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VOL 18 + ISSUE 32

AUGUST 11, 2016 - AUGUST 18, 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 COMICS Tim Chamberlain Pat Falco Patt Kelley

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HEADLINING THIS WEEK

DEAR READER In the last few days, I’ve received several letters from readers praising our editorial content. While a few applauded our arts coverage, most of the attention was directed toward our news and feature writing.

Aside from the fact that it’s increasingly rare for us to actually receive emails or letters from readers instead of tweets or private messages, what stood out the most was the fact that we’re opening eyes, changing minds, and continuing to challenge people with insightful, thought-provoking ideas every single week.

I’m not trying to pat our back or toot the alt weekly horn of independent journalism, but it’s worth noting that we hear you, love hearing from you, and appreciate the support.

Sometimes the hard news fog needs to be cut through, however, and this week, Chris Faraone spoke to the one and only William Shatner in an attempt to do just that. We didn’t break any news in the piece or shed light on something life-changing, but we did speak to him in advance of the Boston Comic Con, where he’ll be shaking hands and kissing babies, and maybe along the way we made you think about how Star Trek is one of the coolest fucking TV and film brands in the history of forever.

In other news, we covered a ton of other cool stuff this week. Check it out.

Mike Lawrence WINNER of Comedy Central’s Roast Battle Friday + Saturday

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ON THE COVER William Shatner talks to us this week as he preps for the Boston Comic Con this weekend. Read it all on page 10.

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

Ms. Pat WTF with Marc Maron + The Joe Rogan Experience Sept 15-17

Dear Tank Top, I’m extremely sad to see that after years of welldeserved bottom-drawer notoriety, you are having a renaissance that amounts to a nonstop goddamn sleeveless party for a couple of years now. Suddenly you are no longer the pariah of department stores, while the term “wife-beater” has been virtually forgotten, and even worse, whitewashed! But I have news for lousy wannabe T-shirts like you—your time won’t last! Not a chance. Maybe demise will come with the next downturn in the economy, when everyone will get depressed and eat until they have embarrassingly chubby arms all over again, or perhaps Donald Trump will wear a tank, capturing the style exclusively for racists once and for all.

Whatever the case, your days are numbered like basketball jerseys, which is just about the only thing you’re good for.

Robert Kelly Inside Amy Schumer + Comedy Central Presents Sept 22-24

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NEWS US

STATE OF THE POLICE STATE NEWS TO US

From the BPD to the ACA, it’s a jailer’s world—we just squirm in it Two standout crime-and-punishment stories hit Hub headlines last week. Separately, they’re alarming. In tandem, the panoramic is even more frightening, a snapshot of the gap between the way that criminal justice reformers see things and the typical worldview of those who profit in or get a pass from the modern police state.

The first shocker, to quote the Boston Globe version, read, “Boston police are having trouble finding volunteers to wear body cameras for a pilot program” (it also ran a more direct header online, “City may have to force police to wear cameras”). This is the latest twist in the charade of cat and mouse that the Boston Police Department has played with watchdog groups pining for video accountability. While BPD officials have earned props from the commercial press for agreeing to test such devices, in reality the coming program is a gesture, and one that will barely resemble the parameters sought by the grassroots Boston Police Camera Action Team (BPCAT). For starters, BPCAT spokespeople are miffed that the body cam pilot will be on a volunteer basis and that cops will earn a stipend for participating.

Which brings us to the other headline of particular concern: “Boston police unions demand more guns, armor.” That’s right—the same authorities who are reluctant to have additional eyes watching them are 4

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also now requesting “long guns for patrol officers with ample ammunition,” ballistic shields and helmets, “more police officers,” and “extra loaded magazines.” Despite a popular movement for increased transparency including cameras, a letter from last month—which the Boston Police Patrolmen’s Association, the Boston Police Superior Officers Federation, and the Boston Police Detectives Benevolent Society reportedly sent to BPD Commissioner Bill Evans and Mayor Marty Walsh—also calls for “removing police officers’ names from city databases.”

And continued: We live in a world where a sitting President has basically ‘fanned the flames of Police hatred’ with political rhetoric and now a sitting Governor is politically afraid to speak … … Police Officers and other public safety personnel are being murdered across this country at an alarming rate. Terrorist[s] are putting public employee information, garnered from municipal sources, on various web sites identifying public officials, Police Officers included; threatening their lives and the lives of their families alike.

Mayor Walsh feigned startled outrage over sections of the love note—he told the Globe, “I think there was some language in that letter that didn’t need to be used”—and said he doesn’t believe cops should carry long guns. Still, it’s only feasible that Walsh, a devoted son of Boston, knows all about the outfit that he’s dealing with. The mayor claims, “I’m not sure that letter reflects the overall feel of every officer,” but that’s the same excuse used whenever cops fart at the table. As I reported in the Boston Phoenix four years ago, when the patrolmen’s association last flashed its hideous ass: “The BPPA [publishes] a boldly bigoted official union newsletter, the Pax Centurion. Full of screeds against minorities, women, progressives, gays, Muslims, and even crime victims, its pages have long drawn ire from activists and [minority] union members alike.”

It’s a classic story that repeats itself. Officials in charge know that something stinks, and may even acknowledge the stench on a rare occasion, but are ultimately reluctant to facilitate deep change. This has been the case with BPD for years, if not always, and things aren’t likely to budge as long as major media outlets extend the pass—this week, for example, the New York Times published a puff piece on Commissioner Evans in which the BPD leader claimed that Black Lives Matter is “calling for the killing of

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police officers.” The commish must have skipped the BLM’s newly released Vision for Black Lives, which mentions nothing of the sort.

Not everyone was letting jailers off the hook this past week, though. With the American Correctional Association (ACA) in town at the Sheraton in Back Bay for its biannual Congress of Correction, prison abolitionists and other human rights crusaders crashed the party more than once. Starting with a dozen demonstrators disrupting the opening night gala, groups including the Young Abolitionists, Black and Pink, the City School, and Families for Justice as Healing delivered a message: The ACA, which runs a “standards and accreditation” department that contracts with prisons nationwide including here in Mass, provides “rubber stamps” for institutions with endemic “human rights abuses,” and is complicit in “prison profiteering.” As Mother Jones writer Shane Bauer reported in 2014, when he was singled out and tossed from an ACA conference in Utah: [ACA] conventions offer a rare glimpse into the world of US prisons. Vendors in the exhibit hall openly discuss their increasing sales of SWAT-style equipment to prisons. Visitors can check out the new tech like drone-detection devices, surveillance systems, and shank-proof e-cigarettes. People hold workshops on issues like sex between prison guards and inmates and the problem of drugdealing staff. Serious topics like suicide among transgender inmate populations are often revealingly discussed in terms of liability and cost.

County and municipal leaders should know better than to welcome such unsavory company, but instead ignored all history and warning signs. As the Globe reported in 2001, in one instance the ACA received $10,000 to issue a cherry report of the Nashua Street Jail, only for seven officers from that institution— whose abuses somehow slid under the radar of the accrediting body—to be indicted on federal charges months later for beating inmates. Nevertheless, Suffolk County soon after hired the ACA to inspect its House of Correction and continues to do business with the company today, as does the Commonwealth.

While ACA congress-goers took in workshops on topics like inmate radicalization, on Sunday more than 100 protesters marched west from Copley Square to call out attendees. Instead of taking Newbury Street, which was closed to cars for the afternoon, the group took the more difficult route against Boylston Street traffic, a crew of volunteers on bikes leading the pack to redirect vehicles.

Once past the Prudential Center entrance, participants formed a circle at the intersection of Boylston and Gloucester Street and cranked the volume on their chants: “LIBERATE DON’T INCARCERATE / THE REAL TERRORIST IS THE POLICE STATE,” “EMPTY THE JAILS / REFORM ALWAYS FAILS.” During the protest I met Beatrice Codianni, an advocate for inmates who herself was incarcerated in the Federal Correctional Institution and Camp at Danbury for 15 years through 2008. I had just heard a passing yuppie say to her friend, “Just because people they love are in jail doesn’t mean jail is a bad thing,” and asked Codianni how she’d explain the inadequacy of status quo American justice to somebody that ignorant.

“I was in Danbury, which [the ACA] accredited even though they shouldn’t,” said Codianni, who complained to the association during her sentence but says she was ignored. “There were worms in the bathroom, for a time there was asbestos, there was fiberglass that fell from the ceiling, the medical and visiting rooms were not handicap accessible. They knew about it for years and never did anything about it.”

She continued: “The government should be ashamed of themselves for allowing this to go on. We need to get real, we need to tell the truth.”

“I had just heard a passing yuppie say to her friend, ‘Just because people they love are in jail doesn’t mean jail is a bad thing,’”

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A WORSE FATE THAN GLOBAL WARMING The return of the nuclear arms race requires the revival of the disarmament movement

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“It is three minutes to midnight.” Young people reading those words probably won’t know what they mean. Folks who were adults when the Cold War ended with the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union are more likely to understand. And to be very, very afraid.

The statement refers to the current setting of the Doomsday Clock— announced every year since 1947 by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Reaching midnight means nuclear war. The clock was first set at seven minutes to midnight when the United States was the only nation possessing nuclear weapons. In 1991, humanity rejoiced as the clock was set to 17 minutes to midnight when the US and USSR signed the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty resulting in deep cuts in their nuclear weapons arsenals.

Now, a quarter-century later, nuclear weapons are still very much with us, and the Doomsday Clock has been pushed up to three minutes to midnight for two years running. As close to midnight as the clock has been set since 1984—during the nadir of relations between America and the Soviet Union.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Science and Security Board—consisting of “scientists and other experts with deep knowledge of nuclear technology and climate science, who often provide expert advice to governments and international agencies”—made the decision based on a number of dangerous portents last year that show no signs of abating this year.

Their January 26 announcement stated that in 2015 “ … tensions between the United States and Russia rose to levels reminiscent of the worst periods of the Cold War. Conflict in Ukraine and Syria continued, accompanied by dangerous bluster and brinkmanship, with ... the director of a state-run Russian news agency making statements about turning the United States to radioactive ash, and NATO and Russia re-positioning military assets and conducting significant exercises with them. Washington and Moscow continue to adhere to most existing nuclear arms control agreements, but the United States, Russia, and other nuclear weapons countries are engaged in programs to modernize their nuclear arsenals … despite their pledges, codified in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, to pursue nuclear disarmament.”

The modernization referred to in the announcement translates to an estimated US investment of nearly $1 trillion over the next 30 years. Money to be essentially stolen from much-needed social programs. The Obama administration made this commitment even as the President asked nations with nuclear weapons to “have the courage to escape the logic of fear and pursue a world without them” during a historic visit to Hiroshima, Japan—the first of two cities destroyed by atomic bombs dropped by the US in the closing days of WWII. On July 20, eight progressive senators—including Mass Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey (plus Bernie Sanders)—called on Obama to “restrain nuclear weapons spending and reduce the risk of nuclear war by scaling back excessive nuclear modernization plans, adopting a policy of no-first-use of nuclear weapons and canceling launch-on-warning plans.”

A fine statement. But a display of not even a fraction of the political muscle that will be necessary to successfully challenge the military-industrial complex to change American nuclear weapons policy for the better. And not a sufficiently strong demand given that the only safe number of nuclear weapons is zero.

With the US, Russia, and China all planning to build smaller nuclear warheads that are more likely to be used than traditional larger warheads, and developing hypersonic glide vehicles that are harder to intercept than conventional ballistic missiles, the road from a single “surgical” nuclear strike to an all-out nuclear war will soon become much shorter than it has ever been before.

That’s why it’s imperative for everyone to follow the lead of antiwar organizations like Mass Peace Action—who have just organized a series of local protests for Hiroshima and Nagasaki Week—and international disarmament campaigns like Global Zero in demanding the abolition of all nuclear weapons.

Failure to do so will at best consign another generation to the lifetime of fear that earlier generations suffered under, and at worst doom the entire biosphere to death by fire. So, get informed and get involved. We’ve got our work cut out for us. There are currently more than 15,000 nuclear weapons on the planet Earth.

For a better understanding of the terrible destructive power of nuclear weapons, check out the classic 1982 BBC documentary “Q.E.D.: A Guide to Armageddon” on YouTube.

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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CAPTAIN DORK FEATURE

Our badass obligatory Shatner chat for Boston Comic Con

BY DIG STAFF @DIGBOSTON

There are few people on Earth who need no introduction regardless of audience demographic, and even fewer celebrities who have that kind of rep throughout the galaxy.

William Shatner, however, stands tall among such intergalactic elites. So without further ado, with the 85-year-old icon headlining Boston Comic Con this weekend, here goes our interview with the newest addition to the Red Sox pitching staff …

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DB: Word is that even among the extensive star-studded roster of Star Trek alumni who were present at Comic Con San Diego, you summoned the most applause and excitement. Is that basically Captain Kirk 101, to be the center of gravity in any room?

WS: There are two places that I do that—with my wife and family, because I get a great deal of applause from my kids, and with the three people who remember the Star Trek I was in. It’s fun, people are enjoying themselves. With the group of people [from different generations of Star Trek] it’s a little unwieldy, when there are a number of people on stage and there’s a limited amount of time to ask and answer questions, so it’s about making the best of the time and making it entertaining and informative. It can be awkward with three people, it can be embarrassing if people ask you the question and not the other people, so it’s a matter of working it out,

CAPTAIN DORK continued on pg. 12

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CAPTAIN DORK continued from pg. 10 I guess, group therapy. But it becomes a jazz for me, a jazz session. It becomes me working totally spontaneously upon themes that are suggested by the audience, and you weave the themes and the meanings and the jokes and it becomes a wonderful challenge as a performer. But doing it with other people, I have to be aware of the give and take.

DB: You’re kind of the king of addressing character-obsessed audiences…

WS: Who said king?

DB: We did.

WS: Well, knowing your reputation for excellence…

DB: But was that something that you had to grow into? Or have you always been happy to entertain the most insane of fans?

WS: In the beginning there were 15,000 people hanging on to every word, and you’re standing in front of that many people totally unprepared. It’s the actor’s nightmare. The only addition to the nightmare is if you’re unclothed. So here I am, trying to be amusing and informative at the same time, and it was frightening.

But gradually, after being afraid to make a slip of the tongue that would reveal all, we who were doing it became more confident in the fact that we were able to ad-lib—the likes of which we are doing right now—and that it would be sufficient.

And then it was really interesting, since people began to laugh and applaud. Then it became like stand-up—you had these stories in reserve in case something didn’t work. That became the one-man show that I did on Broadway for a limited run and toured all over the United States, including Boston. It was called, and still is called since I go out on the occasional tour, Shatner’s World, and it is as a result of standing in front of an audience for an hour and playing for entertainment that I became confident in my ability to do it … It is the ultimate challenge for an actor to be on stage for an hour and a half and keep the audience amused without any dancing girls or music. Some one-man shows have a bunch of glittering balls in the air, but a one-man show that’s just standing there talking is the ultimate around-the-campfire thing.

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DB: What Star Trek memorabilia do you still have and display prominently all these years later?

WS: It’s all in my head. Material things … who knew that you and I would be talking 50 years later? If only you had told me, I would have gathered stuff. Somebody knew— [in 1990] they broke into the roof of a sound stage that housed a lot of the memorabilia, wardrobe, props, sets, and stole vast quantities of it.

Somebody has it somewhere, and they’re enjoying it.

BEAM ME UP, MARTY

DB: Do you visit these conventions as a fan at all? Or are you strictly there as talent? Have you come to understand what it’s like to worship something the same way that Star Trek fans worship [your work]?

WS: Not in the pop culture area. For example, I don’t watch half-hour and hour shows, so you name one of the great shows from any era and I haven’t seen it.

But I am a newsaholic, movies and sports, I love the Boston teams other than the Montreal teams. If it wasn’t for the Expos, the Red Sox would be my team.

DB: Speaking of which, you’re throwing out the first pitch at Fenway Park [on Friday, Aug 12]. Do you make a habit of pitching at Major League Baseball stadiums when you visit a city?

WS: I used to fool around.

DB: Do you have any more of a connection to Boston as a result of being on “Boston Legal”?

WS: I married a beautiful Boston Irish girl. My connection with Boston, coming from Montreal, there’s a great similarity—old city, old franchises, a difficulty winning. But Boston is one of my favorite cities.

DB: What’s your selfie policy? Is it any different in public on the street than it would be at a place like Comic Con? WS: If you draw blood, that’s not good. I try and avoid being mobbed as much as possible. I buy expensive clothes, and you don’t want them ripped.

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usually at a rally. But after they moved on to the next rally, I’d push deeper into the corners of the state and put in time with the people I met. I also couldn’t afford hotels, so I couch-surfed in the communities and neighborhoods of my interview subjects. In West Virginia, I stayed next door to the guy at the center of that chapter. Instead of drinking back at the Charleston Hilton bar, I went to the run-down local Juggalo club in Raleigh County where all the kids were unemployed and on pills or heroin.

Mass native pens deep, colorful portrait of Trump Nation

BY CHRIS FARAONE @FARA1 In a time of questionable candidates and flame wars galore, at least Alexander Zaitchik has a new book that displays the disarray. A longform Jedi with roots in the alternative press, the author last surfaced between covers with Common Nonsense, a graphic look at “Glenn Beck and the Triumph of Ignorance” in the Tea Party era. So it’s fitting that his second major project drops in the middle of such comparable political hysteria.

For those lamenting an apparent widening attention deficit in modern journalism, Zaitchik’s detailed work should come as an informed relief. His latest, The Gilded Rage: A Wild Ride Through Donald Trump’s America, is a hearty bone for long-readers, on either side of the divide, who feel reporters have neglected to communicate the larger stories underpinning Donald Nation domination.

Though his dispatches arrive amidst a dizzying daily variety of Trump clips and hits, puff pieces and pieces of shit, Zaitchik writes clear of the hype to illustrate conditions fomenting today’s antiestablishmentarianism, however superficial or trumped up. We asked the North Shore native about his revelatory travels through the industrial heartland, Southwestern border territories, and Appalachian coal country …

This seems like an especially big feat—a book spanning the primaries that comes out before the election. What was the approach?

I jumped on the primary calendar near the middle, in Arizona, and finished with the June votes in New Mexico and California, a few weeks after Trump clinched the nomination in Indiana. I focused on six states representative of Trump’s marquee campaign themes, in Appalachia, the Rust Belt, and along the Mexico Border. Ideally I would have had a little more time—I filed the last chapter in early July—but the goal was to get it out in time for the general election. This ended up fitting nicely with the idea behind Hot Books, the Skyhorse Publishing imprint of which The Gilded Rage is a part. They’re short, timely books of around 150 pages, edited by historian and Salon.com founder David Talbot.

Your dispatches have been amazingly detailed, and they focus on some elements of the side show that may have been overlooked by other writers. What of these observations are especially important in your mind for anyone who is really trying to understand the bigger picture high and above the spectacle?

Like everyone else, I’ve basically been swimming in the Trump story since autumn. While traveling for the book, I kept up with the circus, but not because it impacted the work. I was focused on the lives of Trump’s followers, which don’t have much to do with the cable news cycle on a given Tuesday. The animating spirit behind the book is Studs Terkel, the Chicago journalist and oral historian who conducted long biographical interviews with 14

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everyday Americans. His books of interviews revealed more about the country, in a vernacular that sometimes approached literature, than a thousand newspaper editorials (or two thousand “hot takes”). As I watched the Trump story explode, I thought there was a need for a Terkel approach that let Trump’s supporters explain themselves over the course of many pages, instead of just having a tiny quote box or sound byte.

When I started the project, a lot of stories were coming out that promised readers and listeners a chance to “Meet the Trump Supporters,” or whatever. But when I finished these pieces, I never felt like I’d met anybody. So I decided to go long where everyone was going short. Sometimes I conducted the interviews only after days spent building trust, hanging out, learning something about them. There wasn’t much scientific about my approach, which was the point. The book is intended as a counterpoint to all that.

The kind of data journalism people have come to depend on, if not worship, never felt more useless than during this primary. One, it was wrong in its predictions, over and over. Two, it kept missing the point. You’d see all these articles crunching numbers, like how Trump voters aren’t really that poor compared to some other voting bloc.

They split some statistical hair and completely ignore the whale in the water, which is the unquantifiable psychology of pain, insecurity, anger, and resentment. I think there’s obviously a role for the data stuff, but in this election, you’re better off getting drunk with a Trump supporter whose town lost its factories and whose nephews are all on heroin. That’s where I think the Trump story is—in all of these individual American stories, many of them tragedies, almost all of them more complicated than plain racism or sexism. I went around and tried to collect some of these stories. I do think they have a certain amount of political explanatory power. But beyond that, the lives of everyday Americans are just interesting—much more interesting than anything I have to say about Donald Trump, or what Donald Trump has to say about his tax returns.

How much other coverage of Trump and his campaign have you been consuming, and do you have any specific or general praises or condemnations of the beat reporters?

I respect those guys a lot. They live and breathe the campaign, have to file stories every day, often more than once. I don’t think I could do it, and somebody has to. That said, there are serious limitations to working that kind of campaign beat. You fly in, go to a rally, get a few quotes, then go back to the hotel and file, maybe drink with the hack pack, which is mostly made up of middle-class and upper-middle-class people from the same group of elite schools. They all live in DC or the Virginia suburbs. The job isn’t really structured in a way that lets them spend much time away from each other or the noise of the news trail.

I often started at the same place as the press corps,

As a native of Massachusetts, what has it been like to see such a significant embrace of Trump here in New England?

Anyone who’s spent time in Massachusetts knows that even the Republic of Cambridge isn’t all Volvo-driving Democratic socialists. The state has a lot of New Hampshire in it, and worse, and the frustrations and anger that Trump has ridden to the nomination are a national phenomenon. I wasn’t that shocked to see Trump win the primary, though I was disappointed. I admit to clinging to the conceit that my home state is a liberal oasis of reason and progressive politics, the Athens of America. Of course, it isn’t.

How thick is your skin? Does any of this bother you anymore, or are you just like somebody who cleans enormous streams of diarrhea out of sewer pipes all day and no longer even shrinks at the stink?

I spend most of my life in liberal enclaves talking to people who think like I do, so I enjoy getting out there and talking to conservatives. Not so much the cruel, bat-shit crazy ones, but most people are pretty cool on a personal level. I think it’s good exercise in more ways than one, but above all it’s necessary if you are going to have any clue about what’s happening in this country. You also need to know how to talk to people if you want to help build some kind of broad progressive coalition. While working on the book, I’d sometimes watch recent college grads completely unable to talk politics with a machinist with a high school education. They simply could not hold a conversation. They used jargon, or coils sprang from their eyes if they heard a word they associated with “trigger warnings” in Gender Studies 101. It’s terrifying to see.

You have now written books on Glenn Beck and Donald Trump. Are they comparable? Any striking similarities or differences?

Two greed-head egomaniacs with Messiah complexes.

Hopefully Trump crashes and burns the way Beck is currently. But we’ll still have to reckon with what it all means. Trump obviously heralds and signifies much more than just an unlikely one-off in the 2016 primary.

As somebody who already spends a significant amount of time working outside of the country, would you consider moving if Trump wins?

If anything, I’d be more likely to stay in the country under a Trump presidency. Not just out of a sense of civic duty, but also because times would get “interesting,” in the Chinese proverb sense of the word. But something tells me they’re about to get pretty damn interesting either way.

Ed. note: I have known Zaitchik for many years, and teach in the same department as his father at Salem State University. He also contributed to DigBoston more than a decade ago. -Chris Faraone

PHOTO BY JOSEPH GAMBLE

AGE OF RAGE FEATURE

Is it your job as a journalist to separate out the rightwing nut jobs from the so-called everyday Americans who are supporting Trump?

I didn’t seek out any kind of Trump voter. I just talked to people and let the chips fall where they did. If people were open to spending time with me and were halfway articulate, they usually ended up in the book. Some of these people were not pleasant, some were small-minded racists, and others were extremely sympathetic and generous in spirit. The Trump voter base—like the country, like individual Americans—is complicated. There were overlapping themes, but after five months of talking to people at length, I struggle with sketching the “average” Trump voter. I would never discount or downplay the racism and “authoritarianism” swimming in Trump’s base, but I also wouldn’t reduce it to those things.

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SPECIAL REVIEW

PEARL JAM

Fenway Park, Boston; Aug 5 and 7, 2016

BY TOM KIELTY @THETOMKIELTY (T TO R): PALEHOUND, MAL DEVISA, GAY SIN MUSIC

A DIY STATE OF MIND

The transitional time for Boston’s can-do attitude For a city known for punk house shows and dozens of college-aged bands, Boston is disregarding fall’s vegetation cues to declare an early season of change.

Bands like Ian Sweet relocated to Los Angeles and New York City, bands like Transit broke up, and, for acts like Krill, the only option was to move and then break up. It’s a trend Boston knows all too well, arguably more so than other cities guilty of the same pattern. Don’t blame the bands, though. It’s not their fault. Boston’s primed for tectonic shifting in its musical landscape.

The constant influx of students allows Boston to hit refresh on its music pulse. Each year, a sea of wannabe guitarists and hopeful freshman join forces to push out songs, focusing more on the act of playing and performing instead of pressing physical records. Sure, most bands fizz out. Others gain somewhat of a cult following and then, when graduation approaches, cut the cord. A few stick around for two to three years following that. It’s a city of population change, and with that comes improvements not only in terms of who feels they can climb the ropes, but what they need in order to do so.

Though exhausting, that mindset—one that encourages experimentation and effort over natural or perfect talent—allowed Boston and its surrounding neighborhoods to urge those curious about music to finally pick up instruments. Take, for instance, alt-rock, pop punk act Gay Sin. Picked as one of our rising acts to watch, the local semi-supergroup sees members trying out instruments that, near the time of formation, were foreign to them. Christine Varriale drums in Puppy Problems, but in Gay Sin she’s on bass. Larz Brogan swaps her bass from Daephne in favor of drums in Gay Sin. By trying—and, shortly after, totally rocking— these instruments, Gay Sin sets an example for the Boston community of what it means to play music in a DIY region. Yes, there are bands whose music reaches into bordering states and the West Coast that call our beloved bean home, but there are acts in our backyard who take the DIY ethics to heart—and have a hell of a good time in the process.

It goes without saying why that’s important, but hell, we’re going to say it again. Encouraging learning experiences and musical growth thanks to support from friends and the community is something Boston should be proud of. It’s scary to start a band as a 40-year-old as much as it is scary to start a band as a 16-year-old. Boston’s abundance of acts allows newcomers the chance to see themselves fitting into the fold.

After all, when the spectrum includes nationally touring professionals and Bandcamp-only artists, it’s easy to find a place to fit in.

What that leads to is a more open field across races, genders, sexual orientations, and ages. As certain bands depart our city, those who fill their shoes are beginning to break the stereotypes, specifically those that peg Boston as a city of straight, white, young males playing punk rock to the masses.

Just look at the Democracy Center’s show lined up for this Friday. The stacked bill sees countless women taking charge of the stage. Ellen Kempner, one of the best guitarists this city has ever seen, headlines with her band Palehound. Before her comes Northampton vocal powerhouse Mal Devisa, the one-woman act responsible for one of the most moving albums you will hear this year, Kiid. With aforementioned acts Gay Sin and Daephne joined by Dump Him and Dog Tears, the show boasts a bill that’s as talented as it is motivational.

By allowing fans and curious onlookers to come free of worries—the show is all ages and, despite the sliding ticket cost of $7 to $10, will allow free entry to anyone who cannot afford it—the show builds Boston’s DIY scene into one that talks the talk, walks the walk, and rocks the rock.

As the musicians change, so does the belief that our community can embrace and strive for more.

Naysayers, we hear you. Of course, in three years’ time, many of these acts will be questioning where they live or what they create, but that doesn’t change where we’re at currently. Right now, Boston is at a pivotal point of DIY growth, and, by the sound of it, we’re very lucky to be here. >> PALEHOUND + MAL DEVISA + GAY SIN + DAEPHNE + DUMP HIM + DOG TEARS. FRI 8.12.

DEMOCRACY CENTER, 45 MOUNT AUBURN ST., CAMBRIDGE. 7PM/ALL AGES/$7-10. DEMOCRACYCENTER.ORG.

PALEHOUND PHOTO BY NINA CORCORAN

BY NINA CORCORAN @NINA_CORCORAN

Pearl Jam pulling into Fenway Park for two sold-out shows was a bit of an anomaly for the “lyric little bandbox of a ballpark,” as the esteemed John Updike once referred to it.

This was a weekend in which a band with no discernible connections to the Hub made the proceedings feel as though it was a homecoming to a spot that it has never lived in. Its care and attention to the locale, from frontman Eddie Vedder showing off polaroid photos he had taken after sneaking into the park following an early career gig at the now departed club Axis to the celebratory cover of Neil Young’s “Rockin’ in the Free World,” with Bay State guitar god J. Mascis sitting in, all spoke to a reverence for Boston rarely seen during the summer concert series.

It’s trite to say, but the band quite frankly touched all the bases… repeatedly. If Dinosaur Jr.’s loan of Mascis wasn’t enough, it also brought out Aerosmith’s Tom Hamilton on Sunday to blast through his band’s classic “Draw The Line.”

It played the old home week card not once but twice by first bringing out former Red Sox hurler, Bronson Arroyo, to sing on a spirited Friday night version of “Black,” and having another Sox alum, Kevin Youkilis, deliver a ukulele (cue the “Youk!” cries from a delighted crowd) both nights. Even venerable local journalist Peter Gammons came out and took a bow, and his “Foundation To Be Named Later” took a generous donation from Pearl Jam’s “Vitalogy Foundation.”

The notion that a band led by a Chicago-born Seattle transplant like Vedder could so enthrall a Boston crowd might have seemed initially inconceivable but the thought with which it approached its set and setting was quite simply astounding. Of course, it also helps that it’s operating from a monster catalog of songs with a crackerjack virtuosity.

Pearl Jam delivered the standards from its debut album, Ten, with a contagious enthusiasm but also gave the hardcores such nuggets as “The Strangest Tribe,” a onetime fan club single played live for only the second time; an ode to local wiseman, Howard Zinn with “Down”; and the Little Steven cover “I Am a Patriot,” which felt particularly compelling as the opening ceremonies of the Olympic Games coincided with our current political foolishness in the Presidential race.

If Vedder served as grinning host to this summer garden party, it was guitarist Mike McCready who fueled the fire.

His skills are on a rare level in both the anthemic and the intimate, making him a true rock and roll rarity. The abilities of a man who can solo on his level in one moment and then lay back in the melodic maelstrom on another are sadly uncommon in today’s musical world. Of course, the reliability of as sturdy a rhythm section as drummer Matt Cameron and bassist Jeff Ament gives the guitars of both McCready and Stone Gossard a lot of room to move.

A connection between Pearl Jam and the Grateful Dead is not frequently made, but the comparisons upon inspection are easily found. Sell tickets directly to your fans? Check. Share recordings of your live performances?

Check. Mix up your setlists, making each show a unique experience? Again, check.

Where Pearl Jam shone on this weekend, though, in a way that the Dead rarely did, was personalizing a show for the audience. Checkmate.

MUSIC EVENTS THU 8.11

WICKED WESTERN MASS KINGLING + CALIFORNIA X + HAPPY DIVING + KESTRELS + DIRT DEVIL [Great Scott, 1222 Comm. Ave., Allston.

9:30pm/18+/$10. greatscottboston.com]

16

8.11.16 - 8.18.16

|

FRI 8.12

ROCK FETE DES FEMMES SARAH BORGES + JENNY DEE & THE DEELINQUENTS + MORE

[Once Somerville, 156 Highland Ave., Somerville.

8pm/all ages/$9. oncesomerville.com]

DIGBOSTON.COM

FRI 8.12

ARCADE FIRE’S WIN BUTLER DJ WINDOWS 98 + MATT MCNEILL

[Institute of Contemporary Art, 25 Harbor Shore Dr., Boston. 5pm/all ages/$10. icaboston.org]

SAT 8.13

EP RELEASE SHOW THE RARE OCCASIONS + LE ROXY PRO + AMY AND THE ENGINE + ALL EYES ON ME

[Middle East Upstairs, 472 Mass. Ave., Cambridge.

6:30pm/18+/$10. mideastoffers.com]

SUN 8.14

WHAT’S IN A NAME? BOSTON

[Wang Theatre, 270 Tremont St., Boston. 8pm/ all ages/$45. citicenter.org]

WED 8.17

RETURN TO ’90S NYC RAP MEYHEM LAUREN

[Middle East Upstairs, 472 Mass. Ave., Cambridge. 8pm/18+/$13. mideastoffers.com]

NEWS TO US

FEATURE

DEPT. OF COMMERCE

ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT

17

FILM

FEEDING FRENZY Jaws rip-offs sighted at 12 o’clock

BY JAKE MULLIGAN @_JAKEMULLIGAN

There’s a young woman flaunting herself in the center of the movie screen, and the frame is creeping up on her at the pace of a well-practiced stalker. First we realize that this shot is coming from a point of view. And then we realize that this point of view belongs to a soulless killer. It sounds like the opening of a slasher movie, and in one sense, it is. Jaws [1975] was made when that horror subgenre was still in its nascent stage—Black Christmas [1974] had passed by, but Halloween [1978] was still many calendars away—and yet it embodies almost all of the slasher hallmarks anyway. Victims are brutally killed in gory set pieces that are crafted to elicit maximum tension. The killer quickly emerges as a spectre or an entity, as its visage remains hidden behind shrouded compositions. And the crew of potential saviors gets whittled down one by one at the villain’s will, until only one upstanding protagonist is left to fire the death blow.

Jaws had a long-term impact on the distribution methods of the American film industry, and that’s been very well documented. But it left behind a separate lineage in the short-term—a whole forgotten wave of slasher-adjacent creature features wherein oversized predators creep up on their human prey. The directors of these films, usually working with extremely low budgets, often hid their killers the same way that Spielberg did. Do we still call it “first person” if the eyes don’t belong to a human being?

The post-Jaws animal-slasher new wave featured killers both at sea (Piranha [1978], Orca [1977], Great White [1981]) and on land (Razorback [1984], Grizzly [1977], The Swarm [1978]). We’re writing about them now because somebody has called for a reunion. The perpetually viral Boston Yeti is co-programming and co-presenting the midnight movies at the Coolidge Corner Theatre during

the month of August, and he’s dedicated the program to the children of Jaws. His series, “Nature’s Revenge,” already began with Razorback, and continues over the next three weekends with Alligator [1980], Grizzly, and Piranha 2: The Spawning [1981]. (On the Coolidge’s website, the Yeti has provided a collection of cheeky program notes for the series. Sample excerpt: “Whereas I address conflicts by growling them out, the alligator in this [film] instead opts to chew on his problems. It’s not how I would handle things, but then again who am I to judge?”) It’s safe to assume that the connection these films share with Spielberg’s seminal chomper picture are not lost on the programmer. The Yeti revealed his identity to the Improper Bostonian last year, outing himself as John Campopiano, a 30-year-old archivist based in Somerville.

Campopiano had been profiled months before that

by Boston.com, with no mentions of the Yeti persona involved. Instead they were documenting one of his other notable hobbies—he’s an extremely prolific collector of Jaws memorabilia.

Each of the films being screened could be a piece in his collection. They imitate the story, the structure, the characters, the compositions, and the kills of Spielberg’s original; they’re forgotten mementos of its short-term impact. In Jaws—which will get its own theatrical run this week, with shows at the Somerville Theatre from Aug 12 through Aug 14—an oft-emasculated police chief (Roy Schieder, terrified of the sea) aims to defend his domain against the entry of a predator (a great white shark) who’s picking off lone swimmers. In Razorback, an oft-emasculated widower (Gregory Harrison, introduced wearing a kitchen apron) aims to defend his late wife’s honor by killing the predator (a wild boar) who picked

her off. In Grizzly, an oft-emasculated park ranger (Christopher George, constantly belittled by his political superior, another nod to the Jaws mythos) aims to defend his domain against the entry of a predator (a prehistoric grizzly bear) who’s picking off lone campers. In Alligator, an oft-emasculated police officer (Robert Forster, giving the most convincingly weary performance seen in any of these movies, Jaws included, sorry Roy) aims to defend his city against the entry of a predator (a mutated sewer alligator) who’s picking off lone vagrants. A certain aesthetic is also shared among them: slow first-person creeping, close-ups of animal eyes and primal roars, the clear sight of bloody results left behind after deliberately obfuscated attack scenes. The settings and the species might change, but the rhythm of these movies is just one step removed from Amity Island.

And that step puts them one pace closer to the slasher format proper. What they typically add is the same sense of small-scale sin-and-punishment allegory—the Final Girl thing, except mostly with guys—that would characterize all the post-Halloween rip-offs that emerged a few years later. (It gets you wondering if Jaws is due more credit than it gets for helping to bring the slasher movie forward from the generation of Psycho and Peeping Tom—the Wikipedia page for the subgenre, to wit, makes no mention of it— but then you remember that Jaws gets enough credit already, so you stop caring.) Razorback punishes ignorant journalists, vengeful people, and big game hunters; Alligator chomps down on people who experiment on animals, inexperienced cops, and big game hunters; Grizzly takes out unprepared campers, slow-witted park rangers, and big game hunters; all at the same rate that Friday the 13th [1980] would punish teenagers at for things like smoking pot and having sex. Complex structural formats have never been the forte of exploitation cinema, so perhaps this is an unneeded observation, but in stepping toward the then-developing format of the slasher movie, these knock-offs were taking a step back.

Reason being that if you read Jaws as a slasher movie—and all its aesthetic creeping suggests that that’s more than fair—then it emerges as one of the most complex and multilayered works that the subgenre produced. A shark bombards a commercialized beach until it is forced to close, then workers are sent at it until somebody kills it. This doesn’t play as allegory, but more like an unrelenting parade of working-class anxieties made visual: young bodies returning from the warzone of the water short limbs and lives, workers put out by an act of nature, older bureaucrats creating greater risk because the numbers said so, the uneducated sent out into the fray at a rate higher than most, death itself biting uncaringly at anyone who happens to drift in front of its teeth. Jaws plots the intersection of one soulless machine (the great white) with another (free market economics) and discovers a circular narrative cycle for the results (shark defeats capitalism, men defeat shark, capitalism defeats men). There are great pleasures to be found in its family tree—the way Forster plays his cop like a beatendown boxer in Alligator, the oddly lush and inviting cinematography of Grizzly, the occasionally inventive compositions of a young James Cameron (!) in Piranha 2— but Jaws will always sit at the top.

>> ALLIGATOR. FRI 8.12 AND SAT 8.13. COOLIDGE CORNER THEATRE. 290 HARVARD AVE., BROOKLINE. MIDNIGHT. RATED R. $11.25. 35MM. >> GRIZZLY. FRI 8.19 AND SAT 8.20. COOLIDGE CORNER THEATRE. 290 HARVARD AVE., BROOKLINE. MIDNIGHT. RATED PG. $11.25. 35MM. >> PIRANHA 2: THE SPAWNING. FRI 8.26 AND SAT 8.27. COOLIDGE CORNER THEATRE. 290 HARVARD AVE., BROOKLINE. MIDNIGHT. RATED R. $11.25. 35MM. >> JAWS. FRI 8.12 THROUGH SUN 8.14. SOMERVILLE THEATRE. 55 DAVIS SQUARE, SOMERVILLE. SEE SOMERVILLETHEATRE.COM FOR SHOWTIMES. RATED PG. $10. 35MM.

FILM EVENTS FRI 8.12

DIGITALLY RESTORED PRINT OF OUSMANE SEMBENE’S BLACK GIRL

[Brattle Theatre.

40 Brattle St., Harvard Sq., Cambridge. 3, 5, and 7pm/ NR/$9-11. Screens through 8.14—see brattlefilm.org for showtimes.]

18

8.11.16 - 8.18.16

|

FRI 8.12

SAT 8.13

SAT 8.13

[Harvard Film Archive.

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

35mm. hcl.harvard.edu/ hfa]

[Harvard Film Archive.

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

35mm. hcl.harvard.edu/ hfa]

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

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

35mm. Also screens on 8.14 at 12:30pm.]

THE HFA STARTS A ROUBEN MAMOULIAN RETROSPECTIVE APPLAUSE

DIGBOSTON.COM

ROBERT ALDRICH’S WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE?

‘STARRING JACKIE CHAN’ CONTINUES AT THE BRATTLE POLICE STORY 2

MON 8.15

MON 8.15

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

5:30 and 9:15pm/NR/$9-11.

35mm. Also screens on 8.16 at 5pm.]

[Coolidge Corner Theatre.

290 Harvard St., Brookline.

7pm/R/$11.25. 35mm.]

‘75 YEARS OF FILM NOIR’ CONTINUES DETOUR

BIG SCREEN CLASSICS PRESENTS THE BIG LEBOWSKI

BASED ON THE INSPIRING TRUE STORY

YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE GOOD TO BE GREAT

“THE FILM IS HILARIOUS AND SURPRISINGLY TOUCHING.” PETER TRAVERS

“FUNNY AND MOVING.” JASON SOLOMONS

STARTS FRIDAY, AUGUST 12 IN THEATRES EVERYWHERE

CHECK LOCAL LISTINGS FOR THEATRES AND SHOWTIMES / NO PASSES ACCEPTED

4-COLOR DIGBOSTON WED 8/10

digboston.com 2 COL. (4.62") X 8"

MR

ALL.FFJ.0810.BWD

/weeklydig

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ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT

19

ARTS

ANNA DEAVERE SMITH SOUNDS THE ALARM Notes from the Field: Doing Time in Education at the American Repertory Theater

BY CHRISTOPHER EHLERS @_CHRISEHLERS Actress, playwright, and teacher Anna Deavere Smith—as well known for her work on camera (Nurse Jackie, The West Wing) as she is for her searing, docu-style plays (Let Me Down Easy, Twilight: Los Angeles)—is bringing her latest experiment to the American Repertory Theater.

Notes from the Field: Doing Time in Education explores what Deavere Smith calls “the school-to-prison pipeline,” a world in which low-income students face 25 percent dropout rates and where one in three men of color will spend time in the penal system. It is a world where rich kids are allowed to be mischievous, but poor kids get jail time, like in one 2013 incident that set all of this in motion for her.

Deavere Smith interviewed hundreds of people across the country for the play, and she will bring roughly two dozen of them to life on stage. For the second act—and this is where we come in—she turns to us.

When I was reading about this play, the impetus behind it, and all of the work that you’ve done for it, I came across one quote that seemed to perfectly explain the whole situation. In 1967, Dr. King said, “Consider, for example … a nation gorged on money while millions of its citizens are denied a good education, adequate health services, decent housing, meaningful employment, and even respect, and are then told to be responsible.” Wow. That’s very interesting. I think it sums up one aspect of it, and that aspect is the extent to which people would say that the solution to poverty is “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” and that the solution to the problem in the schools is just “do what your teacher says.” There are assumptions that are about the order that is required, the obedience that is required, and the grit that’s required in order to accomplish what you need to accomplish and thrive in this society. King is really talking about a time in our history when we still were close enough to slavery and Jim Crow, and people were still very, very marked by that; the spirit of these people had been broken because they’ve been treated like chattel, and so you expect them to be able to come out of a traumatic experience and be productive. But now I think the problem is more complicated because we can’t just say that the people are failing. The institutions are failing the people.

It isn’t just a systemic failure, then. This school-to-prison pipeline starts at home, it starts with your friends and the climate around you.

Well, it started a couple generations ago for a lot of the people that I’m interested in. In cities, like my city, Baltimore, even though I grew up in a de facto segregation, nobody was as bad off as the people are who are bad off now. I mean, really really bad. One of the reasons I’m doing this project is because, in my career, I haven’t really dealt with anything that has to do with me—I mean, me as a human, not me as Anna Deavere Smith. This project is like I’m going home because my mother was a teacher, all her friends were teachers, my aunts were teachers. I watched, in a very real way, my mother changing lives. I think it’s wrong to call the school a prison pipeline. I don’t think it’s fair because it’s just one aspect of the pipeline. Some people say the pipeline starts in the womb, other people say, “Don’t do that, you blame the mother.” Put blame aside, it started a few generations ago in poverty and so a lot of the children who are in trouble now are in families where their parents are in trouble, their grandparents are in trouble.

You talk about having this self-regulation that you got from your mother and your aunt.

Well, I grew up in a very strict environment, and nobody does anymore.

These are the people who write, talk, and advocate for social and emotional learning, that’s what that’s about.

Children—we want them to do what the teacher says, but they come to school without the selfregulation to get through even kindergarten. And that does start with the difficulty of parenting in poverty. And the difficulty of the child, I think, learning how to socialize in a society around them which is in complete disarray.

One of the fascinating things that you do with this play is that you turn it over to the audience in the second act.

Thanks for asking that, that’s really why I’m here.

My big experiment is how can I get the audience to do some of this work. ’Cause, you know, we all like to claim that art can change the world, you know, what would humanity be without us, “Oh, my goodness, arts taken out of the schools, that’s such a—” yeah, that’s all true, but on the other hand, if we feel that we are such potential catalysts— catalysts for what? I’m not a snob: One of my happiest moments of this year was getting to be in a television show called DC: Legends of Tomorrow—but the fact is, the work I’ve dedicated myself to is work that does have a mission to be alongside the people who know more about really organizing and activating people than I do.

There are different kinds of spaces that we can do it in and we don’t fully use those spaces: churches, schools to some extent, and then places where we make and share art. We’ve got all these strangers sitting in the room, and is there a way to get them thinking, talking, doing something about what’s in front of us?

What are you hoping comes out of this audience interaction?

I really think one of the great opportunities is for the people who we call “facilitators.” There’s a huge opportunity to think of them as a new kind of theater worker, or new arts worker. I think there’s a really great potential of that group of, say, 25 to 30 people who are going to see the show every night, and they’re going to

talk to groups every night who come away from that knowing a lot more about their community. It’s almost like being in a bunch of focus groups, and I hope that they become a community of caring people who, when the play is gone, when the circus leaves town, they kind of say, “Well, I don’t want it to be over—I want to see you tomorrow. What can we do together?” I’m being very mindful about how I choose people and how I organize their training. I want something to happen for them.

I leave the theater and the best I can leave behind is a memory of my work; maybe I’ve inspired somebody else to make another work, maybe if I’m very, very, very, very, very lucky I’ve left the theater in a slightly better financial situation so maybe they’ll invite me back. Or maybe I’ve left some ideas behind. And, of course, I take things with me. But it’s not entirely tangible. If you could leave a city or an environment and you’ve left behind a new way of thinking in that town, to me, that’s what I’m working towards. I actually feel that the Harvard community is one of the best communities to anchor something like this.

I think this town, with all its colleges and its basic spirit, is full of thinking, thoughtful people who do want to be in conversation or have some kind of mission about their own citizenry.

>> NOTES FROM THE FIELD: DOING TIME IN EDUCATION. RUNS 8.20–9.17 AT LOEB DRAMA CENTER, 64 BRATTLE ST., CAMBRIDGE. AMERICANREPERTORYTHEATER.ORG 20

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SAVAGE LOVE

VACATION

WHAT'S FOR BREAKFAST

BY PATT KELLEY WHATS4BREAKFAST.COM

BY DAN SAVAGE @FAKEDANSAVAGE | MAIL@SAVAGELOVE.NET DEAR READERS: I’m on vacation for the next three weeks—but you won’t be reading old columns while I’m away. You’ll be getting a new column every week, all of them written by Dan Savage, none of them written by me.

Dan Savage is a sports writer and the assistant director of digital content for OrlandoMagic.com, and he will be answering your questions this week. Dan has covered six NBA finals and 10 NBA All-Star Games; he’s appeared on CBS, ESPN, NBA TV, and First Take; and his writing has been published at ESPN.com, CBS.com, NBA.com, and OrlandoMagic.com. This is Dan’s first time giving sex-and-relationship advice.

“Other sports writers often tell me they enjoyed reading my latest column,” Dan Savage told me in an e-mail, “but when they show me the article, it’s one of your sex-advice columns.

The joke is going to be on them this time around when it’s actually my advice!”

I’ve been hooking up with a good friend for about a year. We’re both single, and he lives in another state but comes to town for work every month or two, and we usually hang out and have really great sex when he’s here. One of the things I’ve always admired about him is his eco-conscious lifestyle… which includes showering only about once a week to save water. His BO is pretty inoffensive (it’s actually a nice scent), but I find that most times we hook up, I get a raging UTI within a day or two. It’s happened enough times that I’m wondering if his infrequent washing could be allowing bacteria to live on his junk, causing my infections. Is that possible? Do I need to have a talk with him about washing more frequently/thoroughly?

Hurts To Pee The simple answer is yes, HTP. It’s great to have an eco-conscious lifestyle, but not at the expense of your urinary tract. If he cares about you as much as he does about the environment, then with a quick chat, he’ll probably focus a little more on his personal hygiene. Especially if you explain to him that the overuse of antibiotics contributes to creating antibioticresistant bacteria, which can cause issues for the entire planet.

Follow Dan Savage, assistant director of digital content for OrlandoMagic.com, on Twitter @ Dan_Savage.

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BOWERY BOSTON

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