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REBORN TO BE WILD INDEPENDENT RADIO SERVES THROWBACKS AND COMMUNITY

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HEADLINING THIS WEEK! Alonzo Bodden Thurs-Sat

VOL 18 + ISSUE 20

MAY 19, 2016 - MAY 26, 2016 EDITORIAL

DEAR READER

EDITOR + PUBLISHER Jeff lawrence

Verizon is a company with deep local roots.

Originally part of the Ma Bell breakup via the great but late NYNEX and every precursor before that, it’s a private business born out of the public footprint that was knee-deep for decades. In other words, our telecom forefathers weren’t so much pioneers of free enterprise as they were enterprising freewheeling pioneers.

Fast forward to 2016, and it’s clear that nothing is free and nothing is enterprising. The Verizon union workers have gone on strike and management has dug in its heels. Profits against proletariat and freedom against freedom freeness. Or something.

So what do we make of this? Well, Chris Faraone and his merry maelstrom of reporters have been documenting this madness for the last few weeks, and you should pay close attention to these writers and reports if you want to stay on top of the game. I personally may not agree with them on every issue (unions can be a bitchy lot and act bitchy), but that’s why I love them and why it’s important to read what they have to say. They tend to ignore me.

By the way, FIOS sucks so viva la Comcast!

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

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

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ON THE COVER Russell Harvard stars in I Was Most Alive with You at the Huntington Theatre. Read all about it on page 20. Photo by Nile Hawver/Nile Scott Shots.

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NBC’s Undateable

Dear Uber Driver,

John Caparulo June 9-11

Your car smells like cat piss. And dog shit. And shit piss. And cat dog. That disgusting sheet you drape over the back seat isn’t fooling anyone - and the design looks like something you’d see in a pedophile’s den on ‘Law & Order: SVU,’ only with less cum stains (that I could see at least) and more animal stink. It’s bad enough that I don’t have any pets and now have to smell like the last four girls who I had to break up with because they were constantly covered in cat hair. If I did own animals, returning to them with the stench of your back alley sedan on me would make them flock and fuck my leg like the first apartment scene in ‘Ace Ventura.’ Which actually sounds like fun now that I think about it.

Chelsea Lately, Comedy Central Presents

b Mary Lynn Rajsku June 16-18 FOX’s 24, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia ILLUSTRATION BY ALINA MACLEAN

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NEWS US REBORN TO BE WILD NEWS TO US

A startup independent AM station grows to serve throwbacks and community

BY CHRIS FARAONE @FARA1 Here’s a sentence that typically requires a time machine: There’s a new independently owned radio station in Eastern Massachusetts.

What’s more, WZBR 1410 AM, tagline “The Bass of Boston,” is the only independent black-owned licensed commercial station in the region. Operated by Frank Holder, a veteran of the gone but immortalized Roxbury institution 1090 WILD AM, the new station’s format isn’t radical or experimental—a recent lunch hour smorgasbord offered classic slow jams, a local hip-hop track, and the 1988 hit “Don’t Be Cruel” by hometown hero Bobby Brown. But in the era of publicly traded frequencies that “spin” the same generic playlists in various markets, news of this variety is rare.

“We’re here to serve the public,” says Steve Gousby, the program director at WZBR who knows Holder from their days together down the dial in the early aughts.

Gousby continues, “This reminds me so much of WILD. Not just because the station [was right next door to WZBR, on Warren Street], but because of the hard work everyone is putting in. While there’s competition here, we don’t care. We’re not caring about what they’re doing over there—we’re just doing what we need to do to try and fill the void.”

In the nondescript WZBR studio just steps outside of Dudley Square, native interests come first. Local pride is palpable; minutes after paying tribute to Bobby, Gousby notes that New Edition producer Maurice Starr used to conduct business from an office on the floor above. Not unintentionally, the whole experience hearkens back to what Boston radio legend Delores Handy, commenting in 2011 about the hole left in the local media after WILD was acquired by the national behemoth Radio One, named “the hot spot” of the 1980s.

“If you wanted to find out what was happening in the city, you’d tune in,” Handy recalled. “If you needed to get information to the African-American inner city community, the red brick building on Warren Street across from Roxbury District Court is where you’d go, 4

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whether you were a concert promoter, community activist, or politician.”

Gousby, who cut his teeth on WERS 88.9 FM as an Emerson College student before serving as a program director at WILD, didn’t expect to be back behind the boards a year ago. After leaving the defunct Roxbury station during a slide under corporate ownership that cut the soul out of a community favorite between 2000 and 2005 before it vanished once and for all, he worked briefly in the record business before getting his realtor’s license.

“I’m a broker now,” Gousby says. “I have my own real estate office in Hyde Park, which I do before I go here. I mix it up—in fact, I do a real estate show [It’s Your House] here on Sundays.”

“His show is amazing,” Holder says. “Not just because of the concept, but in how it’s educating people. I picked up my mother-in-law in front of church yesterday, and Steve was on the air talking to somebody about 401(k)s.

Two people I was with said, ‘What’s a 401(k)?’ They never would have known, and he addressed how to work toward getting one and saving. That type of show is exactly the type of reason we’re here.”

With ongoing troubles in Boston Public Schools and the grip of gentrification tightening around Roxbury, there’s a pressing need for more hyperlocal news sources—especially as major outlets that are based downtown and in the ’burbs tend to ignore minority corners save for homicide coverage. But with persistent crackdowns on unlicensed radio stations like TOUCHFM that have historically informed the Hub’s African American and immigrant residents, the task of reaching communities of color is left to a diminishing number of ethnic and alternative publications. It leaves a big space for an authentic voice like WZBR, which bills itself as “an adult contemporary radio station serving the Greater Boston area” playing “the best of contemporary urban music, offering a grown-up alternative to stations that repeat the same hardcore hip-hop or pop songs throughout the day.”

A glance at national trends by comparison shows the extraordinary nature of Holder’s endeavor. Since the Telecommunications Act of 1996 opened the floodgates for broadcast media consolidation, according to the National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters, the number of African American companies owning radio stations nationwide plummeted from nearly 150 in 1995 to less than half that in 2012. A more recent tally by the Washington Post puts African-American media proprietorship “at less than one percent of all television properties, and less than 2 percent of radio.”

“It’s WILD in the social media age,” says Holder, whose Bass of Boston transmits from a 5,000-watt tower in Dedham and reaches a 20-mile radius. Holder describes his role back in the day at WILD as “the gopher, the coffeegetter”—still the station inspired him enough to buy the defunct call letters from the corporation that buried them. Pending approval from the FCC, WZBR will soon become WILD and proceed to fill an icon’s shoes in name as well as in will.

“I want to make sure we’re talking about families, what’s happening in the community, obviously if there’s crime, and of course anything to do with the schools and things that benefit the kids,” Holder says.

Adds Gousby, who has embraced the challenge of building a new machine from the ground up: “We don’t have to worry about the politics of the business, and before I left WILD there was a lot of politics.

I said that I would never ever work for a big corporation again, and I meant it.” His new gig may be at a startup, but it’s not the program director’s first time at a grassroots rodeo.

“When you’re young and growing up, you imagine all this great equipment, and when I finally got to WILD I remember thinking I had better stuff at home,” Gousby says. “But whether the equipment was modernized or not, it worked, and we were able to operate and get our message across.”

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You should never waste too much time worrying that conservative viewpoints are getting sidelined in the mainstream media. It’s like, whatever. Sounds good to us.

But there’s especially no good reason to weep over recent news, reported by Gizmodo, that Facebook’s algorithms for its trending topics section are allegedly rigged against the political right. Unfortunate as such discriminatory trends may be on the whole, conservatives aren’t alone in getting jerked by the network.

They’re just the loudest and whiniest marginalized horde, which is why the rest of us have had to spend the past week hearing about how, as Gizmodo reported (and spokespeople from the social media site contested), “Facebook workers routinely suppressed news stories of interest to conservative readers from the social network’s influential ‘trending’ news section.”

Meanwhile, as reported by former DigBoston editor Dan McCarthy and is common knowledge in certain circles of visual artists, Facebook has suppressed tasteful nudity for years. From McCarthy’s “Nipplegate” feature: Even “the Breast Cancer Awareness Body Painting Project started a petition after Facebook yanked images from their page without warning, presumably likening the pictures to pornography.”

That’s not all. Longtime Dig cannabis columnist Mike “Cann” Crawford has sounded sirens during the past six months over Facebook refusing to allow users to boost posts about marijuana. To quote Crawford’s piece from last November that caused a considerable stir among cannabis consumers: “This is worth noting because this same social media bigfoot profits big time off app games like Pot Farm, and because Facebook happily accepts some seriously objectionable ads,” including many hinged on hate speech.

All that aside, there is some seriously important information in the juice leaked over the past month. Gizmodo grossly exaggerated the treatment of Facebook’s hired “news curators,” portraying their work conditions as akin to the pauper ranks of Scientology in an article titled, “Want to Know What Facebook Really Thinks of Journalists? Here’s What Happened When It Hired Some.” Still, it’s worth noting that the social media behemoth farms out its trend-mongering: According to five former members of Facebook’s trending news team—“news curators” as they’re known internally— … these former curators described grueling work conditions, humiliating treatment, and a secretive, imperious culture in which they were treated as disposable outsiders … News curators aren’t Facebook employees—they’re contractors. One former team member said they received benefits including limited medical insurance, paid time off after 6 months and transit reimbursement, but were otherwise excluded from the culture and perks of working at Facebook.

As a rule of thumb, good things aren’t typically afoot when third party players are involved. Think of how companies hire outside cleaning services to empty garbage cans and mop floors for low wages, or how certain federal agencies store information on private servers, sometimes moving public data beyond the reach of reporters and voters. If Facebook, one of America’s leading innovation companies with enough resources to hire an army, neglects the bastard hired hands who purge conservative trash from trending topics, one can only imagine how it treats the freelance censors it presumably employs to sift through pics of nips and grass all day.

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Scrolling through the history machine looking for lines to the past, we didn’t expect much to turn up under “trans” and related phrases. Yet the local media has addressed gender to various degrees, with varying degrees of compassion and accuracy, more than we imagined through the years, and did so long before the current fight over the so-called “Bathroom Bill” on Beacon Hill and similar legislative fronts elsewhere.

From the clips found in the BPL stacks and archives, we selected two instances to highlight—one involving the groundbreaking Christine Jorgensen, a New Yorker who identified as transsexual and underwent a highly publicized surgery and hormone treatments in Denmark in 1952. And another one regarding Renee Richards, who played professional tennis in the ’70s as both a man and a woman.

Like newspapers in other cities across the country, the Daily Boston Globe hovered and gawked along with the rest of the ’50s media circus that chased Jorgensen, whose sexual reassignment surgery spurred an absurd amount of sensationalist ink. Though the fashion model and performer spoke about identity in progressive terms that were far ahead of her time—Jorgensen once said, “No one is 100 percent male or female. We all have elements of both male and female in our bodies. I just am more of a woman than I am a man.”—she was covered as something other than human, a contested object whose authenticity was called into question by columnists and courts alike.

In early 1954, Hub hacks filed daily briefs as judges and the Boston Licensing Board weighed the fate of Jorgensen’s scheduled appearance at the Latin Quarter nightclub in today’s Theater District. The spat was ugly, with officials calling for a medical examination to prove that she met their standard definition of a female, Jorgensen threatening a lawsuit, and an ensuing downward spiral for the storied venue. From the Daily Boston Globe: Former G.I. Christine Jorgensen has not yet been banned in Boston, but the licensing board yesterday voiced unofficial disapproval of her scheduled appearance here next week.

Said Mary E. Driscoll, chairman of the board: “I personally am opposed to female impersonators. If it can be proved that she is not one, that is another matter.”

A little more than 20 years after Driscoll ultimately pulled the Latin Quarter’s license altogether to keep Jorgensen off stage, in covering Renee Richards, the Boston press appears to have found some of the sympathy and understanding that is further emerging nowadays. From a 1977 Boston Globe column by legendary tennis writer Bud Collins, who passed away this March at 87 years old: Renee Richards won a year-long battle for acceptance as a working woman in the tennis labor force. The former Dr. Richard Raskind—the object of derision, boycotts, cruel publicity and tasteless jokes—was setting up shop in the Forest Hills Stadium to the polite applause of 10,000 customers.

She was in the US Open, the first athlete ever to change and shower in both the male and female locker rooms at the West Side Tennis Club. Of that, Richards reported: “Men tend to walk around naked, women are a little shyer. Men are louder, more boisterous, but we girls have a good-natured time, too. I feel accepted in the women’s room; nobody has ever said unkind things to my face.”

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‘POP’ GOES THE GENRE

FEATURE

A conversation with Berklee English prof Mark Polanzak about his new sorta memoir

BY CHRIS FARAONE @FARA1

As journalists at DigBoston, it’s hard for us to worship genre-benders who take liberties in weaving fiction into nonfiction and memoir. But while phonies like Ben Mezrich patch together micro lies with fantasy and package slop as real talk, Berklee College of Music English professor Mark Polanzak writes on a different level entirely—one that enables him to step beyond more traditional biographical approaches and get closer to personal truths.

Polanzak’s debut book, Pop! (Stillhouse), is an exercise in breaking literary rules, as well as many of the laws of bereavement. In writing about death, specifically the passing of his dad and the ensuing gauntlet through which he engaged the loss, the author splashes admirable life and energy onto the page. We consider him a promising up-and-comer in the local arts scene, and so in addition to excerpting his book this week, I threw some hard balls at Polanzak, a former Dig writer himself, about his work as well as the regional creative community in which much of it takes place.

DB: Please explain the format, and your mix of fiction and memoir and other genres?

MP: The book takes place over one week in 2008. I was asked to speak at a bereavement group for teens, who had all lost a parent. When I was 17 (1998) my dad died unexpectedly. The main structure is a memoir that explores the events of that week leading up to the meeting. I was 27 and being asked to address kids as an assumed expert on loss, grief, and healing. I was tremendously freaked out by the prospect of talking with these kids, because I realized or feared that I hadn’t done anything right re: dealing with trauma, death, loss, grief.

However, I eventually discover that I had dealt with loss through writing fiction, short stories. I have been writing fiction seriously since high school. So, in the book I go over my short fiction—previously published and not—and analyze them for their real-life revelations.

The book contains straight up short fiction that I then pull the curtain back on.

10

DB: You seem to be having some fun with the whole meta concept of what’s real and what’s not, and with dancing between the two in your prose while acknowledging the tricks you’re playing. It’s almost like an episode of ‘The Office,’ when the characters look at the camera and break down that wall. How confusing did that kind of exercise get in your writing?

MP: I loved being able to look at the camera, to reveal the artifice and explain what was hidden behind the fiction. It wasn’t as confusing as it was exciting, and I had to ultimately delete much of it in the final drafts. I got so into breaking down the wall that I did it too much in some places. It was a wild experience to actually go into my short fiction and see my personal issues, my grief, my own confusions playing out in the stories. It was crazy to see my work as therapeutic, to finally see what the themes were all along. What was confusing was how I had never before seen that I was dealing with loss and death in my stories. How could I be so dense?

I go to a video store and get a porn vid. Then I think about going to the grave, but I hesitate, because I don’t want to go to the cemetery with pornography. Like my dad would find out or something and I would be in cosmic trouble, or like I would be disrespectful. It’s embarrassing on two levels: 1) the porn-taboo, and 2) the messed-upness of me as an 18 year old wondering if I was allowed to visit my dad’s grave when I wanted to.

DB: What’s the most embarrassing thing you reveal in Pop!, and how clear is it that it’s something that actually happened to you in real life?

MP: There’s a part where I make plans to visit my dad’s grave, when I am a teenager. Before I go to the cemetery,

DB: Did writing the book help you deal with your father’s death? Or fuck you up in a different way than you ever thought possible?

MP: Both of those things. The book essentially chronicles how my dad’s death affected every single relationship

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in my life. I used to bury everything about my dad, never talk about him or the death, hide thoughts, anger, sadness, confusion. Since it’s all public now, that’s impossible, and I feel much more comfortable with the loss and everything that comes with it. It also opened up conversations with my family and friends and wife that were closed off before.

DB: Who are some other writers who have inspired you to kind of take the governor off and throw literary rules out of the window?

MP: The writers that have made their way into my writing either consciously or subconsciously are writers that avoid convention. They do something that seems

illegal with structure, POV, voice, plot, style: Denis Johnson, Kurt Vonnegut, David Foster Wallace, Nick Flynn, George Saunders, Donald Barthelme, John Barth.

But I am very much influenced by screenwriters and films, too: the humor and experimentalism of Woody Allen’s Annie Hall, the absurdity and meta-storytelling in Charlie Kaufman’s Adaptation.

DB: Where do you live in Boston, and how has your neighborhood influenced your writing?

MP: My wife and I are currently living in Canton, with my mom, in the house I grew up in and where I was when my dad died. We were living in Cambridge until the landlord decided to sell the building and kicked us out last fall. We lived three years in Cambridgeport, and then three years just north of Harvard Square.

Before that I was in South Boston. Areas that pop up in the book: South Boston, Cambridge, Canton, South Station, Theater District/Bay Village.

When I lived in South Boston, I didn’t do really much with writing. I had just graduated from the University of Arizona MFA program and moved in hastily with a girlfriend. The area didn’t inspire me and my life situation at the time basically prohibited creative output.

When I moved to Cambridge, I got back into my routine of writing every day. I would read at a bar in Southie and get looks. I write or read at a bar in Cambridge and find others are doing it, too.

DB: Do you consider this to still be a great place to live for a writer?

MP: A writer can live anywhere. Unlike music, film, theater or visual art, writers don’t need collaborators, local venues, or local industry to do their thing. I write my stuff, send it to my readers, who don’t live here, publish in magazines that are not housed here, and my book’s press is in another state. Writing is done alone, and the cogs of the industry turn elsewhere, which doesn’t really matter.

Boston does have a ton of bookstores and colleges, though, which keep books a part of the atmosphere. There’s a reading every single night in this city, which is awesome and not the case everywhere. There are writers’ organizations, writing programs, and book festivals. That’s all great. That said, I am regularly confused and disappointed with the artistic vibrancy of Boston. We have MFA programs, music schools, art schools, so many colleges, and it seems that artists learn here and then leave. I teach at the Berklee College of Music, and so many of my students take off for New York or LA. I don’t think that NYC or LA is more reasonably priced than Beantown, but the necessary sacrifices that one must make to live as an artist makes more sense in those cities.

DB: What’s it like to publish a book of a personal nature as a professor? Was the potential response of students to certain revelations in the back of your mind the whole time you were writing this?

MP: I wrote most of this book before starting at Berklee.

So it definitely wasn’t an issue. After the call came in that Stillhouse wanted to publish POP!, I feared everyone in my life reading it. I showed it to people who made appearances in the story, changed things based on their wishes, deleted things, added things. But I have never worried about my students reading it, because they are artists themselves. They get it. When I listen to their music, and get to experience another side of them, I get it. We are and are not what we reveal in our art. I know that the Berklee musicians live the double life that all artists live and will allow me to as well.

You can hear Mark read from Pop! along with Lucas Mann, who will be reading from Lord Fear, at Porter Square Books on Friday, May 27 at 7pm. You can read more of Mark’s work at his online magazine, draftjournal.com.

A PUFF OF SMOKE

The following is excerpted from POP! by Mark Polanzak (Stillhouse) POP! Mark Polanzak’s father exploded. A puff of smoke.

Mark was eating pizza with his girlfriend in the converted attic over the garage of his parents’ house, when his mother collapsed into the rolling desk chair and slid a ways on the carpet, phone pressed to her right ear.

Dad’s dead.

But there was no need to rush to a hospital. No need to hurry somewhere to say goodbye to a body. The body had vanished. He had exploded, just blown up during his weekly tennis match with his friends. Dr. Hutch, his doubles partner, told Mark and his mother: it was deuce point, his father’s service game. Mark’s dad tossed the ball up, and when he made contact, there was a dull bang as if a bottle rocket had gone off, not loud, more like a pop. A little white smoke lingered where his dad had been in the act of serving. Then, his racquet was clanging to a rest on the baseline and the ball was rolling down the net. A fault.

It shocked everyone. Nurses Mark’s father had worked with, at the wake with the empty casket, they all said the same thing: “He seemed so fit, so healthy.”

“Yeah,” he told them. “He was young. He exercised. You never know.” *** Mark’s brother and he had already purchased a Father’s Day present.

This was the second week of June, 1998. The two freshly-fatherless sons drove to the sporting goods store to return the stringing machine, but they didn’t have a receipt.

“But he exploded, you see,” they told the clerk.

“Store credit only.”

The brothers browsed. David picked out a racquet and waved it in the air like a fly swatter; he played. JV. Approaching the register, though, he hesitated. “Do you think it’s safe?” he asked.

“Your game is completely different,” Mark assured him.

“Yeah. I’ll never have Dad’s killer serve.” *** I’m joking, of course. No one combusts or explodes, as far as I know. This is the beginning of a fictional story I wrote. My dad did not blow up. Did not pop. He did die, though, and it wasn’t funny.

But I wrote this funny story about my dad’s death. It goes on for many more pages, being funny and super distanced from the grief. Analogies can be drawn, though, from story to truth: the explosion and disappearance of the body reflects the unexpectedness of my father’s sudden death and my never seeing the body. The line about my father being so fit intends to be humorous in the story, but that’s what everyone actually did say. I didn’t understand why, as if it would have been appropriate to say the opposite, if it were true: “Well, he was out of shape…” The joke about my brother’s hesitation to play tennis again—as if playing tennis were the real killer—is an analogy to the fears my brother and I share that we’ve inherited our father’s genes and will die for the reason he died: heart disease. The absurdity of returning the gift and being forced to explain that he exploded? Well, those sorts of things happen. It seems ridiculous, in real life, to explain a death in certain situations. For instance, my family had to produce a death certificate in order to change the billing information on a phone line. Who knows what crimes criminals have thought up to create such red tape? So, the ridiculousness of the story’s situations isn’t radically far off from the truth. It seems psycho to lose your father at seventeen. It is. The story was aiming for that. That feeling, I guess.

Plus, certain details are true: it was on a tennis court and during a weekly tennis date with friends that the dying occurred. However, I have no idea who had serve, whether it was Ad In or Ad Out, Deuce, or during a side change when my father’s heart was attacked. What I’ve been told is that my dad mentioned to Dr. Hutch that he felt dizzy, then he sat on a bench to the side of the court, fainted, and his heart fluttered and fluttered. His heart began to spasm, trying to pump blood to where it needed to be. His heart tried for maybe a minute. And that was that.

An important ‘however.’ There was an urgent need to rush to a hospital. Dr. Hutch picked me and my mother up at the house. My girlfriend waited, too, for her mom to come and get her before Hutch arrived. How unceremonious to see her face while waiting for a trip to the hospital. She was not a bad person—a really good person actually—but just a face of ephemera, understood to soon be gone. A high school girlfriend. She was representative of a fun but passing thing in my life right in the middle of a moment that would remain. Her face is in an ever-lasting mind photo. Of destruction. My mother and I should have learned about our loss in an empty, new, and high cathedral.

My mother did say goodbye to the body. I did not. My brother did not. Dave, three thousand miles away in San Francisco, didn’t even know our dad was dead yet. I was offered the chance to say goodbye. Mom promised: “He’s still warm. His arms are folded on his chest like he used to sleep. I don’t know how they knew he slept like that.” She informed me of the state of Dad’s dead body in a special room, with a couch, adjacent to the emergency room. I could hear the bigger waiting room TV through the wall. An episode of Seinfeld was playing.

I didn’t go see the body at the wake either. A request went in to have the casket closed. At the time, I was too scared to look at my dad’s dead body. Didn’t know what it would do to me. I was capable of anything, I thought, and I just wanted to avoid a potential scene. However, I now think that I refused to say goodbye to my father’s body because it left open the chance to find him among the living. And I want to assure you that I’m not in denial. It’s been ten years since I’ve seen my dad, and this is because my dad is dead. But I didn’t see his body, so I’ve allowed some part of my brain to play with the idea that my father’s still out there. Maybe he escaped.

Maybe he hated me and my mom and my brother and his own life. My father faked it. Disappeared. Like in the explosion story. I think about this possibility. I think that if I do clap eyes on Dad—on the subway, in some foreign city, on a someday—I’m going to clobber him.

NEWS TO US

FEATURE

DEPT. OF COMMERCE

ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT

11

EATS

BOVA’S BAKERY

Old-Fashioned Italian Treats for Night Owls

BY MARC HURWITZ @HIDDENBOSTON

INMAN SQUARE’S NEIGHBORHOOD BAR & LOUNGE

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1172 CAMBRIDGE ST., CAMBRIDGE, MA | Mon - Fri 11AM - 1AM, Sat & Sun 10AM - 1AM | therisingbar.com

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As some of you may remember, an earlier article here looked at Victoria’s Diner, an eatery in Boston’s Newmarket Square area that is open 24 hours for a few days a week, and it was mentioned at the time that there appear to be only two 24-hour non-chain restaurants in the city, and only one is open 24/7 (the South Street Diner in the Leather District). What wasn’t mentioned in that article is that there is another 24/7 independent spot that, while not a restaurant, is a place where you can get to-go meals along with a wide variety of pastries and baked goods. And it’s interesting to note that while Bova’s Bakery in the North End has been around for more than 80 years, many people still don’t realize that this Salem Street shop is indeed open all day and all night—and some actually consider it an “urban legend” that the place is open 24 hours, even though it is clearly posted on the shop’s website. (And it is best not to reason with these people, because they clearly have never had a piece of tiramisu at four in the morning, but that’s another story for another day.)

Bova’s first opened back in 1932 and has been seen over the years as an alternative to the often-packed Mike’s and Modern on nearby Hanover Street, while also finding a bit of a middle ground between those tourist-heavy shops and the almost exclusively local Maria’s on Cross Street and Parziale’s on Prince Street, the latter of which is just around the corner from Bova’s. The store is located in a rather cozy corner of the North End (so cozy that a restaurant that calls itself Theo’s Cozy Corner resides a block away), away from the hustle and bustle of Hanover Street and within sight of the landmark Old North Church, which means that tourists do sometimes find this place though it remains mostly a local favorite. Bova’s is pretty small so it can feel crowded if even one or two groups walk through the door, though it is rarely as packed as the aforementioned Mike’s and Modern. The layout of the store is pretty simple, with the display counters to the left having a variety of pastries, the counters to the right being filled with cookies (and behind the counter, various breads), and further back, food items that can be heated up as to-go meals.

The options at Bova’s can be overwhelming, as the display cases are packed with nearly every kind of old-school Italian treat possible. A few highlights include whoopie pies with real whipped cream, chocolate-dipped biscotti, cannoli with or without chocolate chips and with mini versions available, decadent frosted anise cookies, creamy tiramisu, some of the best half-moons in the city (and you can call them black-and-white cookies if you want, but that means you’re a Yankees fan), flaky lobster tails, all kinds of colorful Italian cookies, and the ever-popular pizzelles. Some of the freshly baked breads available include great takes on scali, French bread, Tuscan white, foccacia, and several others, while those who are looking for lunch or dinner can choose from subs, sweet-tasting Sicilian pizza slices, some rather large arancini, and calzones. Service at Bova’s can range from ultra-friendly to gruff (and it often depends on how crowded the place is), with the former being the case much more often than the latter, and prices are generally right where you would expect them to be for most items, though it can be difficult to leave the place without spending a lot of money unless you invest in a good pair of blinders before walking through the door.

You always hear the argument “Mike’s or Modern?” when it comes to North End pastry shops and bakeries, but you don’t often hear Bova’s (or Maria’s or Parziale’s, for that matter) come into that particular conversation, which perhaps is how the other places want it in a strange sort of way, since they’re more in the way of neighborhood shops. It isn’t quite a hidden gem, but Bova’s remains a classic spot after all these years, and if you’re jonesing for several hundred calories of sweet treats well after the sun goes down (or shortly before it comes up), this is certainly about the only game in town. >> BOVA’S BAKERY. 134 SALEM ST., BOSTON. BOVABAKERYBOSTON.COM

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DIGBOSTON.COM

PHOTO BY MARC HURWITZ

WITH SIGNATURE COCKTAILS & EXCEPTIONAL FOOD

NEWS TO US

FEATURE

DEPT. OF COMMERCE

ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT

13

ARTS ENTERTAINMENT

THU 5.19

FRI 5.20

SAT 5.21

SUN 5.22

MON 5.23

TUE 5.24

Third Thursdays @ Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

Record Fair @ Together Boston

Earth Fest @ DCR Hatch Memorial Shell

SOWA Open Market @ South End

Open House @ CCTV

In the Body of the World @ A.R.T.

The first time we ever set up camp at Earth Fest was April 27, 2002—does that date ring a bell? It should, because Derek Lowe pitched a no-hitter at Fenway Park while we went apeshit for it as we picked up trash and hummed sweet crunchy nothings. There’s little chance of that happening again this weekend, but we will NEVER FORGET. Head down to the crack-shell and always remember #neverforget.

Food trucks are cool, but food trucks and local vendors getting their flea on is so much cooler.

Having relocated due to “circumstance beyond their control” usually means a disaster, but this new home and new vibe for the one and only SOWA means wide-open spaces and no more fire hazards. Bring your kids or have your kids bring you; either way, it’s a new game plan and the long list of businesses present are sure to make your nightmare parking experience a nonissue.

Have you ever wondered how to get your start on CCTV? We know we have! Well, despite the well-heeled connections amongst the politically astute, you can get your face and opinion online and live in front of MILLIONS of Cantabridgians if only you just show up and make good with the staff that makes it good. So, what are you waiting for? This is how the Goddamn Glenn made his millions.

Body, meet Earth. Earth, meet Body. It’s been a few billion years since you both first met, but it’s time you reconnected. Got to know each other better.

Understood the ins and outs of what you’ve both become. What do you say?

Shake hands, kiss, and make up? It’s getting weird out there, and we could use a little love if this planet is going to make it another six billion years more. Are you with us? If so, go see this. If not, go fuck yourself.

CCTV. 438 Mass. Ave., Cambridge. 6:30pm/all ages/FREE. cctvcambridge. org

Loeb Drama Center. 64 Brattle St., Cambridge.

7:30pm/18+/$25. americanrepertorytheater. com

Shadows are spooky.

They’re like drunken silhouettes of our inner selves and magnify our insecurities and shit.

They can also play nice with our personal light and the triangulations of our emotional discord and open us up to enlightenment and self awareness. Or they can stand as the backdrop to the latest Third Thursday at the Gardner and give us a reason to drink drinks and rub elbows with cool people. You decide.

Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. 25 Evans Way, Boston. 5:30pm/all ages/$15. gardnermuseum.org 14

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Wax ain’t dead, folks. Music ain’t dead. Shit, music never dies, period, as long as the ears hear it and the hearts feel it. One of the best parts of the last six years of Together Boston has been the sideshows and slow-going chill at the Together Lounge, whether it be picking through the goods from sponsors (stealing Red Bull) or listening to artists spins beats while you relax in between shots of Red Bull.

Did we mention a famous DJ from the Netherlands will be there Friday?

Together Boston. 614 Mass.

Ave. #203, Cambridge.

4pm/all ages/FREE. togetherboston.com

DIGBOSTON.COM

DCR Hatch Memorial Shell.

47 David G Mugar Way, Boston. 10am/all ages/ FREE. earthfest.com

SoWa Boston. 460 Harrison Ave., Boston. 10am/all ages/ FREE. sowaboston.com

NEWS TO US

FEATURE

DEPT. OF COMMERCE

ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT

15

MUSIC

MMM-POP

Indulge in the experimental pop of Magnolia Loft

BY NINA CORCORAN @NINA_CORCORAN

MUSIC

GO BIG AND GO HOME

PorchFest ’16 takes over Somerville with ease

BY NINA CORCORAN @NINA_CORCORAN Homebodies and explorers can finally make peace. PorchFest is back and Somerville is prepping itself for the most lackadaisical rendition yet to celebrate.

This Saturday, musicians and bands will celebrate Somerville’s special culture by bringing back the old-school venue: the porch. Now in its fifth year, the festival invites local and touring musicians to break out their best busking, just for music’s sake. Tipping is allowed, but most gather friends around just to jam. Residents get to see their side of town turned into a musical maven. Those who live elsewhere get to wander the streets with overwhelmed joy, passing through the decentralized music festival one avenue at a time.

Don’t expect acoustic bro battles. This is a melting pot at its steamiest. Western banjo, Bollywood funk, cosmic Americana, soulful blues, Moroccan, Balkan, gospel, space rock, and everything in between will be hitting your ears.

You dream up a genre, it’s there.

Organized readers may prefer to make a list of who’s who, tackling the big-name acts first before seeing some of the low-key performers. We’re not going to indulge you. Before you grab your freshly sharpened pitchfork, hear us out. PorchFest is meant to equalize the playing field. It takes the experience of overhearing a neighbor playing a beautiful melody on acoustic guitar and then amplifies it by several hundreds. So wander at free will. If you must, head to the designated areas for set times: east of Central Street will be noon-2 pm; Central Street to Willow Street will be 2-4 pm; west of Willow Street 4-6 pm. The community event is exactly that: a festival created so neighbors get to know each other beyond the names glued to mailboxes.

Our real advice is to come prepared. Those looking to perform had to submit online forms several weeks ago, but you are welcome to carry an instrument on your back, occasionally joining others and certain porches should the owners invite strangers to join in.

For those who aren’t musically inclined, pack some quality snacks and sneak a few tipsy drinks in, too. The sun will be deciding whether it’s spring or summer, so you may get exhausted quicker than expected, and music can only do so much to lift your spirits. Whether you’re passing beers or blunts, it’s a day-long event for anyone looking to bask in early summer vibes. >> PORCHFEST ’16. SAT 5.17. SOMERVILLE. 12PM/ALL AGES/FREE. SOMVERVILLEARTSCOUNCIL.ORG

MUSIC EVENTS FRI 5.20

SAT 5.21

[The Sinclair, 52 Church St., Cambridge. 8pm/18+/$20. sinclaircambridge.com]

[Middle East Downstairs, 472 Mass. Ave., Cambridge. 8pm/18+/$15. mideastoffers.com]

BILLBOARD-TOPPING ELECTRONICA BLAQK AUDIO + NIGHT RIOTS + CHARMING LIARS

16

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AVANT-POP GETS DIGITALIZED MATTHEW DEAR + AXEL BOMAN + J.PHLIP

DIGBOSTON.COM

SUN 5.22

EP RELEASE SHOW WEAKENED FRIENDS + TIGERMAN WOAH + DOOM LOVER

[Great Scott, 1222 Comm.

Ave., Allston. 9pm/18+/$10. greatscottboston.com]

MON 5.23

SURF’S UP DUDE LE ROXY PRO + THE GREBES + EVERYTHING AND EVERYONE [Great Scott, 1222 Comm. Ave., Allston.

8:30pm/18+/$8. greatscottboston.com]

Poptimism tells you that there are intricacies which make easy melodies sound so right. Meanwhile, rock buffs tend to find pop boring with its repetition and whatnot. We can settle the score right now, though, just as long as both sides of the battle are willing to flex their definition of pop.

Magnolia Loft will do the explaining.

Jamaica Plain venue Magnolia Loft was created by that neighborhood’s own Audrey Harrer. The teacher and musician fosters a rich environment for musicians on the fringe of folk to find a home.

Technically a private studio, Magnolia Loft encourages experimental DIY events to take place there frequently, all with the intent of pushing our idea of music into a realm where curiosity is mandatory.

There’s no better introduction to the space’s perks than Saturday night’s Experimental Pop Showcase. The evening of music brings four acts together under one roof, offering them a chance to play to a room of fancy flowers, cozy carpets, and fully engaged humans. This time around, Boston-based multi-instrumentalist Jhainish will open, organ and autoharp-totting artist Vuk will follow suit, live-looping sensation Nuda Veritas will perform after, and finally Harrer herself will close out the night.

Harrer’s alt-chamber pop brings the evening to a close not just for this Magnolia Loft show but for her spring tour. The harpist has been traveling from state to state performing original material for soon-to-be adoring onlookers. As a farewell to this tour’s performance, she will combine vocal gymnastics, live looping, and processed harp, the combination of which sounds like the middle ground between Julia Holter and Natalie Prass.

For pop purists, it may sounds like a symphony take on alt-radio hits, but those prying through song structure will find it’s far more complicated than the ears can pick up. That’s what music’s for: making you feel and making you think.

So take this one motto with you when you go: Pop is fun, but it’s a hell of a lot more so when things get weird.

>> AUDREY HARRER, NUDA VERITAS, VUK, JHAINISH. SAT 5.21. MAGNOLA LOFT, 128 BROOKSIDE AVE., JAMAICA PLAIN. 7PM/ALL AGES/DONATIONS ACCEPTED. FACEBOOK.COM/MAGNOLIALOFTJP

TUE 5.24

BLACK VEIL BRIDES GONE SOLO ANDY BLACK + COLOURS

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

6pm/all ages/$25. crossroadspresents.com]

WED 5.25

MINIMALIST DANCE MOVES FOUR TET + ANTHONY NAPLES

[Paradise Rock Club, 967 Comm. Ave., Allston. 8pm/18+/$20. crossroadspresents.com]

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WWW.PHOENIXLANDINGBAR.COM NEWS TO US

FEATURE

DEPT. OF COMMERCE

ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT

17

hoisting. Do you remember that expression—”hoist by his own petard?” It’s one of my favorite expressions. I think it means you’re preparing a … I don’t know … I’ve got to look into it. I always thought it meant you were blown up by your own firecracker. But it must mean something else.

We’ll look into that.

It must mean when you’re on a ship, and you have those things that balance, and you’re trying to pull something up, but you end up pulling yourself up instead. I don’t know. We’ll figure it out. But see, I did this novel, and one of the joys for me of the novel— FILM

EXPLOSIVE CONVERSATION Talking to Whit Stillman about his latest works

BY JAKE MULLIGAN @_JAKEMULLIGAN Whit Stillman is an American-born filmmaker currently living in Paris. Three of his earlier films—Metropolitan, Barcelona, and The Last Days of Disco—were recently released onto Blu-ray by the Criterion Collection. And his latest feature, Love & Friendship, opens at Boston-area movie theaters this Friday (it’s an adaptation of Jane Austen’s Lady Susan). We spoke to Mr. Stillman at the Eliot Hotel following the film’s area premiere.

STILLMAN: The facial hair deal that’s going on is cool. I was casting in Paris in 2014, and every single man had a beard, or something like one. So now I can not shave for several days, and only my girlfriend minds. What I tell her is that I can have a much closer shave after two or three days of not shaving. It’s for her pleasure. The thing is, if you let it grow really long, then it gets soft, and girlfriends don’t mind. But if it’s two days’ stubble? Oof. They’re like little javelins. Anyway, don’t put that in the article.

DIG: I’ll take this, and I’ll take the things that were said about [name of a prominent young English actress redacted] at the Q&A last night, and I can dump it all.

Can you even imagine? [An audience member] saw this film [Love & Friendship] where Kate Beckinsale plays Lady Susan, and he asks [during the Q&A] why I didn’t cast [Prominent English Actress]? I mean [Prominent English Actress] is too young, isn’t she?

It doesn’t matter if she’s literally too young, because she definitely looks too young.

Kate does too, but Kate’s exactly as described in the novel: “A young mother of 35 who looks ten years younger.”

That’s Kate.

This is more stuff I can’t include in the article.

Did you ever see Barcelona? There’s a big thing about shaving in that movie. So you can include the shaving stuff. I had finally shaved last night before the screening and then shaved again for a photograph this morning. I hate shaving twice within 12 hours. Better to let it grow— 36 hours, even 24 hours, is better.

Last time you were in town was for a Harvard Film Archive retrospective timed to the release of Damsels in Distress. During our interview back then we talked about a different monologue in Barcelona—the one about the pros of “dating plain people”—because it recurred in Damsels.

You’re sitting pretty if you’re well shaved and dating plain people. Unfortunately I made the other choice. My girlfriend is really pretty. But I do get dumped pretty frequently. I made The Cosmopolitans about a relationship I had in France. Did you ever see that, the pilot?

I have not.

It’s amazing how few people have seen it.

It was on Amazon, right?

It was one of those free things they do. A battle of the bands-style [competition] with five [television] pilots.

We didn’t get the green light then because I couldn’t tell them the whole story for the series. I wanted to write the scripts, rather than just have an outline. But they got some deal with Geico … now I get to write the scripts.

It’s something you’re continuing to work on?

Yeah. I just switched some of my ideas over the weekend.

First I had vague ideas about going in one direction, but then I had this super-exciting idea … and the superexciting idea is just not writing itself at all. So I think I’m going back to my own sort of typical material, rather than the exciting idea.

Does that happen to you often?

Yes [emphatically]. Part of the 12-year drought [Ed. note: Stillman did not release any films between Disco in ’98 and Damsels in ’11] was spent trying to do material that other people did not think was my area, or trying to do material that actually was not my area. Sometimes something’s not your area, and other times it’s because everyone’s convinced you do one type of thing, so you never get to do anything else.

But I always say I’m in favor of typecasting actors, so the fact that I myself have been typecast is the petard self-

I’m sorry, but is this your Last Days of Disco novel?

No, the Lady Susan novel. The new one.

You wrote a novelization of your latest film.

I did a novel—well, a “novelization” [spoken with grave disdain], I don’t know—I did a novel version.

Excuse me, I apologize. So it’s the novel version…

The novel version of a film that was based on a novella.

Exactly. This is a good interview, this is enjoyable. But the problem is that when it’s more enjoyable for us, then it’s less enjoyable for the reader.

I’m not sure that’s true. Besides, I’ll take out all the “uhs” and the “ahs” and the conversation about [Prominent English Actress] and it’ll read pretty well.

You can call her “a prominent young British actress.”

I like that. A blind item.

For me the joy of doing the Love & Friendship novel was my very foolish narrator. He’s pedantic and has lots of footnotes. So I got to do the etymologies—he loves etymologies, for all kinds of things. He didn’t get to “hoisted by his own petard,” though.

I can ask you more professional questions now, if you’d like.

“Whit Stillman: Self-hoisted by Petard.” I think that’s a solid headline.

Just to be up front, I haven’t read the Austen text that you’re film is based on. I was hoping you could introduce it.

Good! It appalls me when people think it’s a good idea to read something before seeing a film adaptation. I just got an email from a woman who is reading Lady Susan before seeing the film, and I said, “Oh no, don’t do that.” I think it’s great to read it afterwards. What were you going to ask?

Just if you could introduce your relationship with the material.

This is something racy that Jane Austen wrote before she finished her major novels. It’s about a very charming and very dominant character named Lady Susan. What’s interesting about the Austen original is that it’s really funny. She didn’t complete it, so in our own way, we’ve rounded it out. Certainly not the way she would’ve done it—but the way that a huge Jane Austen fan would’ve done it, if he found himself making a film.

[Ed. note: “Hoist with his own petard” is a Shakespearean idiom that indeed refers to one who blows himself up with a bomb of his own making.]

>> LOVE & FRIENDSHIP. RATED PG. OPENS FRI 5.20 AT COOLIDGE CORNER THEATRE, AMC BOSTON COMMON, KENDALL SQUARE CINEMA, AND WEST NEWTON CINEMA.

FILM EVENTS THU 5.19

FRI 5.20

SAT 5.21

[Coolidge Corner Theatre.

290 Harvard St., Brookline.

7pm/NR/$11.25. 16mm. coolidge.org]

[Brattle Theatre.

40 Brattle St., Harvard Sq., Cambridge. 5 and 8pm/ NR/$9-11. Screens until 5.21. brattlefilm.org]

[Coolidge Corner Theatre.

290 Harvard St., Brookline.

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

BALAGAN PRESENTS THE FILMS OF WILL HINDLE

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PRECEDED BY ALAN SCHNEIDER AND SAMUEL BECKETT’S ‘FILM’ NOTFILM

DIGBOSTON.COM

COOLIDGE AFTER MIDNIGHT PRESENTS SLY STALLONE AND WESLEY SNIPES IN DEMOLITION MAN

THE SEIJUN SUZUKI RETROSPECTIVE CONTINUES WITH CARMEN FROM KAWACHI

[Harvard Film Archive.

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

35mm. See hcl.harvard. edu/hfa and brattlefilm. org for details on other films in the program.]

SUN 5.22

MON 5.23

[Museum of Fine Arts.

465 Huntington Ave., Boston. Noon/NR/$9-11.

Screens on various dates through 5.29. See MFA.org for showtimes.]

[Coolidge Corner Theatre.

290 Harvard St., Brookline.

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

CHANTAL AKERMAN’S NO HOME MOVIE

BIG SCREEN CLASSICS PRESENTS AUDREY HEPBURN IN FUNNY FACE

CRITICS’ PICK

STINGRAY BODY ART | TATTOO BY ALASTAIR

“HOWLINGLY FUNNY. Whit Stillman is perfectly at home in Jane Austen’s world.”

★★★★★

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ARTS

A CONVERSATION WITH RUSSELL HARVARD Starring in Craig Lucas’ world premiere play at the Huntington

BY CHRISTOPHER EHLERS @_CHRISEHLERS

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I Was Most Alive With You is the newest play by Craig Lucas, three-time Tony Award nominee for An American in Paris, The Light in the Piazza, and Prelude to a Kiss, for which he was also a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

I Was Most Alive With You is the very first play ever written for an integrated cast of Deaf/deaf/hard-of-hearing and hearing actors at a regional theater.

The role of Knox was written for actor Russell Harvard after Lucas saw him offBroadway in Tribes. Well-known for his performances in There Will Be Blood TV’s Fargo, Harvard recently made his Broadway debut in the Tony nominated revival of Spring Awakening.

I Was Most Alive With You is being called the first new play written specifically for an integrated cast of deaf actors, hard-of-hearing actors, etc. What exactly does that mean?

It means that it’s fully accessible. Hearing people will always hear the lines or see the actions, and at the same time they can enjoy watching the shadow interpreters that are signing the words of the main characters. There’s never been any other production that has ever done this. It’s very revolutionary.

Other than this being an incredible opportunity for deaf actors and audience members, on a broader scale, what greater significance do you think this play has culturally?

I’m hopeful that other theater companies are going to see this as a model. It doesn’t necessarily have to be shadow interpreters that are signing, it can be the other way around: It can be a deaf actor that’s playing a main character role and then a hearing actor that’s speaking, which was very successful when we did it with Spring Awakening.

The role of Knox was written for you. What does that feel like?

A big deal. I just want to make Craig proud. I think it’s just so clever that he has included all of the diversity that he has into this show so that everyone out there can relate. My partner [in the play], he’s Lebanese-Islamic, there’s a Jehovah’s Witness, a Christian. Several Jewish people. Jewish Buddhists. There’s no one that’s going to feel “I don’t get it.” Everybody’s going to relate to the show.

At the end of the story of Job, he is restored he regains his health and riches. The future of Knox is left a question mark.

Right. I think there is hope there. That’s what I think. Something good is going to come out of something seemingly bad. There is a way that things can be better, according to this play. >> I WAS MOST ALIVE WITH YOU. RUNS 5.27-6.26 AT THE HUNTINGTON THEATRE COMPANY, 527 HUNTINGTON AVE., BOSTON. HUNTINGTONTHEATRE.ORG 20

5.19.16 - 5.26.16

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I must imagine that Marlee Matlin has been a great influence on you as an actor.

What was it like to work with her on Spring Awakening?

Oh, yeah. Absolutely. We instantly clicked and supported each other. It was great.

She’s like a model for a deaf actor. Really fun to work with.

Cycles 128 107 Brimbal Ave, Beverly, MA 01915 www.cycles128.com

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SAVAGE LOVE

GUILT RIDDEN

WHAT'S FOR BREAKFAST

BY PATT KELLEY WHATS4BREAKFAST.COM

BY DAN SAVAGE @FAKEDANSAVAGE | MAIL@SAVAGELOVE.NET Over the years, I have consumed what I believe to be an average amount of porn for a 44-year-old hetero guy. I have never paid for it, and I am now facing a troubled conscience for that fact. I could obviously just subscribe to some site or other now, but that would benefit only one company and/or set of performers. Is there a Dan Savage– approved charity relating to the adult film industry to which I could donate?

Seeks Penance And Needs Knowledge “Porn performers almost never get royalties for their scenes when they work for big studios,” said Conner Habib, a writer, activist, and porn performer. “If you buy into the trickle-down theory of things, then more money for the studio should mean more money for the performers.

If you don’t buy into that—and not everyone does—there are other options.”

To get your money directly to the performers whose work you’re currently enjoying/stealing, SPANK, you can patronize smaller studios run by performers, book time with independent webcam models, and purchase porn created by performers on sites like Clips4Sale.com.

To atone for your years of freeloading, SPANK, you can and should make large donations to two organizations.

“The Adult Performer Advocacy Committee (APAC) (apac-usa.com) is the largest performerbased organization in the world, and its membership is made up entirely of performers,” said Habib. “Full disclosure: I’m the vice president, but no donation money goes to me or any board member. It all goes to the organization, which works to improve the working conditions, quality of life, and safety of performers, as well as to fight anti-porn laws and stigma.”

Habib also recommended donating money to the Sex Workers Outreach Project (swopusa.org).

“This isn’t a porn-specific organization,” said Habib, “but it works to protect and fight for the rights of all sex workers. Since many performers are doing other forms of sex work, donations go a long way to help porn performers.”

Habib will be hosting an online lecture/ seminar about the upside of porn on Sunday, June 5. His talk is titled “Pornworld: Why Pornography Is a Healthy Part of Our Culture,” and you can find out more about it by searching “pornworld” at Eventbrite.com. You can— and you should—follow Habib on Twitter @ ConnerHabib.

Jillian Keenan, author of Sex with Shakespeare, on the Savage Lovecast: savagelovecast.com.

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BOWERY BOSTON

For show announcements, giveaways, contests, and more, follow us on:

WWW.BOWERYBOSTON.COM • • • • LIVE MUSIC IN AND AROUND BOSTON • • • •

ROYALE 279 Tremont St. Boston, MA • royaleboston.com/concerts THE

JAYHAWKS

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J U N E

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BOOK OF SHADOWS II W/ TYLER BRYANT & THE SHAKEDOWN, JARED JAMES NICHOLS

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Digitalism (Live)

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TUESDAY, MAY 31

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Damien Jurado & The Heavy Light W/ BEN ABRAHAM

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MICHAEL CHRISTMAS / TUNJI IGE

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1222 Comm. Ave. Allston, MA greatscottboston.com

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≠ 5/22 WEAKENED FRIENDS ≠ 5/23 LE ROXY PRO ≠ 5/26 EMMA ATE THE LION ≠ 6/1 BRIAN CARPENTER & THE CONFESSIONS ≠ 6/4 WHEN PARTICLES COLLIDE ≠ 6/10 THE SUITCASE JUNKET ≠ 6/12 THE HUNNA ≠ 6/13 CASKET GIRLS ≠ 6/14 ESCONDIDO

OTHER SHOWS AROUND TOWN:

on tour summer 2016 with:

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Tickets for Royale, The Sinclair, and Great Scott can be purchased online at Ticketmaster.com or by phone at (800) 745-3000.

No fee tickets available at The Sinclair box office Wednesdays - Saturdays 12:00 - 7:00PM

RATBOYS HORSE JUMPER OF LOVE

SUNDAY, JUNE 26 MIDDLE EAST UP

FOR MORE INFORMATION AND A COMPLETE LIST OF SHOWS, VISIT BOWERYBOSTON.COM