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VOL 18 + ISSUE 28

JULY 14, 2016 - JULY 21, 2016 EDITORIAL PUBLISHER + EDITOR Jeff lawrence 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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DEAR READER Along with others from Team Dig, I was deep in the heart of Texas (or liberal artsy Austin, actually) when five police officers were killed by a gunman during a peaceful Black Lives Matter rally held in response to epic and horrific police violence nationwide. With the nation’s sanity and safety in the balance, and with a heated presidential race underway to boot, I was seriously taken aback by the number of people on my flight back to Boston who, instead of watching the news unfold in real time on a cable feed, chose to watch ex-jocks discuss the afternoon’s athletic happenings on any number of college and pro sports stations. Do they not give a shit? Don’t they want to know what Anderson Cooper and Wolf Blitzer think?

(I know, I’m nosy, but that’s the curse of Jet Blue.) A sports hater of sorts, I was mystified, disappointed.

Until I took a seat upon my return with George Hassett’s excellent feature for this week’s issue. A story about Boston blacktop basketball then and now, the piece reminded me that sports aren’t always merely a distraction—for many individuals and communities as well, in Boston and in any number of other places where people face hardships, athletics can serve as a significant and critical coping mechanism. Hassett’s is in part a sad story, as Hub hoops culture seems to be slipping at a time when we need it most. At the same time, major props to those who are carrying on tradition and to the young people who will break down barriers all summer in the city’s youth leagues. As for the intensity and protests afoot, we will be following developments in the Hub and beyond all this week and as long as it takes. Be sure to check us out in print next Thursday, and stay tuned to DigBoston.com for the latest.

CHRIS FARAONE, NEWS+FEATURES EDITOR OH, CRUEL WORLD

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IMPROV ASYLUM IS TAKING OVER LAUGH BOSTON THIS SUMMER! DON’T MISS

Dear Contemporary America, What the holy fuck! I go away for a lousy eleven days and you completely self-destruct? I mean, I probably could have predicted this—anyone with cable news could have—but this is especially absurd, what with the Trump-hued lily-whiteness of the problems gumming up our gears. I guess I’ll give you this—the last thing that I ever expected was for police brutality to dominate the mainstream media like this, or for your dually ridiculous national party conventions to be on such a deserved crash course.

It kind of sucks to see you burn like this, but let’s just hope it’s for the better in the end.

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NEWS US WILL CAMPUS ADVOCATES SPARK A REBELLION FOR PROPER FUNDING OR CLING TO FAILED POLITICS AS USUAL?

KILL SHOT 2: THE SAGA CONTINUES NEWS TO US

Mass public higher ed still on the chopping block Hot on the heels of the UMass Boston administration issuing pink slips to 400 Boston non-tenure track faculty last month comes this month’s announcement that the entire UMass system will almost certainly face tuition hikes for the second year in a row. Capping a quartercentury of relentless increases in tuition and fees at state colleges and universities that have made the Massachusetts public higher education system the ninth most expensive in the nation.

Locally, according to the Daily Hampshire Gazette, UMass Boston students “will likely see the biggest increase because that campus projects a $22.3 million shortfall in the coming fiscal year.”

The UMass Board of Trustees will vote on the matter on July 14. But given the Commonwealth’s worsening financial position in the wake of the Brexit crisis, and an expected additional deficit of up to $950 million for FY 2017, there will be significant budget shortfalls that UMass leadership plans to deal with by jacking up tuition on already overburdened students.

My basic response to the looming layoff of one-third of the UMass Boston faculty was to call for a rebellion by students, faculty, staff, alumni and parents at that school.

So it should come as no surprise that my response to news of this latest tuition hike is to call for a systemwide rebellion at UMass. And at the state universities and community colleges of the Commonwealth’s three-tiered public higher ed system as well.

As to the specific form of the necessary uprising, I cannot say for sure what will be most effective. But something like the campus walkouts that Boston Public School students pulled off this spring, plus a general descent upon the State House and the establishment of an Occupy-style encampment as a base of operations would be an excellent start. Because if the politicians 4

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don’t feel major pressure very soon, public higher education will begin to disintegrate in the Bay State as regular budget cuts get worse and worse.

To those who might suggest that a typical lobbying strategy will be more effective than an extraparliamentary strategy at this moment in history, I would say that the burden of proof is on them to demonstrate how playing nice in a state political arena dominated by monied interests is getting public higher education advocates — or advocates for any public good — anywhere of late.

As it happens, campus activist groups and labor unions have tried that approach for over a decade but no major positive changes have occurred in state higher ed policy.

The general political trajectory has been for the legislature to continue decreasing state support for public colleges and universities causing administrators to raise tuition and fees to fill the budgetary gap. Gradually transferring costs from government to individuals — changing higher ed from a right for the many back to a privilege for the few moving forward. A reversal of nearly two centuries of democratic education reforms.

Power accedes to nothing without a demand. But such a demand needs to fit the circumstances. If the problem involves savage budget cuts, big tuition hikes— 5 to 8 percent at each UMass campus and similar amounts at the state universities being currently projected for FY 2017 alone according to UMass President Marty Meehan — and an existential threat to public higher ed then one can’t improve the situation by proposing good but relatively minor reforms that barely begin to touch the crisis at hand.* Including the “fair share” constitutional amendment that may be on the ballot in November 2018 — which will raise taxes on individuals making more than $1 million a year and target some of the estimated

$2 billion in resulting funds annually to higher ed.

A lot of damage can be done to state colleges and universities in the minimum of three fiscal years that it will take to see such a millionaires’ tax operationalized — assuming it’s not defeated by the usual business-led coalition of anti-tax voters. And it’s still no substitution for the progressive tax regime that is needed to end the Commonwealth’s financial woes.

So Mass public higher ed activists face a crucial decision. Will they play an inside game that has not worked before and is therefore highly unlikely to work now without the mass support they have been unable to generate with carefully scripted rallies and lobby days?

Or will they try something new? Something bold that might generate the required popular support. Something that will inspire all the tens of thousands of students and alumni being sentenced to a lifetime of debt bondage by short-sighted politicians that refuse to raise taxes on corporations and the rich — even when the very things that have traditionally made Massachusetts a great state, like our public higher ed system, are in danger of being destroyed. All while emboldening faculty and staff to fight for their jobs with the fury a deteriorating political economic situation demands.

That remains to be seen. *On July 11, the Boston Globe reported that community college tuition would be increasing as much as 10 percent in FY 2017.

Apparent Horizon is syndicated by the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism. Jason Pramas is BINJ’s network director.

COPYRIGHT 2016 JASON PRAMAS. LICENSED FOR USE BY THE BOSTON INSTITUTE FOR NONPROFIT JOURNALISM AND MEDIA OUTLETS IN ITS NETWORK.

BY JASON PRAMAS @JASONPRAMAS

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PIPE NIGHTMARE COLUMN

The biggest action yet against encroaching gas lines in Mass

BY DIG STAFF @DIGBOSTON

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If Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker gets his way, energy consumers in the Commonwealth (note: everyone) will be forced to pay a tariff, through their utility bills, to help pay for a big old natural gas pipeline. Fortunately, the fight against this money grab is growing, from regional fronts to the upcoming “People Over Pipelines” march, which will take place from this Thursday (July 14) through Monday (July 18). In anticipation of more than 250 residents rallying from the proposed pipeline routes to Beacon Hill, we asked Better Future Project Media Fellow Courtney Foster to fill in some details.

DB: Let’s get this straight—they’re trying to tax us for a natural gas pipeline that we don’t even want in the first place?

BFP: It’s hard to believe, but it’s true. Any way you look at it—environmentally, socially, economically—it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.

DB: Who’s they, by the way? And who will benefit from our hard-earned tax dollars being spent in such a manner?

BFP: Spectra Energy, a company based in Texas, wishes to build this pipeline to increase their profits and their exports of natural gas both to other states and internationally. At this point, Governor Baker also backs their project. The tax revenue would thus pay for the construction of the pipeline and never make it back into the pockets of average Massachusetts residents.

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DB: Do you feel like conspiracy theorists telling people this? Since it’s utterly ridiculous yet still not on the front page of every newspaper every day?

BFP: A couple of months ago, it definitely would have seemed that way. Baker was certainly trying to push this legislation through with as little fuss as possible, and at first, he was succeeding. It’s thanks to the efforts of activists and organizers in Massachusetts that many more people seem to talking about the pipeline now.

DB: Not to sound too selfish about these developments, but is there any way to know how much this would impact the typical individual taxpayer on-average?

BFP: The project would require Baker to raise $3 billion in ratepayer fees.

Massachusetts residents would experience a 3 percent increase on their electric bills to fund the pipeline.

DB: But my uncle with the NRA hat says we need these pipelines and that they create jobs. He’s an idiot, but does he have a point?

BFP: Massachusetts does not need the pipeline. A recent report released by the office of Attorney General Maura Healey shows that Massachusetts does not need any new natural gas pipelines to meet its electricity reliability demands. In terms of jobs, it would be a much wiser decision to begin new projects in renewable energy to create more openings. Solar and wind now cost less than 1 percent of what they did during the Carter era, whereas the fossil fuel industry is on its last legs and will not continue to be lucrative. Furthermore, investing in new gas pipelines would be a setback, because it would render our state unable to comply with the 2008 Global Warming Solutions Act (mandating a statewide reduction PIPE NIGHTMARE continued on pg. 8

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in emissions of heat-trapping gases by 25 percent by 2020 relative to 1990). An order by the State Supreme Court in May binds us to this legislation.

DB: Is this “People Over Pipelines” march your biggest action yet? Tell us about what it’s taken to organize people all across the Commonwealth in a unified effort.

BFP: People Over Pipelines is certainly the biggest march we have ever planned.

Organizing the march has taken countless hours of work by 350 Mass staff, fellows, and volunteers in our different nodes across the state, as well as collaborative efforts with other climate justice groups such as FRRACS (Fore River Residents Against the Compressor Station). We have tremendous gratitude for those who have helped us along the way, from residents who have circulated petitions to businesses and places of worship which have opened their doors to us so we can eat and sleep along the march. It hasn’t been easy, but we have confidence that the results will be well worth the effort.

MEDIA FARM

WOW, JUST WOW

Henry names wife new Sox shortstop

BY MEDIA FARM Just kidding. Boston Red Sox owner John Henry didn’t tap his wife, Linda Henry, to play shortstop or any other position at Fenway. That would be preposterous.

As of last week, however, Linda Henry, already a managing director at her husband’s other flagship enterprise, the Boston Globe, has been given oversight of the seemingly plagued Boston. com. We’ve taken the liberty of listing her qualifications to run a multimillion-dollar media company …

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DB: Have your protests accomplished anything so far? Any examples?

BFP: Perhaps most significantly, Kinder Morgan suspended their Northeast Energy Direct pipeline project at the end of April, largely in result of 350 Mass’ and Better Future Project’s work. Additionally, in the recent weeks, the State Senate voted unanimously (39-0) for a ban on the pipeline tax. This is a huge victory so far in our current fight to terminate the Access Northeast pipeline project. All of this goes to show that people power can put a stop to pipeline infrastructure which threatens our health and our communities, and I believe we can do it again.

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SEARCHING FOR STRO FEATURE

Playground basketball in Boston is dying. Which is a shame, because for more than half a century hoops soothed the Hub during racism, violence, and injustice.

They were basketball legends.

Jimmy Walker invented the between-the-legs and crossover dribbles on a Humboldt Avenue playground.

Steve “Stro” Strother had more moves than Ex-Lax. Willis “Spider” Bennett could jump so high he could take a dollar bill off the top of the backboard and leave change.

For more than 60 years, Boston streetball players put on a free show every summer—drawing oohs and ahs from crowds, sometimes outplaying NBA all-stars, and always bringing palms together on hot city nights.

The tales are endless: After the NCAA lifted the ban on dunking in the ’70s, Boston’s “Jammin’” James Bailey put the oop back in alley-oop while leading Rutgers to an NCAA Final Four appearance. After that, Bailey played nine years in the NBA, though one summer night he was famously outplayed by “Big” Tom Cowart, a local character who was unknown beyond Roxbury. It’s a similar story for 10

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Greg “Smooth” Simpson, who could have made the NBA, but instead set the all-time state prison scoring record.

And don’t forget Dawun “Chan the Man” Chandler, who could dribble the ball like it was a yo-yo.

Look around Boston now and you’ll see that the show—with its improvisations, unforgettable characters and dramatic twists —is nearing an end. Parks that raised generations of ballplayers are now barren. Different local hoops observers argue that the trend stems from various factors—gentrification, the rise of street gangs, more social distractions—but they agree on one thing: Boston basketball is dying.

“It brings a tear to my eye when I see empty courts at Washington Park,” says Dennis Wilson, whose extensive basketball history includes 34 years as the head coach at Madison Park High School in Roxbury. “The same passion isn’t there today. Kids today would rather chill, work, or

unfortunately get caught up in that gang thing. Back in the day, summertime was synonymous with streetball.”

Wilson would know—he and his brother Harry founded the city’s premier outdoor league, the Roxbury Basketball Association, which operated from 1972 to 1987. The RBA was Boston’s counterpart to other storied basketball leagues such as the Rucker in Harlem or the Baker League in Philadelphia.

The stories that spring out of such leagues make up a secret basketball history—tall tales of high-flyers, ballhandling wizards, and playground legends who outplayed established pros. On the asphalt, everything is equal, and the players who distinguish themselves become streetball heroes. The dramatic victories and sad declines of these heroes make them more compelling than any fictional character as they become an integral part of the city’s lore.

SEARCHING FOR STRO continued on pg. 12

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SEARCHING FOR STRO continued from pg. 10

THE STAKES

The intensity of streetball then and now is captured concisely and poetically in the new book, Black Gods of the Asphalt: Religion, Hip-Hop and Street Basketball, by Onaje X.O. Woodbine. In his work, Woodbine argues that street basketball is a “lived religion in which the central problems and structures of inner city life are displayed, renegotiated and reimagined on the court.”

Woodbine, a former Boston basketball star himself, conducted four years of field studies of inner-city Boston streetball. He found that “the ways the players move, style and display their bodies on the court say something profound about their search for ultimate meaning in the world.”

“Our exaggerated movements and deceptive tricks with the basketball spoke a language of resistance.”

In Boston, our highest asphalt god is Steve “Stro” Strother. And our greatest playground tale is the night that Stro outplayed an all-time great Celtic in Roxbury’s Washington Park. To put it simply, Stro is Boston’s greatest who never made it. In 1982, legendary Boston Globe sportswriter Peter Gammons offered this thumbnail bio: Stro . . . a certified playground legend . . . the greatest one-on-one player in the history of this city . . .

Dorchester High School class of ’71 . . .Providence College class of ’76 . . . drafted by the Houston Rockets in the spring of ’75 even though he’d never started a college ballgame . . . a 6-2 guard who could penetrate, stick the jumper, leap out of the gym and dribble through every defense known to man.

Strother might have been a favorite on the streets, but he didn’t get much attention playing at Dorchester High in the city league. Most of the spotlight at the time was on schoolboy stars Ron Lee, a Lexington High School player and one of the first METCO students, and Catholic Memorial star King Gaskins —two of the famed Boston Six who in 1972 created enough excitement to bring national recruiters here for the first time.

Strother graduated the year before that excitement.

He wasn’t nationally recruited and settled on playing for Providence, where he infuriated coaches with his shot selection and collected splinters on the bench. As Strother struggled, Gaskins became Boston’s only first team AllAmerican, while Lee went on to superstardom in his own right at the University of Oregon.

But in a Dec 23, 1975, televised matchup between Lee and Strother, it was Stro who stole the show. By then Lee was an All-American, the top defensive guard in the country, and on his way to becoming Oregon’s all-time scoring leader. But in a shocking outcome, Stro came off the bench to outplay Lee, score 18 points, and play tough defense on Lee in a Providence win over Oregon.

Talking to reporters after the game, Strother displayed his usual bravado: “Sure, the other guys—the Lees, Gaskins, good players—they got the publicity, but downtown, on the playgrounds, they knew I was the man.”

Stro was the man. Even Gaskins, widely regarded as Boston’s best pure shooter of all time, had to admit Stro was unstoppable. “When he played with us in summer leagues and we’d get down, we’d give the ball to Stro,” Gaskins told the Globe’s Gammons years later. “The fans would chant, ‘Run the show, Stro.’ That was like giving Wonder Dog his pill. He’d go crazy then. No one could stop him.”

“He was the one guy who could go one-on-one with the world,” Billy Collins, another member of the Boston Six, told the Globe. “Stro was money. If I had talent like that, I don’t think anything would have stopped me from being in the NBA.” But Stro never made it. He was cut from his only NBA tryout and never bothered to go back to Providence for his degree. He went to work for Boston’s probation department, then took a job as a youth counselor, but the position was soon eliminated. In 1979 he showed up at Celtics training camp for a tryout with the team, but it was the year Larry Bird came to town, and there was no place for Stro. “Red [Auerbach] and [Bill] Fitch told me I 12

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should have been more formal,” he told a reporter.

“So many great players could have been stars and end up being street legends,” says Wilson, the Madison Park coach and key early organizer. “Stro never had an advisor to push him, and unfortunately he did get caught up in drinking and substances. Everyone knew he was the baddest boy in town.”

‘TOO STRONG FOR GUARDS’

Stro had missed the big time, but in the summer of ’76 he got a chance to prove himself against one of the best— Charlie Scott, an NBA All-Star and all-around champion.

In its heyday, the Roxbury Basketball Association attracted other NBA players as well, but few were as acclaimed as Charlie Scott. A New York City playground legend, Scott was the first African-American to receive an athletic scholarship to the University of North Carolina, won a gold medal in the 1968 Olympics, and is considered one of the most talented players not in the basketball hall of fame.

Stro was at his peak. “A beast,” Wilson says. “He was six-three, strong, too quick for big men and too strong for guards.”

The stage was set—Stro vs Scott, Washington Park, the Mecca of Boston streetball, an eight o’clock game under the lights. Wilson brought out speakers, his turntable, and a microphone so he could spread the word and announce the game. The streets buzzed. Spectators—maybe as

many as 800—lined the court seven rows deep. Kids climbed up tennis court fences and stood on an ice cream truck to get a better view.

“It was a packed house,” Wilson says. “The music was blasting, beautiful ladies walking by. People came out for the festive atmosphere. Police respected us so much they let us double-park up and down the boulevard. The street dudes respected us and the crews policed the area.

They let people know there wouldn’t be any drama Friday, Saturday, or Sunday night.”

The excitement was justified—Boston basketball had been waiting for a moment like this, a moment to establish itself, for decades.

THROWBACK

Basketball, which demands only a slab of concrete, sneakers, a hoop, and a rock, has historically been the city game. But in the first half of the 20th century in Massachusetts, the art was perfected in cities other than Boston—places like Quincy, Fall River, and Somerville, where the children of European immigrants dominated the game. Meanwhile in Boston, basketball wasn’t even played in the city’s public schools from 1925 to 1945.

Between 1950 and 1970, Boston’s black population more than tripled. In a city with declining economic fortunes, the growing black community was often scapegoated by whites who reacted with racial hostility in politics, housing, finances, and jobs.

SEARCHING FOR STRO continued on pg. 14

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On the court, however, throughout Boston’s most turbulent years, local basketball reached a high point— and even helped heal a broken city at some especially difficult moments. The Boston Neighborhood Basketball League, in particular, brought residents of different races together in competition—even as the city simmered with racial tension.

The BNBL is more of a social movement than a basketball league. The league’s bedrock is ’60s grassroots activism; it was founded by community leaders and socially conscious NBA icons as the public feared that Roxbury residents would riot, as people of color had done elsewhere.

Less than a year after Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination, three instrumental Boston community leaders in particular took the upcoming summer head-on.

The previous two summers had seen local disturbances, and the trio had a shared concern for the youth. They were Ken Hudson, who worked at Coca-Cola; Clarence “Jeep” Jones, a streetball star turned deputy mayor to Kevin White; and Rudy Cabral, a longtime advocate for city youth.

“Ken [Hudson], Rudy [Cabral], and I got talking about hot, troubled summers and Rudy asked Ken if Coke might want to fund a summer basketball league. Rudy and I wrote a proposal that called for a $30,000 program including pro clinics and gave it to Kenny,” Jones recalled in a 1979 history of the BNBL written by Globe writer Dan Shaugnessey. The BNBL got off the ground and running within months—largely thanks to help from Roscoe Baker of the Roxbury Boys Club and Celtics champions Tom “Satch” Sanders and Wayne Embry. The South Boston branch was run by future mayor Ray Flynn, a former star player himself at Providence College. The next year, a girls’ league was added by Alfreda Harris.

In the BNBL’s 47 years, more than 120,000 Boston kids have learned the fundamentals of basketball while staying busy in the summer. In addition, the league helped keep the peace during violent times. Summer 1975 was arguably the peak of racial turmoil in Boston; with school busing scheduled to begin in the fall, on August 10 black picnic-goers were attacked at Carson Beach in South Boston, which set off a riot in which 40 were hurt. Two days later, in Mission Hill, police—reportedly with duct tape on their badges to obscure their names—chased black residents into a bar where they set dogs on and beat the residents.

The next night there was more conflict between police and black citizens—the Mission Hill projects were surrounded and blockaded by authorities. At the same time, across the street, a mixed-race crowd of close to one thousand screaming hoops fans watched the BNBL

14

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DIGBOSTON.COM

championship game—a game between an all-white West Roxbury team and an all-black Roxbury team—in peace.

The next day the Globe reported: “It was black versus white at the Boston State College gym last night. They were throwing around soft basketballs at soft iron hoops … The same conflict was going on just 50 yards across Huntington Ave. at the Mission Hill project. Except over there it was rocks and bottles that were flying through the air. And they were not aiming at basketball rims … it didn’t matter that the players were of different colors, or that fans wouldn’t be able to use some of the closed off side streets after the game. All that mattered was 20 foot jump shots and blocked shots.”

It may have been the BNBL’s finest moment. “Basketball brought us together,” says Mike Mitchell, who played in the first BNBL and is now the co-director. “Boston has always had racial tension but sports dissolves race—if you can play ball, you can play ball.”

BLACK GODS

Boston basketball was establishing itself in the summer of ’76, but hoops respect was earned on the streets, where everything is equal. In this meritocracy, Stro was Boston’s playground representative. In the irreverent 1980 chronicle of the playground game, The In Your Face Basketball Book, Stro is ranked among the 12 best playground ballers of all time in any region—an exclusive street hall of fame in which Strother is the only Bostonian.

In the entry, his “memorable facial” move is described in a manner that sounds an awful lot like Michael Jordan’s most memorable play in the 1991 NBA Finals: In one pick-up game, Stro drove the lane and, as he jumped and leaned in to take a right handed eight footer, a big man loomed in his way. In midair, Strother switched the ball to his left hand and—on his way down—threw in an underhanded scoop shot.

Stro electrified a troubled city when business was slow, crime was up, and those who could fled to the suburbs. As Boston crumbled around him, Stro’s incredible moves fueled a new sort of urban mythology.

In his matchup against NBA baller Charlie Scott in Washington Park, Stro got his chance to put Boston streetball squarely on the atlas.

As the game opened on the sunken court at Washington Park, Scott missed his first shots and was soon being outplayed by Stro. “Stro gave him the business—took it to him and had the place jumping,” Wilson recalls. “Charlie Scott was a great offensive player but not the greatest defender. Stro had such an arsenal.

The crowd started razzing Charlie Scott—chanting, ‘Run the show Stro! Run the show!’ Stro was good on D too, and Scott can’t get going.”

It all added up to a humiliating defeat for Scott, the New York legend, as he was conquered by Boston’s own.

All that plus a final devastating denouement. Says Wilson: “Finally, the crowd is picking on Scott so much he kicks the ball two court-lengths away. He was embarrassed and he stormed off.”

Forty years after Stro’s memorable performance, Boston playgrounds no longer attract the same level of skill or excitement.

“The talent and participation is watered down now,” says Greg “Smooth” Simpson, the playground ace who missed the NBA but rebounded to work with kids as a coach and anti-violence street worker. He continues, “Kids from the projects today can’t travel to play ball like when we were young … There’s so much talent in Jamaica Plain, the Bromley Heath Projects, but kids can’t go to Washington Park because they have beef with Humboldt—it’s not safe.”

Boston streetball can attract gang members, hustlers, and gamblers at the outer edges. In 2013, for example, a tournament that ended in a lost fistfight begat a gang member spraying the crowd with bullets. However, in Woodbine’s brilliant Black Gods of the Asphalt, the author points out that if you walk further through the crowd, you’ll see a diverse section of observers in the second ring as well as an innermost ring of wise basketball elders.

Woodbine observes that nearly every streetball tournament memorializes black men who died before their time—the Suave Life tournament, for example, is for the victims of the horrific quadruple Mattapan slaying in 2010. Woodbine also writes of “Willie ‘Chill’ Veal, or ‘Chill Will,’” who “organizes [a] tournament in memory of his late son, Little Chill, who was murdered in the streets of Boston.” The players in these tournaments, Woodbine adds, “turn their bodies into altars of the past in the hope of a future without violence.”

In the ’60s and ’70s, when Boston became a center for racial hate, basketball was a creative solution. And today, as the city wrestles with regular reports of gangrelated murders and young victims, basketball is still relied on as a coping mechanism for the “hot troubled summers” that BNBL’s founders worried about.

This week kicks off the 47th year of the BNBL. Codirectors Mike Mitchell and Woodley Auguste will oversee more than 2,000 young ballplayers this summer as they expose a new generation to the city game. Mitchell says the league will emphasize the same things it did in the ’60s—even in the face of pressures to keep up with elite tournaments.

“Some guys want us to adjust the schedule and do more to attract the elite players, but I say the BNBL has always been for everybody, for the neighborhood kids,” Mitchell says. “We’ll teach the average players to be a cohesive unit of five, and we’ll beat the one superstar.”

The oldest divisions, Mitchell says, rarely play outside due to concerns over gang turf and rivalries. For that and other reasons, coaches will be focusing on the peewee players.

“That’s our future,”Mitchell says. “They’re the ones who can play outside and focus on the fundamentals.

To me, there’s nothing better than seeing a court full of people. In the summer, what else are you going to do in the city? Play ball; it’s a neighborhood thing.”

PHOTO COURTESY BNBL/CITY OF BOSTON

SEARCHING FOR STRO continued from pg. 12

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MUSIC

WHEEL OF TUNES

Marissa Nadler tries her luck answering song-inspired questions

BY NINA CORCORAN @NINA_CORCORAN Some of the musicians who call Boston home don’t make it known that they live here. Marissa Nadler, for instance, tries to keep to herself, but if you listen to her music while walking around, things feel a bit magical, as if there are connections tied in with the world around you.

Ever since her 2004 debut LP dropped, she’s been writing gothic folk that’s as haunting as it is soothing. This year’s excellent Strangers takes things a step farther. Nadler does away with songs about heartbreak and replaces them with tales of curious people in and outside of her life. To give us a better look at the non-literal side of what it details, she played a round of questions with us inspired by each song on the record in advance of her record release show at Great Scott.

1

“Divers of the Dust”

What’s the weirdest thing you’ve found in your apartment when cleaning?

Well… Not when I was cleaning, but I found a very old knife in a rock pile in the woods that must be hundreds of years old.

2

“Katie I Know”

Who’s a celebrity Katie you wish you were friends with?

I honestly can’t think of any.

10

3

“Skyscraper”

What’s your favorite skyscraper in Boston?

Boston doesn’t have many.

4

“Hungry Is the Ghost” What’s your go-to late-night snack?

Oh god—well, munchies!

6 “Strangers”

7

“Janie in Love”

Who’s your favorite character featured on Strangers?

Shadow show Diane and her nudie shows are pretty entertaining.

What’s the strangest way people show their love for one another?

By being assholes to each other.

8 “Waking”

What trick do you have to wake up on time?

Anxiety—panic attacks. They usually keep me in a pretty light sleep.

“Nothing Feels the Same”

What’s the strangest place in Boston that you know of?

Fort Hill Tower.

Everywhere has its strangeness.

11

“Dissolve”

9

Where’s your favorite place to go for a walk in Boston?

Jamaica Pond and the surrounding waterways. I love the ducks and the peace.

“Shadow Show Diane” What’s the biggest perk to peoplewatching?

Making up stories about what their lives could be like.

5

“All the Colors of the Dark”

What’s your favorite color and why?

Black, of course!

>> MARISSA NADLER + WREKMEISTER HARMONIES + MUSCLE AND MARROW. TUE 7.19. GREAT SCOTT, 1222 COMM. AVE., ALLSTON. 8PM/18+/$15. GREATSCOTTBOSTON.COM

MUSIC EVENTS THU 7.14

FRI 7.15

[Brighton Music Hall, 158 Brighton Ave., Allston. 8pm/18+/$20. crossroadspresents.com]

[Brighton Music Hall, 158 Brighton Ave., Allston. 8pm/18+/$20. crossroadspresents.com]

FUNK UP THE JAZZ ERIC KRASNO (OF SOULIVE) + ARMIES + DUB APOCALYPSE

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SUN 7.17

PRE-THE ADVENTURES OF PETE & PETE MIRACLE LEGION + BENT SHAPES

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

MON 7.18

RETURN OF THE TORONTO KNOBTURNERS HOLY FUCK + DOOMSQUAD

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

6pm/all ages/$12. crossroadspresents.com]

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17

LOST IN AMERICA FILM

STREAMING PILE

On Netflix, Filmstruck, cord-cutting, and hoping that Albert Brooks can save it all

BY JAKE MULLIGAN @_JAKEMULLIGAN When we signed up for Netflix accounts, we signed up for a shift in our relationship with movies. Then we signed up for its price hikes, and then for its streaming service, which confirmed the engagement. It’s not an exclusive thing. We have open relationships with our formats.

We split time between movie theaters, videos, DVDs, television broadcasts, Blu-ray discs, and YouTube videos watched on a phone during the commute to work. We pick our partners depending on what feels right on a given night. And when we first picked Netflix, it was hot.

I think it was the concept that got us excited. If it reached its potential, the service would be a digital alternative to the video store and a virtual alternative to repertory theaters, all combined into one website with a catchy name. That was the hope. The reality is more like cooking shows and Adam Sandler comedies. Netflix has its fair share of movies—more than 4,000 of them. But they’ve been curated by a dad who’s still reading Entertainment Weekly issues from the early 2000s. Hope you’ve been waiting for an English-language Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon sequel, because that’s what you’re finding at home tonight.

There’s been some recent pushback against the service from the “culture media,” mostly based on the amount of movies it offers. A rash of oft-aggregated news articles reported that the amount of programs available on Netflix has gone down by about one-third since 2014. Each piece either damns Netflix for deliberately short-changing viewers or applauds it for being innovative enough to focus on “original content.” That latter point, we should note, is the official strategy: Netflix projected that it would spend $5 billion on “content acquisition” this year, and roughly $500 million of that will be dedicated to the production of original programming (shows and movies it either premieres or purchases outright). That’s 10 percent of its budget slated exclusively for movie-studio stuff— and it says it wants to spend as much as 50 percent on

the same in the coming years. It would be very wrong to hope that Netflix will combine the video store with the repertory theater. It’s stated outright that what it really wants to do is combine your cable box with the multiplex.

If you like BoJack Horseman as much as I do—season three premieres on July 22!—then you’ll keep paying your fees—just raised!—and accept Netflix for what it is. Every relationship requires compromise. And in this one, we’ve responded by picking up side pieces. It might be Hulu, or Amazon Prime Video, or VUDU, or HBO GO, or a games package from the NBA or the MLB. The entertainment media wants to sell “cord-cutting” from regular television packages as being some form of cultural liberation, but by the time you’ve signed up for two or three of these other “services,” you’ve just exchanged one set of monthly bills for another. And it’s a strange game you’ve got to play, if you like to watch movies made before 2013: The selection on each of those apps is determined by the library of the companies who have a licensing deal with the given service. Which means that it really is like cable packages all over again. I used to have the MGM HD television channel. Now I have the Warner Archive Instant application. In marketing speak, that’s liberation. In reality, it’s the house next door.

Each of those options has enough movies to keep

REAL LIFE

you busy, and Netflix offers the same. But if “curation” is what you’re looking for, the people trying to sell it are still months away. Back in April, the Criterion Collection (a boutique distributor of Blu-rays and DVDs) reported that it was partnering with Turner Classic Movies (which already operates its own streaming hub, dubbed Watch TCM) to announce FilmStruck, a subscription service expected to launch this fall. It doesn’t feel like a stretch to say that the service appears custom-built to compete favorably against the recent “advances” made by Netflix: FilmStruck promises to have “nothing but movies in mind,” with guest curators helping to put together “carefully selected” programs of films. If Netflix is a smorgasbord, then FilmStruck is selling itself as gourmet.

We’ll believe that when we see it, but from three months away, it looks appealing.

Unless its next quarterly report comes out looking bad, Netflix has nothing to be jealous about. But a recent move by the company suggests it’s trying to catch the cinephile eye once again. Netflix adds new films to its service every week, but they’re usually based on the distributor. Occasionally you’ll get a grouping of films from the same franchise or featuring the same actor. But I can’t remember Netflix ever adding the complete works of a filmmaker in one fell swoop. “Netflix is throwing a film festival,” said the lede from Variety, the guest of honor being writer/director/actor Albert Brooks, despite the fact that he made his movies at various studios across three decades. It’s got all seven of the feature-length movies that Brooks has directed: Real Life [1979], Modern Romance [1981], Lost in America [1986], Defending Your Life [1991], Mother [1996], The Muse [1999], and Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World [2006]. Netflix made a big deal of the uploads—a press release to the media, a promotional video put together by Brooks—so there’s a motivation behind this. It wants you to know that it can do gourmet, too.

These films live up to that metaphor. Brooks’ movies combine an American’s sense for physical humor with a European sense for formal rigor, resulting in selflacerating tragicomedies that can’t look away from their own carnage. In Real Life, Brooks plays a would-be documentarian subconsciously infusing his own ego into acts of “observation.” In Modern Romance, he’s an ex-boyfriend trying to justify a breakup he engineered himself. And in Lost in America, he’s a yuppie with delusions of hippie grandeur, trying to road-trip across the country while also protecting his finances. His persona is a contradiction. He’s worrying and confident at the same moments, building relationships and breaking them in the same sentences. In each film, he’s constantly bobbing his head manically within a static frame. It’s the myth of exceptionalism, and it’s self-destructing on his very face. Brooks is always playing a nothing who’s trying to convince himself he’s a something—but he won’t believe he’s a something until everybody else does first. These are painful, unsparing movies about all the ways we try to validate ourselves. And that’s exactly what Netflix is hoping they’ll provide—some cinephilic validation for its well-tailored brand. I’ll never be convinced that organizing artworks like these as “content” within a maze of small-screen pillars represents a major advance for cinema distribution. But if places like Netflix and FilmStruck are going to be adding the works of artists like Brooks to their submenus, then I’ll keep paying my fees and accepting the compromise.

FILM EVENTS THU 7.14

CINEMA JUKEBOX PRESENTS JOHN WATERS’ CRY-BABY

[Coolidge Corner Theatre.

290 Harvard St., Brookline.

7pm/PG-13/$11.25. 35mm. coolidge.org]

18

7.14.16 - 7.21.16

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FRI 7.15

KING HU TIMES TWO DRAGON INN and A TOUCH OF ZEN

[Brattle Theatre. 40 Brattle St., Harvard Sq., Cambridge. 5 and 7:30pm, respectively/ NR/$9-11. Both films screen through 7.17, see brattlefilm. org for other showtimes.]

DIGBOSTON.COM

FRI 7.15

NIGHT ONE OF A THEO ANGELOPOULOS RETROSPECTIVE LANDSCAPE IN THE MIST

[Harvard Film Archive.

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

35mm. hcl.harvard.edu/hfa]

FRI 7.15

SAT 7.16

[Coolidge Corner Theatre.

290 Harvard St., Brookline.

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

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

11:30pm/PG-13/$9-11.

35mm. Also screens 7.17 @ 12:30pm.]

COOLIDGE AFTER MIDNIGHT PRESENTS NICOLAS ROEG’S DON’T LOOK NOW

REEL WEIRD BRATTLE PRESENTS: ‘STARRING JACKIE CHAN,’ WEEK ONE THE YOUNG MASTER

SAT 7.16

THE FILMS OF ROBERT ALDRICH CONTINUE AT HARVARD HUSTLE

[Harvard Film Archive.

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

35mm. hcl.harvard.edu/hfa]

“TRIUMPHANT AND SPIRITED.” “WISE AND DEEPLY MOVING.” “SWEET AND FUNNY.”

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ARTWORK © 2016 BLEECKER STREET MEDIA LLC. © 2016 CAPTAIN FANTASTIC PRODUCTIONS, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

SPECIAL ENGAGEMENTS START FRIDAY, JULY 15

AMC LOEWS BOSTON COMMON 19 175 Tremont St amctheatres.com

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COOLIDGE CORNER THEATRE 290 Harvard St (617) 734-2500

LANDMARK KENDALL SQUARE CINEMA One Kendall Square (617) 621-1202

WED 7/13

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ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT

19

ARTS

THE PLAY’S THE THING

Apollinaire Theatre brings Hamlet to Chelsea’s waterfront

BY CHRISTOPHER EHLERS @_CHRISEHLERS

ONCE Lounge & Ballroom 156 Highland Ave. ONCEsomerville.com

7/15 ONCE Upon a Luau

Pig Roast! w/ The Beachcombovers, The Electric Heaters, & Tsunami of Sound | $12 adv / $15 dos | Food @ 5pm / Bands @ 9pm | 7/13 The Moth: True Stories Told Live 7/14 The Coathangers w/ L.A. Witch & more 7/20 School of Rock AllStars

7/16 Rhett Miller

w/ Syd Straw | $20 adv / $25 dos | Doors @ 8pm | 7/21 Max Gomez 7/23 Metal for Nepal II 7/25 The Very & Jimmy Ryan Locavore tacos done right every Monday night 5-10pm in the ONCE Lounge

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Something is rotten on the Chelsea waterfront as Apollinaire Theatre Company continues its tradition of staging free, outdoor, immersive theater with Hamlet, which will run through July 31 at PORT Park on the Chelsea Waterfront and stars the terrific Brooks Reeves as Hamlet.

Though this is only the second summer that Apollinaire will be performing at PORT Park, it is the 13th summer of the annual outdoor production. (For 11 years, Apollinaire’s summer productions were at Mary O’Malley Park, also in Chelsea).

Keeping up with their tradition of offering free bilingual productions, Chelsea Youth Theatre students will perform Hamlet in Spanish on July 30 and 31 at 6 pm.

Hamlet, King of Denmark, has died, and his brother, Claudius, has assumed the throne and married the king’s widow, Gertrude. When Prince Hamlet returns home from studying abroad, the ghost of the dead king appears to him and tells him that his death was not natural and that he was murdered by his own powerhungry brother. (In comparison, a private email server seems relatively harmless, doesn’t it?) He urges Hamlet to avenge his death, and Hamlet sets his mind to it.

While the play will begin and end in the park’s amphitheater, director Danielle Fauteux Jacques is taking full advantage of the uniquely designed park, and the audience will follow the actors up and down the river to various locales.

Despite all the movement, audience members are still encouraged to bring chairs and blankets, and food trucks will be at most performances. According to Fauteux Jacques, Hamlet’s scenes are so episodic that it really lends itself to this kind of promenade format. “It’ll really be an adventure,” said Fauteux Jacques.

Stone platforms below a bridge will act as ramparts, the area between a set of water guns as Gertrude’s dressing room, and the famous graveyard scene will take place adjacent to a towering mountain of road salt. In fact, Dan Adams of Landing Studio, designer of PORT Park, will be creating the graveyard set using salt from the salt piles. Hamlet is unified by death, and it is—among other things—a ghost story, which makes the play’s darker scenes ideally suited to the eeriness of the waterfront park at night.

Connections between the politically corrupt world of Hamlet’s Denmark and the political shit show of today are not difficult to make, and that’s exactly what Fauteux Jacques is tapping into for this production. “We tried to create a contemporary Denmark of the mind, so it’s not exactly the United States or Denmark, but a contemporary age,” she said. “Obviously, we’re in an election year, and it’s hard not to be inspired by the despicable goings-on in politics.”

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ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT 21 5/17/16 8:55 AM

SAVAGE LOVE

STRAIGHT UP

WHAT'S FOR BREAKFAST

BY PATT KELLEY WHATS4BREAKFAST.COM

BY DAN SAVAGE @FAKEDANSAVAGE | MAIL@SAVAGELOVE.NET I’m in my mid-40s, straight, never married. Ten months ago, my girlfriend of three years dumped me. She got bored with the relationship and is generally not the marrying type. The breakup was amicable. I still love her and miss her. Last week, I wrote her a letter saying that I still love her and want us to get back together. She wrote me a nice letter back saying she doesn’t feel passion for me and we’re never getting back together. Over the past few months, I’ve started dating another girl.

She’s pretty, smart, sexy, and kind. If I proposed, she’d probably say yes. I want to get married.

The problem is that I don’t have the passion for her that I had for my previous girlfriend. So do I “settle” for Girlfriend #2 or start my search all over? Please don’t give me the bullshit that love can happen at any age. At my age, the number of single women without kids is low. How many married people “settle” for someone who is a good person but not their true love?

No Clever Acronym There is no settling down without some settling for. Please make a note of it. Also, NCA, while passion is a great feeling—totally intoxicating— it also tends to be ephemeral. It’s a hard feeling to sustain over the long haul, and marriage is theoretically the longest of long hauls.

You felt strongly about your ex, but she didn’t share your feelings. You don’t feel quite as strongly about your current girlfriend, but you would like to be married—to someone, maybe her—and Girlfriend #2 seems like a good candidate. I wouldn’t suggest proposing, as you’ve been seeing her for only a few months and most sane women view early, impulsive proposals as red flags.

And finally, NCA, the specter of a “true love” waiting for us out there somewhere, either lost or not yet found, snuffs out more good-and-lovingand-totally-worth-settling-for relationships than anything this side of cheating.

savagelovecast.com On the Lovecast, ex-Muslim sex blogger Eiynah: savagelovecast.com.

THE STRANGERER

BY PAT FALCO ILLFALCO.COM

22

7.14.16 - 7.21.16

|

DIGBOSTON.COM

OUR VALUED CUSTOMERS

BY TIM CHAMBERLAIN OURVC.NET

NEWS TO US

FEATURE

DEPT. OF COMMERCE

ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT

23

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 ON SALE FRIDAY AT NOON!

THE

Zakk Wylde

FA L L OF

BOOK OF SHADOWS II

TROY

W/ TYLER BRYANT & THE SHAKEDOWN, JARED JAMES NICHOLS

W/ DOROTHY

W / ‘ 68, IL L US T RAT IONS

2ND SHOW ADDED DUE TO DEMAND!

SUNDAY, JULY 31

TUESDAY, AUGUST 2

WED. AUGUST 3

SATURDAY, AUGUST 6

TUESDAY, AUGUST 9

SAT. SEPTEMBER 17

ON SALE FRIDAY AT NOON!

ON SALE FRIDAY AT NOON!

ON SALE FRIDAY AT NOON!

ON SALE FRIDAY AT 10AM!

ON SALE FRIDAY AT 10AM!

ON SALE FRIDAY AT NOON!

THURS. NOVEMBER 10

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 18

W / H IP P OCAM P US

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 1

MONDAY, OCTOBER 3

WED. OCTOBER 5

FOUR SHOWS!

52 Church St. Cambridge, MA sinclaircambridge.com

WED. OCTOBER 19

MIRACLE LEGION W/ BENT SHAPES

THIS FRI. & SAT. JULY 15 & 16

W/ KLAUS JOH AN N GROBE

TUESDAY, JULY 19

FRIDAY, JULY 22

W/ SETH BOGART SHOW THURSDAY, JULY 21

WEDNESDAY, JULY 20

W/ AN DR EW C O M B S

THIS SUNDAY, JULY 17

LANGHORNE SLIM & THE LAW ROA D TO N EW PORT FOLK

W UMB P RE S EN T S

ALLSTON PUDDING PRESENTS

W/ CHRIS FORSYTH AND THE SOLAR MOTEL BAND

SUNDAY, JULY 24

KANDACE SPRINGS

FRIDAY, JULY 29

W/ THE SO SO GLOS

WEDNESDAY, JULY 27

SATURDAY, JULY 30

MONDAY, AUGUST 1 ON SALE FRIDAY AT 10AM!

W/ BEARSTRONAUT W/ THE NEPHROK! ALLSTARS

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 3

FRIDAY, AUGUST 12

SATURDAY, AUGUST 13

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 23

ON SALE FRIDAY AT NOON!

ON SALE THURSDAY AT NOON!

ON SALE FRIDAY AT 10AM!

ON SALE FRIDAY AT 10AM!

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 21

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 23

NICK

W/ FRANCES LUKE ACCORD

MONDAY, OCTOBER 10

W/ WREKMEISTER HARMONIES, MUSCLE AND MARROW THIS SUNDAY, JULY 17

TUESDAY, JULY 19

THE GAS PRESENTS

FRI. & SAT. JULY 22 & 23 (EARLY SHOWS)

FRIDAYS AT 7PM!

‘s THE GAS

SUNDAY, AUGUST 7

W/ SAND RECKONER SUNDAY, JULY 24

TUESDAY, JULY 26

ON SALE FRIDAY AT NOON!

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 28

ON SALE FRIDAY AT NOON!

W/ WINSTONS

ON SALE FRIDAY AT NOON!

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 20

W/ SPIRIT GHOST

ALBUM RELEASE TOUR

1222 Comm. Ave. Allston, MA greatscottboston.com

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 12

ON SALE FRIDAY AT NOON!

WHITNEY SUNDAY, OCTOBER 9

FRIDAY, JULY 22 (LATE SHOW)

ON SALE FRIDAY AT NOON!

XENIA RUBINOS WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 31

ON SALE NOW!

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 18

≠ 7/14 BENJAMIN FRANCIS LEFTWICH ≠ 7/21 WE CAN ALL BE SORRY ≠ 7/30 HOLY WHITE HOUNDS ≠ 7/31 TWO COW GARAGE ≠ 8/1 FORN ≠ 8/3 NOMADS / PANZERBASTARD ≠ 8/5 IF THESE TREES COULD TALK ≠ 8/9 TTNG ≠ 8/10 KYLE CRAFT ≠ 8/11 KINDLING / CALIFORNIA X

OTHER SHOWS AROUND TOWN:

HINDS ON SALE FRIDAY AT NOON!

THU. SEPTEMBER 15 ARTS AT THE ARMORY

FRI. SEPTEMBER 23 MIDDLE EAST DOWN

FRI. OCTOBER 7 CITI WANG THEATRE

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

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 30 MIDDLE EAST DOWN

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