston Spirit magazine’s LGBT Executive Networking Night.

Passing the bathroom bill would protect everyone’s right to use the correct bathroom. Using myself as an example, I’m female. Both the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the federal government legally recognize me as such. Since I am legally female, any establishment that forces me to use the men’s room would legally be able to do the same to any other woman (trans or cis). Failure to pass the bill allows any establishment to force people into the wrong bathroom (or to refuse to accommodate them completely). This isn’t strictly a transgender issue either; just last week, RawStory reported on a cis woman being hauled out of a women’s room by the police.

This isn’t just about bathrooms. Legally mandating this protection would stop governmental institutions from abusing transgender people too. This is a real problem because Mass legally recognizes transgender people, me, as the gender they transitioned to, but are knowingly keeping people in the wrong prison facilities.

While I have never been arrested or charged with a crime, 4

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those who follow my work will know that I have faced repeated threats of arrest. Terrifyingly, if imprisoned in the Mass Department of Correction, I would likely be housed with men.

The DOC places transgender women into men’s facilities (and vice versa) based on a particular prisons’ security and operational concerns over a transgender individual’s legal or medically recognized gender. It actually has a policy outlining how corrections staff are to identify and provide treatment for transgender people— even though it still houses them in the inappropriately gendered facility.

In her book Resistance Behind Bars: The Struggles of Incarcerated Women, Victoria Law cites a study from California which showed that 59 percent of transgender women housed in men’s facilities were sexually assaulted (compared to 4 percent of inmates who identified as male). The same book also provides evidence that transgender women are routinely forced into prostitution (by prisoners and guards) and shows that transgender women in male facilities are regularly placed in solitary confinement. The UN calls prolonged solitary confinement torture and has called upon America to stop using it in many circumstances, including those that arise from mental health issues.

The current corrections policy, which was authored during Baker’s administration (boo!), does not consider an inmate’s legal gender. For a pre-op transwoman, like me, who is legally female, to even be considered for appropriate housing, the policy suggests she would need to lop off her balls. Worse, even if the inmate had undergone full SRS (Sexual Reassignment Surgery), under this policy a prison superintendent could still decide to house the inmate incorrectly by citing a security or operational need to do so.

SRS is expensive and typically is not covered by health insurance. I can’t afford it and probably won’t be able to for years. Having a double orchiectomy now is medically unnecessary, painful, and expensive, and it would take weeks for me to recover from. Worse, the side effects could include potentially not being able to function sexually (at least until I completed SRS). This is an arbitrary and cruel line to draw, and it’s a different line than the one set by Massachusetts for recognizing a legal gender change.

But the policy isn’t all bad. At least the policy “may contain recommendations regarding access to cross-gender clothing and canteen/cosmetic items approved for inmates.”

Because, surely, having gender-appropriate clothing during sexual assaults is comforting. Silver linings, right?

Meanwhile, the argument against the Massachusetts bathroom bill appears to be that a man could legally put on a dress and enter the women’s room, and then sexual assaults would happen. However, state law already defines gender identity (hint: It’s not by asking, “Are you wearing a dress?”). The statute reads, “‘Gender identity’ shall mean a person’s gender-related identity ... Genderrelated identity may be shown by providing evidence including, but not limited to, medical history, care or treatment of the gender-related identity, consistent and uniform assertion of the gender-related identity.”

Contrary to the ignorant commentary that abounds, the bill does not protect a man who throws on a dress

to enter the women’s room. He would have to live as a female full time and/or have medical records backing up his claim. And since the bathroom bill does not change any of the criminal code for sexual assault, indecent exposure, etc, anyone who committed any such act would still be prosecuted (as well they should be). Any predatory activities, like the sexual assaults opponents to the bill claim to be afraid of, would still result in the same amount of jail time that they do now.

The ultimate argument boils down to people claiming transgender women are all just men in dresses who want to attack women… which is neither a medically nor a legally sound argument. When weighing such claims, remember that the local group presenting this argument also believes that watching porn is linked to cannibalism.

And for some reason Baker just can’t decide if he wants throw his hat in with this idiot cabal.

It’s shameful that Baker (boo!) and some leading state Democrats have held up passage of the so-called “bathroom bill.” Baker (boo!), who the Boston Globe (boo!) reported as being against similar measures previously, now appears unlikely to veto the bill. He still hasn’t said if he would use his veto (supporting the bill could hurt him nationally, while vetoing it could hurt him in Mass).

The Democrat leadership waited to put the bill on Baker’s desk, citing the potential veto, which is political cowardice on all counts (BOOOO!). The bill appears to be moving forward now that Baker’s spokesperson signaled that a veto is unlikely.

Finally, instead of sympathizing with the overwhelming need to criticize Baker, the Globe published an editorial blasting transgender advocates who booed the governor offstage last month. The editorial suggested that such protests could lead Baker to continue to oppose transgender rights. Or, to frame it more accurately, the Globe just blasted transgender advocates for being heard at a GLBT event.

The Globe’s insulting editorial offered this nugget of advice: “Save the boos for when and if that [Baker vetoes the bathroom bill] happens.” But in reality the booing put Baker in the hot seat and was widely covered in the media. While Baker has yet to make any real decision, his spokesperson has since signaled that he probably won’t veto the bill.

Baker should be buried in boos until he, as governor, puts an end to the deliberate and dangerous misgendered housing of inmates. His cowardice about the bathroom bill deserved boos too. To the governor and the Globe’s editorial staff—from me, a transgender woman—boo to all of you. *Author’s note: In this piece I only broke down the issue looking at gender as binary, which it isn’t. This isn’t to keep the folks elsewhere on the spectrum invisible, but rather because I cannot speak from experience about non-binary gender issues, and also because it’s not clear how the bill would affect people outside the binary. One reading would be that if a person didn’t constantly and provably identify as a gender they wouldn’t have a protected right to access either gendered bathroom. Another possibility is that the bill would protect you based on a doctor’s recommendation… Until there is case law it would be wrong for me to speculate. -M.S.

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OLDE MAGOUNʼS SALOON PRESENTS:

ROLLING DEBATE

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Dispatch from the MassCann/NORML Sons of Liberty road trip

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Last month, marijuana warriors from all over the country converged on Washington with two goals in mind: reform and civil disobedience. Following the call of the local reform group DCMJ, members of the Massachusetts Cannabis Reform Coalition (MassCann/NORML) left our home state, where we are deeply engaged in the fight to legalize on the November ballot, to join the larger fight for cannabis freedom. With the strong possibility of legalization on the horizon, MassCann has been asking important questions about the future scope of reform and will be broadening to include New England-wide issues, as well as direct involvement in federal reform.

Back to our DC trip: Under the current Controlled Substances Act, there are five “schedules” for drugs and chemicals that can be used to make drugs.

Schedule I is reserved for drugs that the DEA considers to have no “currently accepted medical use.” Marijuana has been classified as Schedule I for decades, grouped together with other substances like heroin and LSD. Many reformers call for the out-and-out descheduling of cannabis; but whether the feds reschedule or deschedule, either move could erode once and for all any arguments that prohibitionists have left. As of now, much of the blatant public ignorance stems from the ability for know-nothings to shrug and say, “There hasn’t been enough testing.”

It’s not enough to just show up to a party. So for our Sons of Liberty road trip, we rented a 15-passenger van and filled it with activists from as many state NORML chapters and related organizations as we could find with 48 hours’ notice. Among those who joined our ranks: military veteran/activist Stephen Mandile; caregiver and baker Mary Beth of CannaBeth Consultants; and Dr. Uma Dhanabalan of Uplifting Health and Wellness, who flew down at the last minute.

Our trek started down I-95 with Rhode Island NORML reps Mark Ward and Arthur McCarthy hopping aboard. Sleep was made more comfortable thanks to medible donations from Beast Coast Bacon and the Hardy Consultants, after which the van rolled into Philadelphia to meet activists including New Jersey NORML member Ricardo Rivera. Rivera advocates tirelessly for his daughter, Tuffy, who suffers from Lennox Gastaut Syndrome, a rare and catastrophic form of epilepsy. Plus Marine Corps veteran/activist Mike Whiter and PhillyNORML member and Freedom Leaf Editor Chris Goldstein, fresh off his federal probation for cannabis activism, with the latter’s Panic Hour co-host NA Poe. Had we been pulled over, it would have made for an interesting police report, to say the least.

Things kicked off in DC at the DCMJ offices, located just a few blocks from the White House. Activists rolled out a 51-foot joint, at which point police stopped the procession. A temporary standoff ensued, but protesters ultimately appeased the government by deflating said enormous doobie in order to move closer to President Barack Obama’s front lawn. With a beautifully simple PA system on a handcart powered by car batteries, DCMJ opened up the mic to advocates.

As the 4:20 pm light-up in peaceful civil disobedience approached, there was an ever-growing police and secret service presence, including dozens of cruisers and paddy wagons on standby. But as the smoke rose, the sky did not fall. There were no mass arrests, and no young people were dragged through the streets. There were two $25 fines, as per DC law, both of which were paid for by Philadelphia’s Poe in the spirit of solidarity.

Days after the protest, Keith Stroup, the national director of NORML, sparked an age-old philosophical debate by publicly deriding the protest, calling it “misguided and counter-productive,” among other things. As the founder of NORML, his opinions do hold weight, though to some they also seem hypocritical since Stroup himself has participated in simple civil disobedience.

It’s important to consider whether direct action and demonstrations are viable tactics that help facilitate change, and if certain actions compromise by breaking the law. In the meantime, during the days immediately following the DC protest, the DEA announced that the agency plans to decide whether marijuana should be reclassified under federal law in “the first half of 2016.”

Coincidence? I like to think not!

Chris Foye is a former Army airborne engineer and longtime Boston reform activist. He has served on MassCann/NORML’s Board of Directors since 2011 and is one of the event coordinators of the Boston Freedom Rally.

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FREE RADICAL

THE RIGHTS STUFF

Felons everywhere need vote in order to have voice

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It is with timid fingers and clammy palms that I reach out to you from the Free Radical handle. Emily Hopkins is leaving some big shoes to fill, and while my own upcoming column of another name and different content awaits, for now it seems appropriate that I address something both radical and criminal justiceoriented: restoring the voting rights of convicted felons.

The facts: Felony disenfranchisement, the loss of the right to vote due to conviction of a felony crime, prohibits 5.85 million Americans from voting. Only two states, Maine and Vermont, allow felons to vote with no restrictions. In 15 states, those convicted of a felony cannot vote while they are in prison; in four states, voting is suspended until someone has completed prison time and parole.

Furthermore, 18 states add successful completion of probation to that order, while in 12 states convicted felons cannot vote while in prison, on parole, on probation, or for an extensive waiting period after they’ve paid their debt to the criminal justice system.

There are at least four states where being convicted of a second felony (or of a particular felonious offense) permanently strips you of your right to vote.

Why does this matter?

Well, from one angle it matters the same way it mattered that during the Vietnam War 18-year-olds were draft-eligible, but couldn’t vote until they turned 21. Many soldiers had no say in electing the administration that sent them overseas. Today, as the criminal justice system is being altered (reform is slightly too optimistic, don’t you think?), particularly in regard to mandatory sentences and drug convictions, these previously convicted men and women are unable to cast a vote on something that may directly affect their lives or even in favor of landing a particular person in office.

Looked at from a different angle, it’s another way to keep black and minority Americans from voting.

A disproportionate number of the country’s convicted-felon population is black.

The Sentencing Project, a nonprofit criminal justice system watchdog, reports that one in 13 black Americans is unable to vote because of felony disenfranchisement, while only one in 56 non-black voters is affected by these laws.

Curious.

Historically, black Americans are far more likely to vote Democrat than Republican. A soaring majority of states with the most stringent restrictions on the voting rights of felons are those with a Republican-run legislature.

Curiouser.

On April 22, Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat, used his executive power to override the state’s Republican-dominated legislature and restored voting rights to more than 200,000 convicted felons. Most of them, the New York Times reported, are black.

I’m not here to debate Gov. McAuliffe’s political motivations for signing such a decree. But I do want to point out Virginia’s swing-state status and leave you thinking about which way that state may have swung had an extra 200,000 black Americans been able to cast their vote in, say, 2004.

Don’t get me started on Florida.

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LITTLE HOUSE EMISSARIES

FEATURE

From Martha’s Vineyard to Boston to Los Angeles, the small home movement struggles for acceptance at the end of the road “That’s definitely tiny.”

Mike Mitchell is standing outside of a blue cottage with scalloped roof trimming on Martha’s Vineyard in an area known to locals as “The Campground,” or Wesleyan Grove. He’s a carpenter in his 60s with light eyes and a sunny demeanor, and he’s part of the minority (about 10 percent) of the cottage owners who remain on the 34-acre swath of land in the off-season.

The cottages have an otherworldly quality: cobblestone paths, playful animal carvings, and whimsical sayings like “La Dolce Vita” or “Summer Love.” The compound seems like it came straight out of a children’s storybook setting, or Epcot.

This particular house is about 12.5 by 27 feet. It’s among the smaller of the cottages that are on the campground, which total just over 300, but everything about cottage life is relatively small compared to the typical American household. For Mitchell, Wesleyan Grove is a real-life example of what a tiny house community might look like, something that he hopes to one day see on Martha’s Vineyard.

“My vision is you take a land lot that can fit a fourto-six-bedroom house,” he says. “And instead of that, put four or six tiny houses, and you cluster them, kind

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of like the campground.”

“Tiny houses could be an affordable option for the island’s working class,” Mitchell adds. “This includes plumbers, carpenters, and teachers.”

Tiny houses have hit headlines for their eccentricities and, most recently, as a way to help the 44,000 homeless people in and around Los Angeles.

At least, that’s what LA resident Elvis Summers was hoping for when he constructed and gave out 37 tiny homes to those in need. However, the small structures, which were parked along sidewalks, caught the attention of city officials and have been tagged for removal. Connie Llanos, a spokeswoman for LA mayor Eric Garcetti, told NPR that the tiny houses were safety hazards.

In some places, however, an increasing number of city planners and housing advocates are looking at small dwellings as a possible solution to housing pressures. On the famously elite islands off Cape Cod, that impact is most severely felt by people in the lower and working classes.

According to Philippe Jordi, executive director of the Island Housing Trust, there is a housing crisis on the Vineyard, where most market-rate homes start

at around half a million dollars. He references the 2014 American Communities Survey on the state of housing in Dukes County (in which 99 percent of residents live on the Vineyard), which found that about 75 percent of housing units are valued at $500,000 or more, compared to 21 percent of housing statewide.

Furthermore, at the time of the survey, 60 percent of homeowners in Dukes were paying monthly mortgages of more than $2,000, while 40 percent of all renters were paying more than a third of their income on housing.

Mitchell notes that Martha’s Vineyard is a well-known vacation destination for influential people, and even tells a story about the time former President of the United States Bill Clinton visited the campground. The Wesleyan Grove resident, who has a background in computer science, was working as a digital contractor for the Secret Service at the time and describes Bubba as a “very charismatic man.” Still, Mitchell’s idea is to welcome people in a much lower tax bracket than Clinton.

“They want it to be a place they can live in during the summer,” he says of wealthy tourists. “They can’t do that if the working class doesn’t have housing.”

PHOTO BY ALISON MEAD

BY KAREN MORALES

Mitchell’s vision is a throwback to the Methodists who settled in the area in the 1870s and would gather at a meeting house called the Tabernacle, which still stands today. On these grounds 19th-century Methodists held “camp meetings” for sermons and prayers, while congregants pitched tents that eventually became more permanent. Specifically, Mitchell hopes for a future in which tight-knit communities of smaller units share amenities in a central structure that houses a kitchen and laundry.

HOME IS WHERE THE CART IS

The idea of tiny houses or small living spaces has been around since early human settlements camped out in Turkish yurts and gypsy caravans. The modern interpretation—like Macy Miller’s tiny house in Idaho—has seen a significant increase in popularity in the wake of the housing market collapse of 2008. So-called “tiny houses,” which are typically between 200 and 400 square feet, are part of a social movement of people looking to downsize their living situation. Owners typically value an alternative lifestyle that minimizes their financial expenses, decreases their carbon footprint, and adds flexibility to their lives.

In Massachusetts, tiny houses on wheels are lumped into the same category as mobile homes, and under the state’s building code it is prohibited to live in these types of structures for more than 30 days.

If they are built on a foundation—and few of them are—common features of tiny houses, such as ladders to sleeping lofts and a single egress (rather than two, in case of fire), are not allowed by building codes.

Adding to the restrictions are building permits that are required to move a tiny house structure to its desired location, as well as health code regulations and other zoning rules for different towns and cities.

With the state’s complex legal infrastructure, local tiny house enthusiasts are forced to get creative. “As we go forward with tiny houses, everyone’s collectively trying to figure out where they fit,” says Amy Henion, a recent Northeastern grad and tiny house blogger who is originally from Boston. Some live in their tiny dwellings under the radar, in friends’ or relatives’ backyards. Others relocate to rural areas or out of state in the hopes of finding a more private environment.

Henion was living in a Somerville apartment until July of last year, when she moved to Charlotte, North Carolina to work for Ryan Mitchell, a prominent figure in the tiny house movement (no relation to Mike Mitchell from the Vineyard). North Carolina, as it turns out, is a “hotspot for the tiny house movement,” Henion says. “There’s definitely more space and freedom down here to park a tiny house.”

PHOTO BY KAREN MORALES

ISLAND LIVING

Mike Mitchell doesn’t want tiny house owners on the island to live under the radar or to relocate; he wants to help them work within the system. In the summer of 2015, he formed the Island Coalition for Tiny Houses, a grassroots-level advocacy group that wants to make tiny houses legal on Martha’s Vineyard within the next year.

The impetus for Mitchell’s movement was a 78-year-old woman, Kathy Rose, who had purchased a tiny house to live in by herself on the island, only to find out that her tiny abode wasn’t allowed. After reading an article about Rose in the Martha’s Vineyard Times, Mitchell took action.

“I read that and said, ‘I live in an area with houses that were considered to be tiny, and they used to be moved around like trailers,’” he said. “‘Maybe this is a good model to follow.’” And maybe the coalition can help Rose stay on the island, he thought.

The coalition teamed up with Island Housing Trust, a group that provides affordable living solutions on Martha’s Vineyard, to open up Rose’s tiny home to the public at the island’s annual Agricultural Fair last August.

“The Island Housing Trust is extremely supportive of us,” says Mitchell. “We offer another alternative to the affordable housing market.” According to Mitchell, over the course of the four-day event, about 4,000 people walked through Rose’s house. The Island Coalition then circulated a petition to legalize tiny houses on the island, gathering more than 750 signatures in the process.

Not everybody liked the concept. Mitchell recalls one particular man who equated the homes to “whitetrash trailers.” “I told him it doesn’t have to be that way, they don’t have to be an eyesore,” Mitchell says. After explaining to the man that the campground where he lives has similarly small houses that are worth half a million dollars, the man changed his tone. Mitchell continues, “He told me, ‘I need housing for my workers.

If you can do it, I can see them living in a tiny house for a summer.’”

Rose’s tiny house was eventually banned—not because of its size, but because it wasn’t built to code and was moved into Oak Bluffs without a permit. “If someone were to get building permits and remove the trailer components and follow the building code and the zoning bylaws, there is no reason why a person could not live in a tiny home,” says Mark Barbadoro, a building inspector for Oak Bluffs. “There are a couple of things misunderstood about tiny houses on Martha’s Vineyard and whether they’re legal or not.”

Tiny houses on trailers are not allowed in Oak Bluffs, because they violate the town’s zoning bylaws.

But it is possible to live in such a small house on the Vineyard, said Barbadoro, so long as residents follow specific rules. Those guidelines include obtaining a permit, having the house on a foundation, identifying where the house was built, and complying to a range of specs and building codes.

“We just want to keep people safe,” Barbadoro says.

“That’s what it’s about.”

As is the case for small-home owners elsewhere, from Boston to Los Angeles, the approval process is easier said than done. In Mitchell’s case, his grand idea of having multiple tiny units associated to a main house could run afoul of some seemingly arbitrary local codes. For example, the structures could be considered “Accessory Dwelling Units” under zoning bylaws in Oak Bluffs stating that a residential owner of a regular house can only attach smaller units if they have owned the property for six or more years. There are also additional steps, each with their own set of rules, like getting approved by health inspectors. As per health codes, only a certain number of people are allowed to live in a tiny house at once.

All things considered, the road to legal tiny living is a winding and complicated one. These houses are largely uncommon, and a streamlined policy for them doesn’t exist yet. But the interest is building.

They plan to eventually take their gypsy-inspired tiny house, made entirely by hand from recycled, thrifted, or found materials from the sets they’ve worked on, on the road to wherever their careers take them. “We’re just going to play it by ear and take it day by day,” says Barcelou.

Henion, the Northeastern grad who relocated to Charlotte, currently lives in an apartment but says she’s saving for her own tiny house. Mostly she’s excited by the prospect of freedom—from a burdensome mortgage, a permanent location, and too much stuff.

“The tiny house movement can teach us that we can get rid of things we don’t need because we know ‘keeping up with the Joneses’ doesn’t make us happier,” she says.

Miranda Aisling Hynes, an artist based in Arlington, built her tiny house as an art project. It’s legally parked in front of Concord’s Umbrella Art Center; last April the Concord Zoning Board of Appeals approved a special permit that allowed construction of the little building.

“It got great support,” Hynes says. “So long as no one lives in it.”

According to her plan, Hynes’s project (titled Big Art; Tiny House) will eventually be moved off the art center’s front yard and will become the first hotel room for “Miranda’s Hearth,” a community art hotel she plans to open.

“Legalizing tiny houses, it will happen in Massachusetts,” Hynes says. “Jay Shafer is doing it on the West Coast.” She’s referring to the modern tiny house pioneer who has been outspoken about the merits of such living situations since 1999 and who established a tiny house design company that ships out design plans to online customers nationwide.

Planning for the long term, Shafer is constructing a village of small homes in Sonoma County, California.

Hynes continues, laying out the limitations of certain accommodations. “Tiny houses aren’t an urban answer.”

“Urban centers are already too dense,” she adds.

“Shoving additional tiny houses in driveways in crowded cities will only create fire hazards, parking violations, and complications.”

Hynes says that although she has seen individual situations where tiny houses have worked in a city setting, she doesn’t believe it is a widely applicable solution.

On the Vineyard, meanwhile, members of the Island Coalition for Tiny Houses have written proposals to present to building inspectors and other municipal gatekeepers. Mitchell believes through communication, research, and advocacy, tiny houses will eventually be accepted as a practical solution to assist those in need of affordable housing. In the meantime, the carpenter, who has lived on the campground in Oak Bluffs with his wife since the ’80s, helps other cottage owners as a handyman.

“This is Elena, she’s in real estate,” Mitchell says during a tour of Wesleyan Grove, pointing at a friend’s residence. “I did her door.” He explains that the triangular, pointed rooftops on most of the cottages today are remnants of the Methodist tent origins of the area. As for the island neighbor who inspired his foray into the movement: Mitchell says he doesn’t know where Rose is living now, although he suspects that she is living under the radar in her tiny home. He hopes that when all the legal hurdles surrounding tiny houses are better understood, she will move, with her house, back to the Vineyard and legally park it in the place where she originally hoped to settle down.

TINY HOUSES, OPEN ROAD

This article was produced by the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism. For more info on this and other projects, visit medium.com/@binj and follow on Twitter @BINJreports. Check out our tiny house blueprint at the Wake Up the Earth festival in Jamaica Plain on May 7.

For Chloe Barcelou and Brandon Batchelder, a freelance stylist and a carpenter respectively, having a tiny home on wheels provided the perfect solution for their dynamic lifestyles. For the past five years, the couple has bounced around New England in search of freelance gigs and places to stay until they both found jobs on a film set last year in Boston.

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11

EATS

SANTARPIO’S

Old-School Pizzeria with Lots of Characters

It seems that now more than ever restaurants are trying their hardest to make sure their waitstaffs are as efficient, engaging, and friendly as possible in order to make for a pleasant overall dining experience for customers. Sometimes, however, you just want to be totally ranked on when you go out to eat—well, perhaps not ranked on, but perhaps you want a “real” experience that includes some true Boston flavor from the folks who work at a particular dining or drinking spot. And in the case of Santarpio’s, a century-old pizzeria in the shadows of the McClellan Highway in East Boston, customers indeed get a heavy dose of flavor both from the pizza and the servers, making it a must for thickskinned diners who enjoy thin-crust pies.

Santarpio’s first started out around the turn of the century—the 20th century, that is—and hasn’t changed a whole lot over the years; here you will find the obligatory fake wood paneling along with too-bright lights, a jukebox that has its fair share of Sinatra and Tony Bennett, a long bar that is partitioned off from an equally long dining area that opens up a bit in the back, and a side room that at times has more of the feel of a social club than a restaurant dining room. The waitstaff at the establishment is—how should we say this?—extremely colorful, with personalities ranging from sour to gruff to polite to charming to bombastic, which sometimes gives the place a dinner theater vibe even though much of what you see is definitely not staged. One note about Santarpio’s—never, EVER ask what kinds of pasta they have. If you do, be prepared for an eyeroll, the word “none” barked out, or even a “What’s the matter with you?” depending on the exact situation.

One of the interesting things about the pizza at Santarpio’s is the fact that no one really knows how to categorize it. Is it bar pizza? Nope. Neapolitan thincrust? Not exactly. Greek? No way. Gourmet? Please. Sicilian? No, but that’s an interesting one. Santarpio’s pizza is sauce heavy, and it is not unlike the classic tomato pies found in Trenton, NJ, that are typically made by putting the cheese on before the sauce (and in the case of Santarpio’s, the toppings are added before the sauce as well) and adding cornmeal to the bottom for extra flavor and texture. This type of thin-crust tomato pie is an offshoot of the old-world Sicilian tomato pies still found in some parts of the Boston area—the squares found at Milano’s Delicatessen come to mind—with the main difference being that the Sicilian pies have a very thick crust and the Trenton-style pizzas—and those found at Santarpio’s—have a very thin crust. No matter how you categorize Santarpio’s pizzas, the bottom line is they are considered by many to be one of the best—if not the best—pizzas in the entire Boston area, with some saying that they could be the best in New England. By the way, for those who want something other than (or in addition to) pizza, a few mixed grill items are offered, including good takes on steak tips, lamb skewers, house-made sausage, and hot cherry peppers, while drinks include a handful of basic beers and wines.

Santarpio’s may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but if you want a true “Boston” experience, it is tough to beat this gritty old joint just west of Logan Airport. The staff might not greet you with open arms or huge smiles (unless you try to order pasta), which is refreshing in an odd sort of way, and if you’re into unique types of pizza, you’d be hard-pressed to find pies like these anywhere east of Jersey.

[Please note that Santarpio’s in East Boston is cash only; a second location in Peabody does take credit cards.] >> SANTARPIO’S PIZZA. 111 CHELSEA ST., EAST BOSTON. SANTARPIOSPIZZA.COM 12

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Easter Rising Centenary Party April 24th, 12PM The Rising Bar 1172 Cambridge St Inman Square's Newest Neighborhood Establishment

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13

ARTS ENTERTAINMENT

14

THU 5.5

FRI 5.6

SAT 5.7

SUN 5.8

MON 5.9

TUE 5.10

Cinco de Mayo @ Lone Star Taco Bar

Shut it Down!

Photo Exhibit @ Harriet Tubman Gallery

Ben Folds @ Orpheum Theatre

Mother’s Day Brunch @ The Burren

3rd Street Blackout @ Somerville Theater

Major League Bocce @ Atlantic Beer Garden

You don’t need an excuse to scarf down a few Carnitas Pork Tacos at Lone Star Taco Bar, but when you have a legitimate fake holiday like Cinco de Mayo, it’s your duty to leave work early and do exactly that. Make sure you throw down a few cervezas and at least one shot of mezcal while you’re at it. Or you could head over to one of the Corona promotions happening in Faneuil Hall.

Exactly.

When the Black Lives Matter movement took off in 2014, Boston was one of many cities that saw political activists take to the streets chanting, “Hands up don’t shoot!”

And, “Shut it down!” This photo exhibition captures the images of those protests and the people responsible for them.

Community involvement and civil disobedience was the voice of the day, and during the exhibit partners will be invited to continue that engagement and discuss their impact.

The Ben Folds Five is no more, but we’ll always have Ben Folds, the man. With his recent release of eight “chamber rock” songs on the album So There, he’s plowing through his North American tour with wild abandon, tickling the ivory along the way. Now it’s Boston’s turn, and there are still tickets. The live shows are outstanding and won’t disappoint. Unless you hate the man. In that case, they absolutely suck.

You can take your mother anywhere for Mother’s Day, but there’s only one Mother’s Day brunch at the Burren in Davis Square.

With live music in the front and back room and a full traditional and Irish brunch buffet and menu, saddle up with a pint of Guinness and do shots of Jameson with old mum in between sets and slices of boiled ham. Take the Red Line there and make it a day out that she’ll remember, until she gets so drunk she forgets it all by Monday morning.

Based on the events that surrounded the power outages and chaos post-Hurricane Sandy in 2012, this comedic romp is a smart look at what happens after a catastrophe that cuts our modern ways of communication.

Filmmakers Negin Farsad and Jeremy Redleaf star in this indie flick as the couple Mina and Rudy, the two main characters that rely on their digital lives— until they cease to exist.

The film runs all week.

The first rule of Major League Bocce is that you don’t discuss Major League Bocce. However, you can still play the shit out of it, and there’s still time to register for the spring league. Located at or near area bars around town that also serve as the postplay host complete with grub and cold beer, there’s surely a game near you on a night that fits your schedule. Post a flyer near the water cooler and put your team together STAT. No experience necessary.

Lone Star Taco Bar. 635 Cambridge St., Cambridge. All day/21+/$$. lonestar-boston.com

Harriet Tubman Gallery.

566 Columbus Ave., Boston.

6pm/all ages/FREE. uses. org

Orpheum Theatre.

1 Hamilton Pl., Boston.

7:30pm/all ages/$47.80. crossroadspresents.com/ orpheum-theatre

The Burren. 247 Elm St., Somerville. 10am-3pm/all ages/$. burren.com

Somerville Theater.

55 Davis Square, Somerville.

7:45pm/18+/$10. somervilletheatre.com

Atlantic Beer Garden.

146 Northern Ave., Boston.

7pm/21+/$50. boston. majorleaguebocce.com

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SHUT IT DOWN! AT THE HARRIET TUBMAN GALLERY IS WHERE IT’S AT.

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15

MUSIC

REST IN PURPLE

Dance your way through a Prince memorial

BY NINA CORCORAN @NINA_CORCORAN

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TUES 5/10

PLAN YOUR GRADUATION PARTY WITH ZUZU!

THE GLORIOUS SONS TEXAS HIPPIE COALITION WEDS 5/11

LA LUZ THU 5/12

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Mourning the death of a celebrity is strange. In almost all instances, your relationship to that of the celebrity is distanced, one where your interactions are nonexistent, possibly taking form in applause from below a stage or gawking with admiration at magazine pages. Yet, for all of the work that they put out, be it films, music, art, or words, a celebrity’s death can hit like that of a close friend.

If they were a big part of your life, it’s hard to imagine the world without them.

Prince is one of the few musicians whose death saw a universal mourning. We lost not only an icon on April 21 but a man who urged us to be as weird as he was—something most everyone needs to be reminded of from time to time.

Luckily for Boston residents, they can mourn the loss of the musician the way he would’ve wanted: through dance. This Saturday, pop-up dance party #MOOD returns for another evening of nonstop mood-lifting and groove-busting moves. This time the crew are focusing in on Prince. Presented by Booger Money Worldwide and PUFF piece presents, the evening will see a guest DJ, local sponsors, and fans (see: you) come out to dance at the Sinclair.

Of course, it’s only fitting for Blacklace DJs to handle the evening’s music, aka Leah Mcfly and Bianca Oblivion, an alumna of Club Aerobics LA and Zuesday.

As such, this isn’t just indoors. The venue opens up its rooftop patio and restaurant space as dance floors, allowing the maximum room possible for Prince fans to wave to his spirit all the way up there in heaven (or whatever purple place he’s resting in).

So get out of your house. Stop letting the death of a loved one you didn’t know personally weigh you down. The Purple One is waiting for you to stop crying and start cheering. Because come on, let’s face it: The last thing Prince would want is for people to waste their time on earth moping around, not taking in the beautiful music around us or the beautiful people (wink, wink) around us.

See you at #MOOD this Saturday? Cool. Please pick us up in your red corvette.

Oh, and one more note: Get ready to party like it’s 1999. >> MOOD: BLACKLACE. SAT 5.7. THE SINCLAIR, 52 CHURCH ST., CAMBRIDGE. 10PM/18+/$5.

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17

FILM

ONE-STOP DOC SHOP

On the documentaries we saw at last week’s Independent Film Festival Boston

BY JAKE MULLIGAN @_JAKEMULLIGAN Anyone who reads a Boston newspaper can tell you that our city’s filmgoers spend a lot of time considering the form of nonfiction cinema. At IFFBoston, we spend the whole week on it. The annual event screened almost 40 feature-length nonfiction works this time around (the fest itself ended days ago, but IFFBoston has events on the calendar throughout the year, so check the website). That’s enough to fill five separate dance cards, so you pick out the ones you want to see based on how attracted you are to the subjects. Say you want to know the story of a local bar owner who doubles as an international negotiator—then you go to see The Peacemaker, and you’re guaranteed an introduction. Most of the documentaries we saw at IFFBoston were marked and characterized by the distinct personalities that are profiled within them. You really do get to know all sorts of legitimately extraordinary people. And somehow most of these movies end up feeling the same anyway.

“Nonfiction cinema” might be a form, but “profile documentaries” are definitely a genre. The format for these movies is locked down as tight as the doors on an Irish bar after closing time. The first piece is typically a set of direct-address interviews with the subject themselves.

You usually get comments from their friends and family too, and maybe from some of the peers they’ve influenced as well. Ostensibly objective fly-on-the-wall footage of the subject going through their day-to-day routine—in an inevitably performative manner, because they do have a camera pointed at them—often fills the time between the individual comments. This all mingles with archival footage and background information, which are spliced into the film’s shape wherever a blank needs to be filled.

The apparent goal is to create a portrait of a human being through the audiovisual recollections of both people and media. But what you’re actually receiving is a collection of the facts, figures, and photos that the given filmmaker found most interesting. That’s not a portrait of a person— it’s more like a scrapbook of mementos and memories.

If the filmmaker finds an angle beyond the realms of biography, then they’re already one up on most others.

We wrote about a few such films during our IFFBoston preview last week. Peacemaker, which we saw during the festival proper, was one more. The subject is local legend Padraig O’Malley, a published author, professor at UMASS Boston, international peace negotiator (he “brings together divided societies,” up to and including contemporary Iraq), and bar owner (Cambridge’s the Plough & Stars, to be specific, which brings people together in an altogether different manner).

Director James Demo has a film that follows from Massachusetts to Northern Kosovo, from AA meetings to international peace treaties. His friends say they don’t know what makes him tick, and the filmmaker’s angle tries to answer the query: The construction of the footage

and tenor of the interviews suggest that Padraig’s old addiction to intoxicating substances—he was a drunk, by his own admission—makes him the ideal person to speak to individuals who are addicted to violent conflicts.

O’Malley has long seen the connection between the two activities: He first made his bones by spending $100,000 to fly numerous representatives from both sides of the Irish Troubles to Cambridge. He got them drinking until they were all slaphappy enough to sing songs together.

You could probably suss out a medically supported explanation for that process, but Padraig can break it down more simply: “I always play the Irish card.”

We begin in Kirkuk, Iraq, circa 2012, where O’Malley doesn’t seem any more anxious than usual. He’s speaking with his pleasurably pissy Irish wit intact, justifying whatever risks he might be taking (“Security is kind of a farcical thing”). From there the movie follows him home to the Red Line, where friends and background footage catch us up on his past life. Further segments travel to a number of O’Malley’s Forums for Cities in Transition (where he hosts delegates from both sides of political conflicts and engages them in talks that are decidedly non-ideological), as well as to adjacent work he’s done in the same field (other passages clue us into the historical work he did during the Troubles, then alongside Mandela in South Africa, before catching us

up with his more recent endeavors). Meanwhile we meet his family (he’s raising a foster daughter with a longtime partner), become aware of his medicinal drug intake (enough clonazepam to shock a doctor), and even inquire about his memory (“Whole decades are a blur”). Demo searches for the answer to the central question—what makes this angry workaholic humanitarian “tick”?—the way that a reporter might do so. He probes through the home, through the workplace, through the hobbies, and through the watering holes. Eventually he asks the his big climactic question: Have you ever really loved anybody?

During the answer, the camera zooms in closer than ever before, in case the contours of Padraig’s face reveal an answer that his words fail to provide. But it’s not intimacy that the zoom is creating. It’s just an extension of human interest—the kind that you might find in a newspaper.

At first glance, Kate Plays Christine displays the same pieces as other profiles—it’s another IFFBoston selection, and the standout to our eyes—even though you probably wouldn’t classify it as such. There are direct-address interviews with professional actress Kate Lyn Sheil, who’s prepping for the role of Christine Chubbuck (a Sarasota newscaster who infamously committed suicide on air during the late 1970s). There are clips from her background via footage taken from other movies she’s appeared in (The Color Wheel, Sun Don’t Shine). There are other comments sourced from her family and her collaborators to provide further context (her father is heard on a phone call, fellow actors speak about their craft). And for the fly-on-the-wall observation, the film goes from New York to Sarasota, Florida, watching Kate as she studies, internalizes, and attempts to locate the essence of a woman she never knew.

We’ll have more on the film—which is directed by Robert Greene, photographed by Sean Price Williams, and scored by Keegan DeWitt—when it’s officially released. Right now we’ll speak in generalities: Kate Plays Christine considers acting in a dense and expansive manner, documenting side subjects like Sarasota itself (visits to gun shops and tanning salons prove almost anthropological) and the unreliable nature of historical research (one instance sees Sheil struggling to decide how much validity she should ascribe to potentially sexist news reports written by male journalists in the wake of Chubbuck’s death) in order to both complicate and illuminate its portrait of the craft. The resulting work is probably best described as a “staged documentary”— recent films by Jafar Panahi might serve as a comparison point—with most of the footage depicting Sheil researching, running lines, and then performing in scenes. Those scenes are from the “movie” itself—the fictional one about Chubbuck—which doesn’t actually exist beyond the confines of this “nonfiction” film.

Meanwhile Sheil notes that she’s typecast in “womenon-the-verge-of-psychotic-breakdown roles,” so Greene tries to get us asking why they exist, working with the actress to investigate the psychology of our shared cultural interest in stories about traumatized women.

Most of these profile-documentary movies leave you with a better understanding of their chosen subject. Kate Plays Christine might leave you with a better understanding of why you go to see movies at all.

>> FOR MORE INFORMATION ON THE INDEPENDENT FILM FESTIVAL BOSTON, VISIT IFFBOSTON.ORG >> FOR MORE INFORMATION ON THE PEACEMAKER, VISIT CENTRALSQUAREFILMS.COM >> KATE PLAYS CHRISTINE IS SCHEDULED FOR A GENERAL RELEASE SOMETIME THIS SUMMER. FOR MORE INFORMATION, VISIT KATEPLAYSCHRISTINE.COM

FILM EVENTS THU 5.5

FRI 5.6

FRI 5.6

SAT 5.7

[Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston. 100 Northern Ave., Boston. 7pm/NR/$510. icaboston.org]

[Brattle Theatre.

40 Brattle St., Harvard Sq., Cambridge. 5:15, 7:30, and 9:45pm/NR/$9-11. 35mm.

Screens through Mon 5.9. brattlefilm.org]

[Coolidge Corner Theatre.

290 Harvard St., Brookline.

Midnight/R/$11.25. 35mm. coolidge.org]

[Harvard Film Archive.

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

35mm. hcl.harvard.edu/ hfa]

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[Coolidge Corner Theatre.

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

7 and 9:30pm/PG/$9-11.

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ARTS

LONELINESS AND REPLENISHMENT Lawren Harris at the MFA

BY CHRISTOPHER EHLERS @_CHRISEHLERS

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Although he is considered to be one of the major trailblazers of Canadian modernism in the twentieth century, Lawren Harris is virtually unknown outside of Canada. Renowned for his modern, sublimely distinct re-imaginings of the northern Canadian landscape, Harris’ work is being given unprecedented treatment in his first-ever major solo exhibition in the United States.

The Idea of North: The Paintings of Lawren Harris is a splendid, unexpected delight. Now showing at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston through June 12, The Idea of North is a collaboration between the MFA, the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, and the Art Gallery of Ontario. This has also become a passion project for actor Steve Martin, who is acting as guest curator for the exhibition and owns two Harris paintings himself.

The exhibition is divided into three general sections: Lake Superior, the Arctic, and the Rocky Mountains. What is immediately clear is the spirituality that Harris—who died in 1970—has infused into his work. “The power of beauty at work in man, as the artist has always known,” wrote Harris, “is severe and exacting, and once invoked, will never leave him alone until he brings his work and life in some semblance of harmony and spirit.”

According to Taylor L. Poulin, curatorial research associate, Art of the Americas for the MFA, Harris’ deeply thought paintings are richly rooted in the myth of the Canadian landscape. “He really wanted people to understand the spiritual connection to the land,” said Poulin. “He loved to discuss his art, but he was very introspective.”

The mood changes drastically in the next room, the Arctic, where the paintings are more serene. Icebergs, snow-covered islands surrounded by still waters, and even an almost abstract-looking Eskimo tent feature prominently in this section. “The Lake Superior and Rocky Mountains are searching and seeking and almost challenged,” said Poulin. “He gets to the Arctic and they’re almost quiet and settled.”

But in many respects, the best is saved for last. Mountains in Snow: Rocky Mountain Paintings VII showcases Harris’ boldest use of color—a deep cerulean—and the most profoundly subtle example of shading in the exhibition. Rolling hills and brown, jagged rocks give way to an explosion of unpredictable white ledges.

Each peak reaches barely higher than the one before it, culminating in a final, uncomplicated peak that appears to be scratching the surface of heaven.

Mountains in Snow is an eloquent, powerful statement about man’s quest for transcendence. It is both daunting and divine, representing an everlasting synergy between humans and the Earth that we inhabit. “We are on the fringe of the great North and its living whiteness,” said Harris. “Its loneliness and replenishment, its resignations and release, its call and answer—its cleansing rhythms.”

The Idea of North is an earnestly thoughtful surprise and a stirring introduction to an artist that ought to be a household name. That it has taken nearly 50 years for Harris’ work to be given this kind of treatment in the United States is a strong indication that this will only come around once. You don’t want to miss this. >> THE IDEA OF NORTH: THE PAINTINGS OF LAWREN HARRIS. THROUGH 6.12 AT THE MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS, 465 HUNTINGTON AVE., BOSTON. MFA.ORG

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SAVAGE LOVE

ACCIDENTAL ANAL

WHAT'S FOR BREAKFAST

BY PATT KELLEY WHATS4BREAKFAST.COM

BY DAN SAVAGE @FAKEDANSAVAGE | MAIL@SAVAGELOVE.NET

I’ve been with my boyfriend for more than a year.

He’s the first person I’ve had sex with. Four times now while we were having passionate sex, he has slipped out of my vagina and accidentally penetrated me anally. That shit hurts, and I can’t help but cry. I know he feels super guilty each time. I love sex, but I’m kind of scared every time we have it now. We’ve engaged in a little anal play before, and I wasn’t really a fan. But I’m not adverse to the idea of using a butt plug. Do you think this would work? Surely other people have this problem too, right?

Wrong Hole, Anal Torment My own personal sexperience with anal led me to doubt claims of accidental anal penetration, WHAT, as anal penetration always required focus, precision, and proper breathing techniques—in my own sexperience. But listeners of the Savage Lovecast schooled me in Episode 340, and I’m now convinced that accidental anal penetration is something too many women have sexperienced.

(Do you see how annoying that is, VIRGN?) A strategically deployed butt plug sounds like a sexcellent solution to the problem, WHAT, but get yourself a plug with a wider-than-usual base to prevent your boyfriend’s misdirected cock from pushing the plug, base and all, all the way in you (ouch) or his misdirected cock from sliding in alongside the plug. (If you hate single penetration, you’ll really hate double penetration.)

If the problem persists even with a plug—if your boyfriend’s cock is constantly slamming into the plug in a way that you find uncomfortable—a thumbtack glued to the base of the plug will inspire your boyfriend to be more focused and precise.

And speaking of the Savage Lovecast, we’re coming up on our 500th episode, which is a significant milestone for this relatively new genre/platform/doohickey. If you’re not already listening, find it here: savagelovecast.com. And a big thanks to Nancy Hartunian, the Lovecast’s producer since Episode 1, and to the tech-savvy, at-risk youth who pushed me to start podcasting before it was cool.

savagelovecast.com

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