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OOMPA COVER: MUSIC

ROXBURY’S POETIC JUSTICE

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APR 26, 2018 - MAY 03, 2018 BUSINESS PUBLISHER Marc Sneider ASSOCIATE PUBLISHERS Chris Faraone John Loftus Jason Pramas SALES MANAGER Marc Sneider FOR ADVERTISING INFORMATION sales@digboston.com BUSINESS MANAGER John Loftus

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Dear Reader, I should probably begin with some kind of apology to the more puritanical DigBoston readers, some of whom expressed a little disappointment about my insanely tactless and excessive gloating at the expense of one Kevin Cullen, the Boston Globe writer and columnist who was put out to pasture last week.

I should probably do that. But I won’t. Because people shutting up and being nice when they should have been critical and vigilant is probably what led to the apparent lack of oversight inside the Globe that would allow for Cullen’s seemingly nonstop dramatic symphony of first responder fondling to promulgate.

For those who missed the story, it turns out Cullen played elusive loosey-goosey with the truth in a hacktacular account of the day that the Boston Marathon was bombed. As was dumped on front street by the morning crew at WEEI, in a recent pisssoaked pillow of a love note titled “Five years later, we feel the grief like a sixth sense,” the longtime Globie wrote the following, despite not having actually been downtown when the bombs exploded by the finish line in 2013: I happened upon a house fire recently, in Mattapan, and the smell reminded me of Boylston Street five years ago, when so many lost their lives and their limbs and their sense of security.

I can smell Patriots Day, 2013. I can hear it. God, can I hear it, whenever multiple fire engines or ambulances are racing to a scene.

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I can taste it, when I’m around a campfire and embers create a certain sensation.

Those indefensible offenses and a million others in this latest spooge caboose aside, I cannot emphasize enough that banishment from the Globe masthead alone is hardly an adequate slap for the claptrap he’s shat across so many graphs. Cullen isn’t just an insult to reporters who are genuinely tough and question authority; he’s an insult to the movie knockoff version of the tired barfly hack against the world trope, a city desk nostalgia monger who reminds us that no matter how diverse this city gets, there are still more white reporters who applaud cops with some regularity than journalists of color who impugn the Man. The Globe is looking into Cullen’s columns, an effort that could take forever. But despite what happens on that front, the plague of columnists who pass off lazy, sentimental schlock endures. For a fraud like Cullen, whose pieces are Rockwellian minus the milkshakes, it’s fiction whether it is truly fabricated or if it’s a romanticized account of a thing that really happened. I am reluctant to give credit to WEEI, whose ignorant coverage of other topics is revolting.

But in the name of watching someone from the Globe, our newspaper of record that rarely concedes or gives credit where it is due, get thrown from the ivory tower, it only seemed appropriate to offer props.

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NEWS+OPINION OPEN WOUNDS NEWS TO US

Another black Harvard man arrested

BY REV. IRENE MONROE

a BLSA statement read. “While on the ground, at least one officer repeatedly punched the student in his torso as he screamed for help.”

One has to wonder if a white Harvard student standing naked in distress near Cambridge Common would have been so dehumanized and humiliated. As was noted by the Grio, the largest online news source of black America, in its reporting on the Cambridge incident: Boston and Cambridge Police Departments are no different than those in the rest of the country. According to the ACLU, 63% of police stops in Boston between 2007 and 2010 targeted Black residents, even though Black residents make up less than 25% of the population.

As of 2015, the Boston Police Department (BPD) had spent approximately $36 million to settle lawsuits, most of which were tied to wrongful convictions and police misconduct.

It wasn’t very long ago that another unarmed black Harvard man was arrested in Cambridge, making big headlines.

The last high-profile incident involved Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, who was seen by police as an unknown black man breaking and entering a home—it happened to be his home—in 2009. The story went viral internationally, leaving a pox on the city I live in.

Now, the recent arrest of another unarmed black Harvard man is going viral—internationally, as the student is from Ghana. All in a city that, since the Gates arrest, publicly takes pride in being woke.

Following those events, Cambridge released a report in 2010 titled “Missed Opportunities, Shared Responsibilities.”

One of the many findings in the document is: “When police believe they are not in physical danger, they generally should de-escalate tensions … [which] can be a tool for helping to reduce danger by calming a person who is upset or unstable.”

On Friday, April 13, Selorm Ohene, a 21-year-old mathematics major, was charged with indecent exposure, disorderly conduct, assault, resisting arrest, and assault and battery on ambulance personnel. One fact that all

When police believe they are not in physical danger, they generally should de-escalate tensions

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parties—Cambridge Police Department officers, Harvard Black Law Students Association (BLSA) members, and eyewitnesses—seem to agree on is that Ohene was in a significant state of crisis as he stood naked on a traffic island in the middle of Mass Ave, across from HarvardEpworth United Methodist Church.

According to reports, calls by witnesses to Harvard University Health Services were transferred immediately to the Cambridge Police Department (CPD), rather than the Harvard University Police Department. At the time of this writing, groups, including BLSA, which are watching the developing story closely, were still waiting for answers on that front.

As can be seen in a video that one witness submitted to police, officers repeatedly punched Ohene in his torso.

A subsequent CPD report depicts Ohene as being so wildly combative that three cops from Cambridge plus a transit officer were needed to restrain him and to place the perp in handcuffs in order to “avoid further injury to himself.”

“Numerous attempts made by officers to calm the male down were met with opposition, and his hostility escalated while officers attempted to speak with him,” a CPD official wrote in a later tweet. “After he was observed clinching both of his fists and started taking steps towards officers attempting to engage with the male, officers made the tactical decision to grab his legs and bring him to the ground.”

In recalling the event, BLSA members have offered a counter-narrative suggesting the officers had insufficient training in managing trauma, crisis intervention, and de-escalation techniques. Since officers apparently did not “adhere to their stated commitment to using body cameras” and are reported to have obstructed bystanders who made attempts to record the arrest, doubt looms in Cambridge about what happened in its entirety. “[Ohene] was surrounded by at least four Cambridge Police Department (CPD) officers who, without provocation, lunged at him, tackled him and pinned him to the ground,”

Concerning Cambridge specifically, CPD Commissioner Branville G. Bard Jr., who is African-American, is an expert in the study of ending racial profiling. With just eight months under his belt, Bard holds a doctorate in public administration from Valdosta State University as well as a leadership certificate from the Harvard Kennedy School. His doctoral studies focused on racially biased policing, immigration, the Bill of Rights, and public policy, and Bard is the author of the 2014 book Racial Profiling: Towards Simplicity and Eradication. Bard promises a cultural shift within the police force under his watch but has bothered many Cambridge residents—some of African descent, others who were stunned and shocked to see the incident play out firsthand—by saying the use of force against Ohene was an appropriate tactical decision within police protocol: “In a rapidly-evolving situation, as this was, the officers primary objective is to neutralize an incident to ensure the safety of the involved party(ies), officers, and members of the public,” Bard wrote in a statement. “To prevent the altercation from extending and leading to further injuries, particularly since the location of the engagement was next to a busy street with oncoming traffic, the officers utilized their discretion and struck the individual in the midsection to gain his compliance and place him in handcuffs.”

Excessive force is frequently tolerated and called things like “appropriate” when it is used against black men. All too often, the outcome is fatal. With Ohene, some say he’s lucky because the altercation didn’t end in death. Nevertheless, some questions remain.

Why did a pool of Ohene’s blood remain on the pavement as an ambulance transported him to a nearby hospital for evaluation? Why does this situation look like it fits into the broader disturbing narrative of America’s culture of police violence and systemic civil rights violations? Had the arresting officers read the aforementioned report, and did they employ the appropriate techniques?

With two Harvard Law School professors defending the student moving forward, the public might just find out.

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WHAT GOES AROUND COMES AROUND TOWNIE

Or how tax breaks for fat cats relate to a defeat for Harvard management rats

BY JASON PRAMAS @JASONPRAMAS

job for decades.

In its place, we have programs like the “opportunity zones” that help the rich find new and exciting ways to get richer. But that don’t mandate the creation of good jobs for working families, or provide for the democratic control of new enterprises that are created by the people that work in them.

Furthermore, as Next City points out, “Opportunity funds could end up raising too much capital without enough deals in the designated census tracts, blunting the impact per tax dollar lost, or they could end up without enough capital raised to make a discernible difference.”

Seems likely that the new program will go the way of a similar neoliberal program from the Clinton era: “Empowerment Zones.” Which never produced gains for poor communities that could be tied to the program. Instead lining the pockets of legions of contractors and investors along the way.

Harvard University grad union victory

FORMER GM FRAMINGHAM PLANT

“Opportunity” for the few Gov. Charlie Baker submitted paperwork to the US Department of Treasury last week, according to the Republican, asking the federal government to consider 138 tracts in dozens of Massachusetts communities for inclusion in the new “Opportunity Zones” program— passed in December as part of the Trump administration’s sweeping tax reform legislation.

As the name implies, each opportunity zone is a lowincome area of an American city or town. According to Next City, acceptance to the program makes such areas eligible to receive investment from “Opportunity Funds”—which are to be certified by the treasury department. The funds “will be required to invest at least 90 percent of their investment dollars into businesses or properties located in designated Opportunity Zones,” and the initiative “allows investors to defer some of their taxes on capital gains in exchange for investing some of their accumulated wealth into the opportunity zones.”

This week, MetroWest Daily News looked at tracts chosen for the program in Framingham and Marlborough. In Framingham, “City officials nominated a pair of contiguous neighborhoods on the southeast side of the city, which has struggled to rebound from the decline of manufacturing and the legacy of environmental contamination in the area.”

One of those tracts is particularly interesting because it contains “a significant amount of industrial land, including the state prison and the former General Motors plant, which is now the site of Adesa, the vehicle auction house.”

And thus encapsulates everything that’s wrong with neoliberalism—the return to 19th-century dog-eat-dog capitalism in which private interest must always outweigh any possible public good.

Which is germane to this discussion because the opportunity zone scheme was cooked up by a “bipartisan” (read “neoliberal”) think tank called the Economic Innovation Group—led by a who’s who of Silicon Valley movers and shakers, according to the Los Angeles Times.

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Napster founder Sean Parker, former Facebook general counsel Ted Ullyot, and a rogue’s gallery of major West Coast venture capital investment house leaders are all part of the organization’s “founders circle.”

So it’s absolutely no surprise that the program is essentially yet another tax break for the rich. In a federal tax regime that’s now replete with them—especially after Trump’s ungentle ministrations. More problematic, however, is the fact that the so-called opportunity zones give the rich and powerful even more control over economic development in areas already impoverished by the rich and powerful.

Which brings us back to the Framingham tract in question. It houses MCI-Framingham, a medium-security women’s prison with a population that includes a majority of nonviolent offenders. Most of whom are from workingclass families, and most of whom would not be there if the state and federal government put less money into the “prison-industrial complex” and more money into guaranteeing economic opportunity for those families.

It is also home to the former General Motors plant.

Which once employed as many as 5,000 workers in highpaying jobs unionized with the United Auto Workers. Just the kind of jobs that increasingly downwardly mobile working-class families need, if they want to avoid turning to crime to make ends meet.

According to the New York Times, the last 2,100 workers were laid off from the GM plant in 1989. And the working families of Framingham and environs have never really recovered since then. Because pols and CEOs and policy wonks can talk all they want about Massachusetts having recovered from the Great Recession of 10 years back. They can claim we’ve achieved “full employment.” But the jobs that working people have been able to get since the destruction of the Bay State’s largely unionized industrial base between the 1950s and the 1990s are not nearly as good as the ones that were lost.

Gone also is the social—and therefore political— solidarity that once enabled the local working class to defend and maintain the improvements they won on the

In light of the loss of 5,000 good jobs unionized with the UAW at GM Framingham decades back, it’s extremely ironic that 5,000 graduate assistants at Harvard University just successfully unionized with—you guessed it—the UAW. Big congrats to all concerned.

The labor campaign was absolutely necessary because the same neoliberal system that purposely depresses working-class wages and benefits worldwide to increase corporate profits also hurts grad assistants. Harvard is a large employer, and—nonprofit or not—like most large employers it always strives to save money on staffing costs.

So it makes perfect sense that a union that was decimated by decades of assaults from auto industry tycoons should get vengeance of a sort by unionizing grad assistants at a ruling-class university that continues to help spearhead the corporate drive to crush global labor power. Grad assistants that—together with various kinds of adjunct faculty—get overused by fully corporatized university management to avoid increasing the ranks of more expensive (and far more powerful) tenured faculty.

Naturally, being a teaching or research assistant for a few years is not the same kind of job as the ones lost at GM Framingham. And the fortunes of people with advanced degrees from an elite school are typically much different than those of auto workers that often only had high school degrees. But beyond the improvements that grad assistants will see in their working lives during their short time at Harvard, and the bump that the labor movement will get from their very public victory, here’s hoping that the students will learn to feel genuine solidarity with working families the world over. And move into their professional lives with the determination to help undo the grievous damage that too many of their predecessors did, and continue to do, to the billions of people who don’t control the commanding heights of politics and the economy.

Townie (a worm’s eye view of the Mass power structure) is syndicated by the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism.

Jason Pramas is BINJ’s network director, and executive editor and associate publisher of DigBoston. Copyright 2018 Jason Pramas. Licensed for use by the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism and media outlets in its network.

ALL IT TAKES IS A NEUTRAL FREE SPEECH AREA FOR HATE TO THRIVE GUEST OPINION

BY SAMIRA*

Last Monday’s unseasonable weather may have rained out the traditional Concord parade, but it did not deter the Proud Boys, a known hate group, from rallying at Minute Man National Historical Park.

The Southern Poverty Law Center’s Spring 2018 Intelligence Report on hate activity in the US officially names the Proud Boys as a hate group to watch and documents them as promoting anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and violence against women. The SPLC also notes that Proud Boys had a presence at last summer’s deadly Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, and that [its founder]** has publicly called for violence against women, Jews, Muslims, and people who oppose the Proud Boys’ views.

This characterization was not unknown to Concord’s citizenry and institutions, and yet they engaged in a series of deliberate actions: When the Proud Boys announced their rally via social media, the Concord Town Manager and representatives of Minute Man National Historical Park contacted them to ask that they apply for a permit. They approved the permit request. Concord Police worked with the Proud Boys to move their rally from noon to 3 pm, and were later thanked for their support on the Proud Boys’ social media accounts. They worried about the (unfounded) threat of violence by counter-protesters and took steps to ensure that the Proud Boys would be able to rally unopposed. They even walked them to their cars.

Some would argue that these are simply the actions of politically neutral public servants charged with protecting the first amendment rights of all people. However, there is a line between protecting free speech, and promoting hate speech and hateful agendas. Nowhere in our constitution are we guaranteed the right to speech without consequence, and an acceptable consequence of hate speech is lack of access to the people and communities that the speaker would harm. And this is where the citizens of Concord come in.

While Concord-Carlisle Regional High School students organized admirably to challenge the presence of a hate rally in their town, the larger community let them down. Instead, avowed hate group members walked through the crowd attempting to recruit young people to their cause while Concord leaders did nothing to protect Jews, Muslims, transgender youth, or communities of color. Instead, members of the Proud Boys shouted sexually explicit, misogynistic messages at girls and women in the small crowd, while progressive-leaning Concord groups stayed home in the name of ignoring the admittedly attention-driven Proud Boys.

But the rise of hate groups actually demands our full attention and our full commitment to ensuring that hate groups cannot march across our public spaces unchallenged. Concord is home to significant wealth and power, and it’s time to use that power to ensure that we do not give hate speech a platform in the name of neutrality or free speech. In Boston, black women made damn sure that similar groups were met with crowds of tens of thousands to drown out their message. In Concord, they rallied. Step up, Concord. * DigBoston allows authors to publish using a pseudonym on a case-by-case basis. ** DigBoston’s “unnaming” policy precludes us from printing the names of nazis, fascists, or white supremacists in our pages—in the interest of denying them personal notoriety.

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ALT-RIGHT SECOND ACTS DEMOCRACY IN CRISIS

America loves to give racists second chances, so don’t count the alt-right out

BY BAYNARD WOODS

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Eight years ago last week, there was the first big Tea Party rally in Washington.

Earlier this week, I found some audio I recorded of the rally—where thousands of people gathered on the mall, united in their hatred of the federal government, as embodied by Obama—and it was amazing how much it sounded like the Trump rallies I’ve attended.

“What paper are you with?” one woman, who looked like a grandmother and went to church, asked.

I told her I was with the now-defunct Columbia City Paper, hoping that my South Carolina-based publication might give me a little cred with this crowd.

“The only thing your paper’s good for is wiping your reporters’ asses with,” she said.

Another white guy with a mustache who was wearing white tennis shoes, a lowbuttoned shirt, and gold chains said there was a revolution coming and that after the revolution the world would look like him.

I think back and I know he was right. Trump is his dream come true.

All of the the aesthetic qualities, the DNA, of the Trump phenomenon was there.

And it took over congress that year. So why were we so surprised when Trump won?

A lot of people have blamed the press. I’ve fought back against that—it’s not our job to predict the future. But it is our job to remember the past, and one of the reasons people were so surprised is that we had, in many ways, erased the rougher edges of the Tea Party from our memory. Our news cycles aren’t good at following undercurrents, and things move underground.

So I’ve been really uncomfortable with the narrative that the alt-right is on the wane. Sure, a lot of them have been deplatformed—kicked off of Twitter and Youtube, etc.—but that doesn’t mean that they have gone away or that their ideas are less attractive to a certain portion of America than they were on November 10, 2016, right after Trump’s victory.

It’s useful to remember that, like Trump, a lot of these clowns who have become alt-right or alt-lite celebrities are masters of reinvention because they know how to manipulate the short memory of the media. So here are some possible sequels for a few of the alt-right rogues.

First, Steve Bannon’s fall seems pretty spectacular. Remember the great Jerry Lee Lewis biopic Great Balls of Fire where the Killer is on top of the world and then marries his teen cousin and ends up drunk playing county fairs?

If Dennis Quaid were Randy Quaid and wore two shirts, it would be a good depiction of the Breitbart boss-turned-Trump adviser’s fall from grace in recent months. Trump fired Bannon after Charlottesville and the publication of Devil’s Bargain, but Bannon played it off and returned to Breitbart. Then, after the release of Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury, the billionaire Mercer family who fund the propaganda site severed ties with the man Trump labeled Sloppy Steve and, like so many washed-up American stars, he went on a European tour hoping to become the David Hasselhoff of the global fascist movement, encouraging the racists there to embrace the label. But he will be back. He is still perhaps the most dangerous man of the alt-right. And he is obsessed with intersectional feminism because he understands the fear that strikes into the hearts of schlubby bros everywhere—and he casts it in world-historical terms.

Second, Milo Yiannopoulos was at one time one of the biggest stars on the altright, his tour creating chaos and protests, his book deal bringing in big bucks. Now he’s just afraid of being one of the biggest losers—apparently he is terrified of being fat. The shift occurred after a video in which he seemed to endorse sex between “younger boys and older men” surfaced. His publisher dropped him and even Breitbart fired him.

The right can stand all the racism, xenophobia, and hatred you can throw at them, but these people are Pizzagaters, after all—they’ll shoot you for eating a pepperoni pie if they think a pedophile is nearby.

Sure, a lot of them have been deplatformed– kicked off of Twitter and Youtube, etc.– but that doesn’t mean that they have gone away or that their ideas are less attractive to a certain portion of America

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TALKING JOINTS MEMO

KNOW THE REGS: CULTIVATION SPACE When it comes to cannabis in Mass, these tiers go to 11

BY ROB KATZ When medical marijuana regulations were the cannabis law of the land in the Commonwealth, all businesses were required to be vertically integrated, managing both their cultivation facilities and their retail operations. Under the Cannabis Control Commission’s new adult use regulations, however, businesses may solely specialize in cultivation with the possibility of selling to one or more dispensaries that do not have to be owned by the cultivator.

Each licensee may apply to grow up to 100,000 square feet of canopy, or that much cannabis flowering among up to three licensed cultivation spaces. The acreage that cultivators are permitted to grow is decided on a scaling tier system. Tier 1 allows up to 5,000 square feet of crop, Tier 2 allows anywhere between 5,001 and 10,000, and every subsequent tier ups the ante by 10,000. Tier 11 caps it off at 100,000 square feet, the aforementioned maximum amount of canopy allowed for any licensee.

According to Will Luzier, the political director of the Marijuana Policy Project, the hard limit was intended both to prevent any one cultivator from dominating the market through overwhelming production and to control the overproduction of cannabis.

Growers are expected to use their tier size efficiently, or face regulation. If the CCC finds that a licensee has sold less than 70 percent of what it has produced during the six months leading up to an application for renewal, it can be brought down to a lower tier.

On the other hand, if a cultivator is looking to expand production, they must demonstrate that they have been cultivating near the peak of their capacity. In order to be applicable, the grower must consistently sell 85 percent or more of their crop over the six months preceding an application for expansion.

“There was some degree of flexibility built into the tier system,” Michael Dundas, an appointee to the CCC’s Cannabis Advisory Board and CEO of Sira Naturals, told DigBoston. “It’s relatively easy for a cultivator that chooses a tier that ends up being too small for them to step up to the next tier.”

Luzier affirmed that more seasoned growers would be able to better take advantage of available space.

“An experienced cultivator will be able to use whatever square footage is available,” Luzier said.

As well, the size of a cultivator’s canopy is not the entire plot of growing space. The regulations define “canopy” as the crop’s flowering area, in which the actual cannabis flowers are formed, and excludes any space required during the prior two phases, the propagation and vegetative stages.

“If you’ve got 100,000 square feet of flowering space, you’re going to need and be allowed to have additional cultivation space for propagation and vegetation,” Dundas added.

For a smallish startup operation, Tier 1 seems to be the clear choice. Dundas suggested that anything larger than the initial 5,000 square feet would already be “a pretty sizable business.”

“Tier 3 gets you into what I would consider a big business and Tiers 8, 9, and 10 get you into a giant business,” he said.

The microbusiness class is another option for interested entrepreneurs with minimal resources. A microbusiness license allows for Tier 1 cultivation of up to 5,000 square feet as well as product manufacturing. While licensees may not have an ownership stake in any other establishment and are locked into a smaller size, application fees and license fees are only half the combined sum of the fees for all the activities in which they are engaged. Under the plan, some are concerned that microbusiness licenses may not do enough to alleviate the financial stresses of opening a small business.

“It’s my guess that there may be some further tweaking to the concept of the microbusiness,” Dundas said. “I’m not sure that just this structure alone, the way that it’s been drafted in the regulations, is going to do all that much in terms of breaking down barriers to entry.” “[The annual application fee of a Tier 1 license] is $1,250 per year,” Dundas continued.

“So, okay, you saved yourself $600 or so per year in license fees, but it doesn’t take away the necessity to build out a MIPs (Marijuana-Infused Products) kitchen or to build a small cultivation, which can be expensive.”

(Ed note: As noted in a previous installment of Know the Regs, the CCC additionally has equity provisions in place to boost the chances of “people from communities that have been disproportionately harmed by marijuana law enforcement.” The commission has been proactive in spreading the word about equity pro, and have made help and application materials accessible—both in person at public meetings and on their website.)

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THIRST TERMS OF SERVICE

Your inside guide to Boston’s fifth annual cocktail extravaganza

BY HALEY HAMILTON @SAUCYLIT

once again! This year, 12 bartending teams are thrown into the ring to battle it out in a Mad Max-style post-apocalyptic blended drink competition. Possibly one of the hottest parties of the year, attendees and bartenders alike don their best themed costume, sample contending concoctions, and vote for the ultimate champion, capping it off with an epic dance party.

Tickets are $65 and include samples of competition beverages and snacks. Beer available for purchase with proceeds donated to charity.

THE AFTER-PARTIES Audubon (838 Beacon St., Boston) will host the Brockmans gin-sponsored event Saturday night, and Gather (75 Northern Ave., Boston) will be throwing an ’80s arcade game and dance party sponsored

by Fernet (games provided by Bitbar) after the Blenderdome showdown at Whiskey Saigon. (There are two after-parties Friday night, as well, because #Friday: Las Vegas’ the Palms’ Camden Cocktail Lounge will be popping up at Explorateur on Tremont, and Four Roses bourbon will be throwing down at JM Curley’s on Temple Place).

THE BEST PART

A cocktail festival?

What, you might wonder, in the world is a cocktail festival?

I’m glad you asked…

Thirst Boston is a weekend dedicated to all things drinks and a celebration of this city’s ever-growing role in the craft cocktail and bar community.

With seminars, craft classes (ice sculpting, anyone?), tasting rooms, pop-up bars, the infamous Blender Bender blended cocktail competition, and after-parties (so many after-parties), this weekend is the time to let your inner cocktail geek/ booze aficionado/ burgeoning bartender out to play.

“If you like drinking and cocktails, there is something at Thirst for you,” festival cofounder Maureen Hautaniemi said. “We have a bunch of classes who are meant for people getting into the world of craft cocktails maybe for the first time, who want to taste things side by side, who want to learn to make drinks.”

Hautaniemi continued: “We also have a number of classes for working bartenders and hospitality industry professionals, things that will advance their knowledge from what they can get at premeal and brand trainings.”

What do some of these classes look like?

There’s the House of Lustau Certified Sherry Wine

If you’ve never worked in a restaurant but always wanted to party like a bartender, now’s your chance.

Specialist Course, where you can learn about all things sherry; there’s Taste Like a Pro with the Wine & Spirit Education Trust, whose sommeliers and spirit professionals will walk you through the steps of tasting different spirits and wines (and let you try out saying things like nose and tannins in a safe setting surrounded by friends).

There’s also local cocktail legend Brother Cleve’s Let’s Have a Tiki, a hands-on drinks-building class, and the Botanical Gin Lab, where local ambassador Bill Codman will get into the nitty-gritty of the botanical mixes behind popular gin styles. That’s where you will get to make your own botanical mix and gin.

THE PARTIES

If you’re in the industry, pray for an early cut this weekend; if you’ve never worked in a restaurant but always wanted to party like a bartender, now’s your chance.

Thirst Boston Presents: State Lines Saturday, April 28, 6-10pm; Innovation Design Center New England’s best bartenders link up for an urban state fair extravaganza, complete with carnival games, swag giveaways, delicious bites, and sips from local breweries, cideries, distillers, and craft boutiques.

Beginning with a Bubbles and Bivalves VIP hour at 6 pm, guests will celebrate all things sparkling wine paired with local oysters. Doors open at 7 pm to all ticket holders, and the games will begin! Tickets are $25-$45 and include samplings and one cocktail. Additional beverages and food will be available for purchase, and a portion of the proceeds will benefit charity.

The Blender Bender: BLENDERDOME Sunday, April 29, 8-11pm; Whiskey Saigon The long-awaited annual Blender Bender returns NEWS TO US

While all of this is super exciting, what’s perhaps most engaging and inspiring about Thirst is what the festival is doing for Boston’s bar community.

“For a long time, Boston lived in the shadow of New York,” Hautaniemi said. “Since Thirst started five years ago, we’re taken very seriously as a market all on our own. Boston is its own place, own location, has its own dedicated brand ambassadors. We’re not the suburbs of Manhattan.”

To celebrate that distinction, and throw a hand up for New England pride, every course, class, seminar, every bit of content brought to Thirst has a New England element to it.

“All of our classes are either always brand new or revamped,” Hautaniemi said. “All of our content is new; we work really hard with brands to make sure they aren’t just doing the same thing they do at other festivals. We want them to bring something new and specific for the Boston market.”

Whether that’s including a regional spirit in Thirst’s categorical tastings, pairing a California-based ambassador with a local bartender to host a seminar, or sending the 10 elite bartenders from all over the country who were accepted into the Thirst Scholars program to a local distillery (Grand Ten) to make rum at the end of the weekend, Boston and New England are at the core of what Thirst stands for.

“The cocktail industry was always doing really cool stuff in Boston,” Hautaniemi said. “If you live here you know it, if you work here you know it.

“Now everyone else knows it, too.”

Thirst kicks off Fri 4.27. All classes are held at the Boston Center for Adult Education (122 Arlington St., Boston). A full list of classes, the festival schedule, and tickets can be found at thirstboston.com.

FEATURE

DEPT. OF COMMERCE

ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT

11

STILL STANDING FEATURE

The enduring stories of the statues that inhabit Davis Square, Somerville

BY LYNNE DONCASTER @LYNNEDONCASTER I’ve been hung up on these statues for most of my life.

I grew up in Davis Square. I have brief, early memories of the giant holes that became subway stations, as viewed from a stroller.

The statues were installed just before my sixth birthday, in September 1983. When spray paint appeared on one of them the following fall, I wrote a letter to then-mayor Gene Brune asking him to fix it.

Even at that young age, I was sensitive to my home city’s bad reputation. Somerville was known to be a rough place, full of organized crime and delinquency. I didn’t understand that the new subway would eventually change the neighborhood; I was just excited by the art.

A few years ago, I was walking through the square and heard a couple discussing the statues.

“This must be Mr. and Mrs. Davis,” the man said to his companion.

I muttered some obscenities about tourists to myself and walked past them. It’s an understandable assumption, though; after all, there are no plaques telling anything about people who the statues are actually modeled after.

BILL AND ALICE The old couple on the plaza are not Mr. and Mrs. Davis.

The man is Bill Mosho, and the woman is his wife, Alice.

Some neighborhood old-timers knew the harmonious couple as simply Romeo and Juliet.

They ran the Davis Square Fish Market, which was located at 27 Holland St. The small shop carried a variety of fish, sold raw or cooked to order, and did a brisk business in the largely Catholic community that ate fish on Fridays.

Bill Mosho was born in Lewiston, Maine, in 1917. He grew up in Lynn, Mass, and went to Bates College after 12

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graduating from high school, but interrupted his studies in 1942 to enlist in the Army. Bill and Alice met in Paris at the end of World War II. After the war, Bill returned to the United States, and he and Alice continued their romance through letters. Alice traveled to New York on a freighter in 1947 or 1948, and the couple was married soon after.

In the 1950s and ’60s, Bill ran a sandwich shop with his brother in downtown Boston. After that business was sold, he found retirement boring, and he and Alice opened the Fish Market. Their daughter Martine remembers how her father enjoyed the endless conversations “about subjects from philosophy to ancient history to worldly travel” that he had with Tufts students who frequented the restaurant.

Sculptor James Tyler met the couple as a customer of the Fish Market. “It was a great little local seafood place,” he said, adding, “When they started [building] the subway, they essentially drove them out of business. The construction shut them off from the square.”

Bill and Alice retired in 1979. The Fish Market passed through a few other owners before closing for good, and the space became the kitchen of Johnny D’s. The Moshos spent their retirement living on Plum Island with their dog and parrot. Bill passed away in 1996, and Alice in 2010.

THE FLOWER GUY Bill and Alice used to have some company in another character from the same series, who can now be found across the street just outside the Holland Street T entrance.

He’s younger, bearded, and frozen in mid-speech; he has a canister of flowers at his feet and holds a bouquet in his hands.

His T-shirt reads, “I AM NOT.” It originally read, “I AM NOT A MOONIE,” referencing the followers of controversial flower-peddling movement leader Sun Sun Myung Moon,

but the last two words were plastered over sometime in the ’80s, when it was no longer politically correct. James Tyler, the artist, said this figure was based on someone he knew in Somerville, an “itinerant musician” who sometimes picked up odd jobs like flower-selling. Reached by the Dig, Tyler confirmed that his friend really did have the Moonie T-shirt, but says that he finds the revised “I AM NOT” more intriguing.

Tyler was in his mid-20s when he was commissioned to create the installation, which is named Ten Figures. The Indiana native was living near Davis Square on Morrison Avenue at the time. He remembers the city being “a little rough around the edges.” As subway construction began in the mid-’70s, Arts on the Line, a program that advocated for art on public transit, put out a call for proposals for art to fill the plaza between the two Davis Square subway entrances.

“The concept was simply to have people in the park all the time,” Tyler said. He chose life-size figures modeled after neighborhood characters, he says so that “it wasn’t just some large and beautiful abstract piece they (locals) didn’t understand … that a community that wasn’t used to art, contemporary art, would find accessible.”

When the Davis Square station and plaza were finally built, the light shaft over the tunnel was covered by a 6.5-foot plexiglass bubble. Businesses behind the plaza were blocked from view, and the plexiglass soon clouded to a dull gray. The plaza was renovated in 1999, and the plexiglass bubble was replaced with a network of concrete and glass blocks. The statues were moved to accommodate the construction and to address pedestrian foot traffic patterns that had evolved around the plaza. Tyler says he wasn’t initially thrilled with the decision to break up the series but came to feel the changes suited the evolving neighborhood.

THE DAVIS FAMILY On the edge of Ten Hills Park, behind the Harvard Vanguard building, in a damp and shady clump of bushes, four more figures are hidden. A woman sits on a bench with a child on her lap. She talks to a man, who holds a child on his hip.

They are the Davis family.

Avi Davis and Joan Schwartz were a husband-and-wife team who ran the Loon and Heron Children’s Theater, which worked out of several spaces in Boston. Like James Tyler, they were part of a growing community of artists who lived and worked in what were affordable working-class neighborhoods in and around Boston. They lived with their sons, Seth and Dan, in Jamaica Plain. James Tyler wanted to include a family in his installation, and when he met the Davises through a mutual friend, they seemed the perfect fit.

The boy sitting on Joan’s lap is her son, Seth. I met Seth in 1996, when we were freshmen at MassArt. We lived in the same dorm and bonded over nightly viewings of Cartoon Planet. I forget when I learned that he was one of the models for the statues, but I recently sent him a picture of an anarchist symbol that someone had drawn on his back. “I don’t mind,” he texted back. His younger brother, Dan, remembers being put off by other tagging. “Someone had painted 666 onto my father’s forehead and stuck a cigarette butt in his mouth with chewing gum. I was taken aback because my father had never smoked a cigarette in his life because his father had died of smoking-related illness. … Though it’s a statue, it’s intense.”

JOHN, MARY, AND THE MIME Three more figures are behind the Holland Street station entrance. At the mouth of Ten Hills Park, a woman and a man stand in front of a kneeling mime. The man watches the mime, but the woman is looking at him. The mime is

the only figure in the series not based on a real person. The man is John Kenney, a Somerville native who died fighting in Vietnam, and the woman is his mother, Mary. They were both deceased at the time the statues were created. John Kenney was the only candidate the city’s planning panel suggested Tyler include. “I wanted a connection with his life,” Tyler explained in a 1983 article. “I wanted to connect his neighborhood with the sorrow of his not being there.”

Former Alderman-at-Large Jack Connolly feels this sorrow acutely. Connolly and Kenney grew up a short walk from Davis Square, on Pearson Road and Bromfield Road, respectively.

They were childhood friends and both attended Saint Clement High School. Connolly remembers the day Kenney’s death was announced over the school’s loudspeaker.

“February of ’69, my senior year,” Connolly said.

“He graduated in May of ’68.

He signed up for the Marines, went to basic training, and went to Vietnam for a short period of time. He was killed on patrol.”

Connolly recalled the cultural turbulence surrounding the Vietnam conflict. “The country was coming apart at the seams,” he said. The former alderman himself was exempt from service due to an earlier surgery, but he knew many who served, as well as many who were conflicted. Connolly’s father, a World War II veteran, told him that for Vietnam, the government was “only drafting city guys, urban kids.”

Kenney was “kind of a tough guy, very opinionated,” Connolly said. He chuckled when I asked if Kenney would have liked watching a mime in Davis Square. “He was more familiar with the wiseguys and the characters from Winter Hill and Ball Square. … None of us were strangers to the fact that there were loan sharks and bookies.”

For the past several years, Connolly has been advocating to have this group of three statues moved to a park dedicated to Kenney, a few blocks down Highland Ave. He feels the park and the statue go together and hopes to bring art to the park to honor his friend’s memory.

official warning him about vandalism when the statues were installed. “You don’t know our kids in Davis Square,” he remembers the official saying. “They won’t last a month.

They’ll be beat up.”

The statues are cast in fondu cement, a strong material that Tyler once boasted was “fracture-proof.” Nevertheless, they have weathered damage through the years. The original cast-cement faces were damaged and were replaced by cast-bronze “masks” in 1996. The new faces look out of place to many, and some in online forums and around town have disparagingly dubbed them “death masks” or “black face.” A few years ago, the mime was cracked down to the aluminum armature inside, and the city asked Tyler to fix it (Tyler said he thought the damage was due to a snowblower or other snow removal vehicle; also, it’s worth noting the mime is the most climbable figure, and I have seen people standing on it in a way that would stress concrete in the area that sustained damage).

People have marked on the statues with chalk, paint, stickers. Usually the vandalism can be removed, but some marks remain.

I got in touch with former Mayor Brune to ask about the statues. He had been concerned about longevity and preservation but was told they were temporary. “Not to the extent that they were going to take them down,” he recalled, “[but] they weren’t going to last a lifetime.”

The original call for artwork specified that the art had to last 100 years. In 1983, Tyler said he would be happy if they lasted just 20. Despite that run so far, Brune isn’t very optimistic about relevant preservation: “When they get in disrepair, some mayor’s gonna take them down, because they won’t even know who they are. … They’re only cast concrete, and they’re only people, they’re not notables.”

The building where the Fish Market once stood has been torn down, and now the neighborhood laments the loss of Johnny D’s. The Moshos are frozen in place, walking away from the business.

Change is inevitable. Even things cast in cement weren’t meant to last forever.

This article was written in collaboration with the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism. If you would like to see more reporting like this, please consider supporting independent media at givetobinj.org.

STILL STANDING One of the reasons I was interested in learning more about the statues is their preservation. Over the years I have continued to spot and report vandalism. Last October, someone stuck a home-printed sticker on Mr. Mosho’s back and I removed it with a credit card. As I did, I noticed cracks and holes in the cement.

Tyler remembers an elected NEWS TO US

FEATURE

DEPT. OF COMMERCE

ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT

13

EATS

SANTARPIO’S PIZZA, PEABODY A quick look at the “other” Santarp’s

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For those who watch reruns of Seinfeld, do you remember the episode in the bakery where it’s discovered that there is “another babka”? Everyone knows about the legendary chocolate babka, but when Elaine finds out there’s a cinnamon version as well, she shakes her head and refuses to buy the “lesser babka.” For some reason, this scene comes to mind when looking at Santarpio’s Pizza in East Boston. The original Santarp’s is a legendary spot, being an oldschool joint with gruff servers, Sinatra cranking from the jukebox, and pizza that’s the focus of endless “best of” arguments. Well, did you know that there is “another” Santarpio’s? Many people do, but many others still do not even after eight years in operation in Peabody, and of those who do know about it, you’ll often hear a “Well, it can’t be nearly as good as the original.” Guess what—the second location of Santarpio’s goes against conventional wisdom, as its pizza is very close if not equal in quality to the original in Eastie, which flies in the face of the theory that second (and third and fourth, etc.) locations of a landmark spot are never worth going to.

The Peabody location of Santarpio’s is located near one of the most insane intersections in all of Massachusetts (and that’s saying a lot), where Routes 1, 128, 95, 129, and a few other roads intersect. Getting there from nearly any direction other than Route 1 north out of Boston can be an adventure, with even GPS systems briefly pausing to figure out exactly what to do. Once you get there—hopefully without incident—you’ll find a place that looks a whole lot different from the original, almost like a family-friendly chain, which makes sense since this was once home to a Bennigan’s. The interior of the restaurant is quite spacious compared to the Eastie location, with a bar in the middle, a dining and lounge area to the right, and a larger dining section to the left that includes a wraparound porchlike area with lots of windows. The staff at the Peabody Santarpio’s tends to be very friendly, which is jarring in a way when you think about the famously rude staff at the original, so don’t be surprised if you leave the place saying to yourself, “They’re just too nice here.”

By now you’ll have probably figured out that in some ways, the Peabody location of Santarpio’s and the East Boston location of Santarpio’s have absolutely nothing in common with each other, but remember, for at least some, it’s all about the pizza while the atmosphere and the service take a back seat. And the pizza at the Peabody location is almost eerily like that of Eastie, which makes a pizza that very few—if any—have been able to replicate anywhere east of New Jersey. (For the record, the pizzas at Santarp’s bear just a faint resemblance to some of the tomato pies found in and around Trenton.)

The pies here are made nearly the exact same way as that of the East Boston location, with lots of rich tomato sauce and a mix of cheeses on a pliable, almost soggy crust with a good amount of corn meal on the bottom, and leftovers firm up nicely and make for a good next-day pizza whether served hot or cold. The rest of the menu at the Peabody location is pretty much the same as that of the original, with lamb skewers, steak tips, and house-made sausage offered, while beer and wine options are fairly limited, so don’t come expecting to get a double IPA with notes of mango and candied peach. One big difference between Peabody and Eastie is that this location of Santarpio’s does take credit cards, so if you’re short of cash, there’s no need to run to the ATM. For a true “old Boston” experience, few places are better than Santarpio’s in East Boston. But if you’re just looking for some really good (and unique) pizza, the one in Peabody is certainly worth going to, especially if you like easy parking, places that take cards, and servers who don’t say “Whaddya want.”

Not all satellite locations of restaurants are as good as the originals, but the other Santarp’s definitely comes mighty close. >>SANTARPIO’S PIZZA. 71 NEWBURY ST., PEABODY.

NEWS TO US

FEATURE

DEPT. OF COMMERCE

ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT

15

OOMPA MUSIC

The poetic justice of Roxbury’s most positive rapper

For a moment last March, I could have sworn every person inside of the Sinclair remembered what it’s like to be in love with the world. Following a snappy slam poetry performance by Melissa Lozada-Oliva but before local indie rock favorite Palehound closed out the show, a little rapper by the name of Oompa took the stage. She reminded everyone in the audience what it’s like to be happy, to be aware, and to be grateful you are here.

The 27-year-old Roxbury poet and rapper has been a subtle force in Boston’s music scene for a while now. Her album November 3rd landed her on our Best Local Albums of 2016 list. She’s been performing with fellow tastemakers in the city. And if you’ve had your ear to the ground, you’ve heard her poems free of music, the type of words that make you think long after the conversation stops.

Oompa grew up in a house of women. It shaped her, as it would for most people, but in a very distinct way. She was adopted to a single-parent household along with her two biological sisters.

Her mother swooped her out of foster care because her biological mother, her mother’s mother, and everyone in between seemed to get swept up in the cycle of neverending, intergenerational trauma.

In her new Roxbury home, bodies were changing around the same time. At school, Oompa learned to hang out with guys and follow in their footsteps to stay safe, becoming the self-described tomboy of the family. Her mother was overprotective and overbearing—but couldn’t afford to be overbearing because everyone had to chip in to the family’s well-being.

“We had to learn to ask for things, to try to get things, to work for things,” says Oompa. “There were times where we didn’t have enough of things, be it food or money to pay bills.”

Music was a crucial part of family life. Throughout the apartment, cardboard moving boxes were stacked tall, each full of Motown vinyl records and 7” singles that her mother would play for them to hear. Eventually, Oompa heard her first hip-hop song, “Everyday People” by Arrested Development. She began seeing herself in the female rappers of the ’90s like Queen Latifah, Eve, and Left Eye. “I thought, ‘If I could be anybody, it would be them,’” she says.

After school, Oompa spent her time writing down their lyrics in a journal and reciting the lines until she knew them as if she penned them herself. That’s when Oompa realized she could substitute her own sentences into a verse but keep their ending rhymes. But by the time high school arrived, she put music behind her.

It wasn’t until she discovered poetry that rap reentered her life as a personal outlet. Though she pegged

rap as a childish habit, deep down she knew the reason for abandoning it was because there was no logical career path for her to pursue in that world. High school sought to fix that. Oompa saw Def Jam during those years. More importantly, she befriended two older girls who were into performance poetry.

“The confidence they gave me for writing my own poems, and the exposure they showed me, was so, so important,” she says. “What poetry validated for me was that you have to be observant, you have to watch different systems at play, in order to connect the dots and speak to a larger lesson that binds them.”

Right when Oompa fell on track to push herself to new literary feats, her life began to spiral. She moved

out to Pennsylvania for college where she switched from chemistry to focus on math. It was her first real exposure to life outside of Boston, and the collegiate lifestyle came as an unexpectedly powerful hindrance. She hid her class status from students. She felt too black for the queer community. She didn’t fit the stereotypical bill, both at the college and when she returned back home to Roxbury for a break.

Then, in the fall of 2009, her mother died. The college’s inability to give her grieving time left Oompa slammed with homework and end-of-semester grades while trying to pay her respects to her mother. With a scholarship on the line, she decided to change majors from math to English in order to keep her grades up, as the prior became too taxing to learn on her own away from class. While all of this was happening, Oompa found more than a fair share of life hardships piling up on her plate. Her siblings felt betrayed, they kicked her out of the home, and she lost all of her belongings.

The following summer, Oompa was homeless. She began bouncing between cities and friends’ couches, trying

desperately to hold on to the education scholarship she earned without straining herself too thin. “I was putting Band-Aids on my home life,” she says.

That’s when she discovered the one thing her college could offer that didn’t isolate her: the computer lab. Lined with Apple computers, the college’s library became a place to learn how to record music more professionally. “I straight-up locked myself in the library computer labs and wrote tons, like 24 bars in a song,” Oompa says. “Eventually, I showed my friend Omar. He kept pushing me to do it, and I started to get in the rhythm.” He hyped her up with each GarageBand trick she learned. Two of her friends living in Texas played her music on their radio show. Slowly, the people around Oompa began championing her efforts as she transitioned from straightforward poetry into self-aware hip-hop.

“When I write now, I have an accountability to a community of people, including people I don’t know, to be a representative,” she says. “My entire life, I didn’t have a distinct role model. I’ve had help from people older than me, but I’ve never had that moment of, ‘Wow! You look like me, you’re queer like me, you like what I like’— none of that. For the longest time, the closest thing I’ve had to that was Lena Waithe. Before that, it was Queen Latifah—and she’s so far from what I am. I had to accept who I could get. I never saw these chubby-bodied, naturalhaired, STS-majoring, low-income black women. I want to be that for others because I can be that.”

It’s impossible to miss this on November 3rd. The record has its fair share of bright instrumentals, searing lines, and heartfelt moments. Listening to it, it’s hard to realize just how much work went into turning songs that were pretty statements into actual material worth discussing.

This year Oompa will go bigger than ever, and she may go home mentally, too. She quit her day jobs to commit to music full time. What she’s finding is that with more space to create, there’s more she can dig through—and deeper lengths to reach for. The record revolves somewhat loosely around the concept of chasing joy while staying far away from the cheesy opuses of someone like Logic or even Outkast. There are complicated matters like the nuances of trying to love a curvy body or how low points make accomplishments feel even higher. After initially predicting the new album would pour out of her in under two months, Oompa finds herself reaching farther, unfolding her stories wider, and editing angles to scale new heights.

“Right now,” she says, “I’m sitting in the mouth of life, right in the teeth of it, and learning how to straddle who I am, where I come from, and what I can offer.”

>>OOMPA, KYLE BENT, REX MAC. FRI 4.27. GREAT SCOTT, 1222 COMM. AVE., ALLSTON. 10PM/21+/$10. GREATSCOTTBOSTON.COM

MUSIC EVENTS THU 04.26

EXPERIMENTAL HARDCORE FROM BELOW ARROWHEAD + AU REVOIR + PRAY FOR SOUND + MORE

[O’Brien’s Pub, 3 Harvard Ave., Allston. 8pm/21+/$8. obrienspubboston.com]

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SAT 04.28

SPACE POP PINEGROVE SPINOFF HALF WAIF + HOVVDY + NATURE SHOTS

[Great Scott, 1222 Comm.

Ave., Allston. 6pm/18+/$12. greatscottboston.com]

DIGBOSTON.COM

MON 04.30

TUE 05.01

TUE 05.01

TUE 05.01

[Royale, 279 Tremont St., Boston. 8pm/18+/$25. royaleboston.com]

[ONCE Somerville, 156 Highland Ave., Somerville. 8pm/18+/$12. oncesomerville.com]

[The Sinclair, 52 Church St., Cambridge. 7pm/18+/$30. sinclaircambridge.com]

[Shubert Theatre, 265 Tremont St., Boston. 8pm/ all ages/$39.50. bochcenter. com]

PSYCH ROCK FOR LOVE ESCAPISTS UNKNOWN MORTAL ORCHESTRA + MAKENESS

SNARES LIKE NOISE ROCK NO AGE + BEHAVIOR + JAZZ MASSAGERS

FREEWHEELING FOLK FRESH FROM ARIZONA CALEXICO

SO, WHAT DO YOU WANT TO KNOW? NICK CAVE

PORTRAITS OF OOMPA BY ALLY SCHMALING PHOTOGRAPHY

BY NINA CORCORAN @NINA_CORCORAN

WHEEL OF TUNES

FRANKIE COSMOS

Cellphone backgrounds and cooking tricks

BY NINA CORCORAN @NINA_CORCORAN

| RESTAURANT | INTIMATE CONCERT VENUE | | URBAN WINERY | PRIVATE EVENT SPACE |

LIVE MUSIC • PRIVATE EVENTS

Beverage Events

4/26

Federator No 1, Air Congo Afro-beat

5.2

5.1 ArtWeek: The Art of Wine and Cheese with Gallery NAGA

passport to wine (monthly class series)

portugal

4/27

Jacob Jolliff Band, The Brother Brothers Mandolinist for Yonder Mountain String Band

5.3 PHOTO BY LOROTO PRODUCTIONS For a band that could be described as generic bedroom pop, Frankie Cosmos has found a way to distinguish itself from its peers without ever getting an ego about it.

Frontwoman Greta Kline meanders her way through adulthood with each passing record, her gentle falsetto holding you close as she details the friends, pets, and moments that define the way she views the world. It’s a formula that gets everyone to lean in closer to hear her all the more.

Vessel, the band’s newest album, is familiar and comforting the way Frankie Cosmos records always seem to be. Greta Kline still writes the songs by herself. The lyrics are still sung through a a humbled whisper. These days, the only difference in Kline’s songwriting is that playing songs with her bandmates occasionally brings a few instrumental changes to the surface. Vessel sticks out in the band’s catalog because the mood of the record changes based on how you read Kline’s lyrics—“I’d like to be a shadow in a shadow / more deeply invisible than invisible,” is one of her personal favorites—as most are just vague enough to dodge sounding strictly optimistic or negative. That was intentional. Or at least, the album’s title suggests as much.

“A vessel can be empty or full,” says Kline, expanding on the power of perspective in Vessel in song and title. “You can put something into it or take something out of it. It holds possibility and expectation. It might just be a shell or it might be a temple.”

To explore the less ambiguous details of Frankie Cosmos’ music, we interviewed Greta Kline for a round of Wheel of Tunes, a series where we ask musicians questions inspired by their song titles. With Vessel as the prompt, her answers are brief but heartfelt—a mirror image of the music the band will play when headlining the Sinclair this Wednesday.

1. “Caramelize” What’s your “special” cooking trick or skill, even if it isn’t all that special?

I can poach eggs, so that!

2. “Apathy” Which current trend are you apathetic about?

I think if there are trends I’m apathetic about, I just don’t even notice them. So most trends. The only trend I’m passionate about is shoulder-windows in clothing and shoulder makeup. I called it way far in advance.

3. “As Often as I Can” Can you name a part of your routine that you feel like you have to do every day?

I have so many daily routines that I feel I have to do. I’m particularly proud of the fact that I floss every day. I even floss on tour.

4. “This Stuff” Are you the type of person who accumulates a lot of stuff?

I mostly accumulate notes and drawings from strangers.

5. “Jesse” If you were given a pet today as a gift, what would you name it? What animal do you hope it would be?

A dog! I would probably be adopting an adult dog, so it would already have a name.

But if it were a puppy, maybe I’d name it Borb.

FIND THE REST OF THE TRACKS FROM NINA'S PIECE AT DIGBOSTON.COM

4/28

5.10 Ancient Vines

Apulian Wine Dinner

Aloud, Samantha Farrell, & Benjamin Cartel

Tour de France Wine Dinner

Rock and roll 4/30

5.11 Oregon Wine Month

5.12 City Winery & Improv Asylum Present

Walnut City Wine Dinner Whose Wine Is It Anyway?

Spelling. Ozlo, & Birdwatching Indie Rock 5/01

5.13

5.16

mothers day brunch ChardonnYAY! blooms and bubbles w/ Wente Family Estates

No Age, Behavior, & Jazz Massagers Dark folk

156 Highland Ave • Somerville, MA 5.17

5.22

Rosé Fête

A Rosé Tasting Party

Scout Cookies & Wine Pairing Party

617-285-0167 oncesomerville.com a @oncesomerville b/ONCEsomerville

upcoming shows

4.26 | Jon Foreman

4.30 | Chasity Brown

5.11-12 | art garfunkel

6.1 | kevin nealon BOOK YOUR NEXT EVENT WITH US

email eventsboston@citywinery.com for more info

80 beverly st. Boston Ma 02114 (617) 933-8047 |www.citywinery.com/boston

>>FRANKIE COSMOS + FLORIST + LALA LALA. WED 5.2. THE SINCLAIR, 52 CHURCH ST., CAMBRIDGE. 7PM/18+/$16. SINCLAIRCAMBRIDGE.COM NEWS TO US

FEATURE

DEPT. OF COMMERCE

ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT

17

THEATER REVIEWS ARTS

BY CHRISTOPHER EHLERS @_CHRISEHLERS

EH-PRIL THEATER ROUND-UP: HUB THEATRE’S TRUE WEST SHINES AMONG THE PAINFULLY DULL In The Waste Land, T.S. Eliot wrote that April is the cruellest month.

And while he most certainly wasn’t talking about Boston theater, the same sentiment could be applied to the unusually shallow offerings popping up around town.

Aside from Moonbox’s unmissable Cabaret (playing through April 28) and Actors’ Shakespeare Project’s joyous Much Ado About Nothing (playing through May 6), there hasn’t been much to get excited about.

Let’s take a look at the good, the bad, and the ugly of current Boston theater. I’ll let you decide which is which.

TRUE WEST AT HUB THEATRE COMPANY

Sam Shepard’s 1983 dark comedy about two brothers, one a mischievous drifter and the other a successful Hollywood screenwriter, is a good example of why Shepard is considered one of the most original voices in 20th-century American theater.

The Ivy League-educated screenwriter Austin (Bob Mussett) is looking after his mother’s southern California home while she’s on vacation in Alaska, looking forward to some quiet time to hammer out a new screenplay, a western. Then his brother, Lee, played by a terrifically deranged Victor Shopov, shows up unexpectedly after spending three months in the desert and totally upends Austin’s peace and quiet.

When Austin’s sleazy agent (a miscast Robert Orzalli) drops in to check on his progress, Lee successfully pitches him an idea for a movie. The already tumultuous relationship between the brothers essentially goes up in flames as Lee holds Austin hostage and demands that he help him finish his screenplay. By play’s end, not only have the brothers reversed roles, but their behavior turns animalistic, leaving their mother’s quaint kitchen looking like a campsite descended on by bears.

Hub’s production, directed with impressive verve by Daniel Bourque, is wonderfully funny, though it could stand to offer a bit more grit. Mussett and Shopov are giving extraordinary performances, particularly the latter, who imbues Lee with the devilishness of a young Jack Nicholson. This one’s worth checking out, and with all performances being pay-what-you-can, there’s no reason not to.

TRUE WEST. THROUGH 4.38 AT HUB THEATRE COMPANY AT FIRST CHURCH IN BOSTON, 66 MARLBOROUGH ST., BOSTON. HUBTHEATREBOSTON.ORG

ANNA CHRISTIE AT THE LYRIC STAGE

TAGE, At nearly 100 years old, the old girl is definitely showing her age.

Eugene O’Neill won one of his four Pulitzer Prizes for Anna Christie, the story of an emotionally damaged former prostitute (Lindsey McWhorter) who reunites with her coal barge captain father, Chris (Johnny Lee Davenport), after 20 years of estrangement. While anchored with her father near Provincetown, a strapping young stoker named Mat (Dan Whelton) is rescued by Chris and Anna.

Although she’s sworn off men, Anna falls for Mat 18

04.26.18 - 05.03.18 |

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instantly, and the feeling is mutual. Ten minutes after being dragged on board, he’s already talking about giving up drinking and settling down. The timing of all this is uncanny, which robs the story of any would-be emotion, rendering the final two acts of the play a giant shrug. The stakes seem nonexistent, and I found myself scratching my head over why there was so much tension between the three characters. (Mat wants Anna, Anna wants Mat, Chris wants none of it, and then Mat flips out when he finds out that Anna use to be a prostitute.)

Director Scott Edmiston, who on paper seems like the perfect person to breathe new life into this old creaky play, has also adapted it anew, dramatically shortening the running time and streamlining the plot. While the shorter running time is appreciated, this adaptation does not begin to make the case for Anna Christie.

Dan Whelton gives the best performance as Mat, though his Irish accent could use some work. Johnny Lee Davenport seems detached and distracted, which isn’t a total deal breaker since Chris is described as a “long lost old man,” but he replaces emotion with bellowing and growling, which is plain bizarre. And McWhorter, who is remarkable early in the play, continually approaches moments of emotional watershed but promptly backs away from them. The production, overall, is gentle and methodical but too polite. It winds up being as colorless as the bland wooden pallets that make up the set.

It all looks great, though. Charles Schoonmaker’s costumes are spot-on, and the atmosphere is alluring, thanks to Karen Perlow’s lighting and Dewey Dellay’s original music. Janie E. Howland’s set is handsome, though the Saran wrap sea degrades matters.

But in a way, it’s fitting that the “old devil sea” continually referenced throughout the play is made out of Saran wrap, as lifeless and artificial as the production itself.

ANNA CHRISTIE. THROUGH 5.6 AT THE LYRIC STAGE COMPANY, 140 CLARENDON ST., BOSTON. LYRICSTAGE.COM

ON YOUR FEET AT BOSTON OPERA HOUSE

No one is expecting a jukebox musical about the life of Emilio and Gloria Estefan to be revolutionary, but what’s surprising is how joyless and dull it is.

It’s hard enough to shove an entire music catalogue into a fictional plot, let alone into the actual autobiographical story of the artists. More than just shoehorning a couple dozen songs into a musical, the problem with these kinds of musicals is that when they aren’t done right, they seem to approach a kind of deification of the artist. (Jersey Boys and Beautiful avoid this pitfall.)

Is Gloria Estefan’s rise to fame, near death, and rapid comeback truly interesting enough to warrant an entire musical? Not really. And forgive me for this, but save for a few songs, I don’t find much in her catalogue worth celebrating, though it is cool that the orchestra is made up of five original members of the Miami Sound Machine.

As is often the case with these kinds of shows, the cheese can be forgiven in the name of dazzling spectacle, but On Your Feet is woefully strapped for such sparkle.

Sergio Trujillo’s choreography is mostly astounding (it accounted for the show’s sole Tony nomination), though only one production number is worth exclaiming over, and that’s mostly thanks to the moves of a very young dancer and his maracas. (That isn’t a euphemism.)

Mauricio Martínez makes the biggest impression

as Emilio, who oozes easy, undeniable charm. But Christie Prades, who acts Gloria well enough, is vocally unimpressive and unable to inject any life into this melodramatic evening of missed opportunities.

ON YOUR FEET. THROUGH 4.29 AT THE BOSTON OPERA HOUSE, 539 WASHINGTON ST., BOSTON. BOSTON. BROADWAY.COM

THE LYONS AT TITANIC THEATRE COMPANY

Nicky Silver has made a career out of the quirks of family dysfunction. And although few modern stage families are as—well—grotesque, the Lyons have one thing other stage families do not: Rita.

The Jewish mother to end all Jewish mothers, Rita (played by Shelley Brown) is locked and loaded in her Chanel jacket, thumbing through an issue of House Beautiful as the husband she never loved dies in the hospital bed next to her.

Oh, don’t be sad. She’ll be totally fine. She’s actually looking forward to redecorating the house.

She’s clueless and reckless and mean, and her children—one a recovering alcoholic and the other a shell of a human who has imaginary boyfriends—are very clearly products of her parenting.

The play’s first act, which takes place in husband Ben’s hospital room (Ben is played with a distinguished bark by Phil Thompson), is entertaining enough as his two children, Lisa (Alisha Jansky) and Curtis (David Josef Hansen), arrive at the hospital upon receiving word that their father is dying. (Rita and Ben decided not to tell the kids until the end.)

But what begins as rich family drama with some genuine laughs quickly turns contrived and then—worse— improbable as the family battles it out: spilling secrets, insulting one another, and—in Lisa’s case—storming out of the room and falling off the wagon.

Nothing about The Lyons rings true, and although it isn’t a bad play, it crumbles under the weight of mediocre performances. If the play is best not taken too seriously, then it would help if the production suggested some whimsy.

Of course, if all the comedic bits landed with the crackle that they’re supposed to, the play’s flaws would be glossed over. The main problem with this production is that it is rife with missed comedic opportunities and bad timing.

Director Josh Glenn-Kayden is never quite able to get his cast to hit the stride that the play requires.

As Rita, a gift of a part for any actress, Shelley Brown is almost aloof, one of the few things that Rita has probably not been accused of in her lifetime. She needs to be more fierce and enigmatic, and the play suffers a great blow as a result.

The play’s second act mostly rests on the shoulders of David Josef Hansen’s Curtis, who has been cursed with a ridiculous subplot that feels like it belongs in another play. (His performance, a bit whiny, does not rise above the material.)

The characters are not supposed to be likable; it is very much the point of The Lyons that these people are terrible and grotesque. However, Glenn-Kayden’s production seems not to know what to do with this information, and the result is a half-baked exercise in how not to do dark comedy.

THE LYONS. THROUGH 5.5 AT TITANIC THEATRE COMPANY, 539 TREMONT ST., BOSTON. TITANICTHEATRE.COM

NEWS TO US

FEATURE

DEPT. OF COMMERCE

ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT

19

IFFB 2018: REPORT #2 FILM

BY DIG STAFF @DIGBOSTON

Over the next three weeks, we’ll be publishing shortform reviews of films playing at the Independent Film Festival Boston 2018, which runs from Wednesday, April 25 to Wednesday, May 2. The films considered below are scheduled to play during the festival’s first two days.

Thursday, April 26th CRIME + PUNISHMENT [2018], directed by Stephen Maing Crime + Punishment represents a subgenre not often seen within cinema: the nonfiction crime epic. And it’s a New York City-set one, too—so while it may be a rarity, it still belongs to a specific cinematic lineage. And the movie itself seems to recognize that: It tells you as much when the slow-motion kicks in, and the music along with it, all while members and supporters of the “NYPD12” walk toward the frame in unison, their coats and ties rippling in the wind, like they all just arrived from the opening credits of an New York crime film circa 1974 (the song is Curtis Harding’s “Face Your Fear,” itself a conscious throwback). The “12” are a group of police officers involved in a lawsuit against the state of New York, based on their claims that an outlawed quota system for arrests and summonses per month remains in place on an unofficial basis. Most of the figures seen in that slow-motion walk are profiled individually by one of the film’s earlier chapters—director/editor/cinematographer Stephen Maing has divided the narrative into movements, each of which begins with a shot of the city’s skyline or landscape.

The first one introduces Officer Sandy Gonzales, who provides evidence that suggests the quota system has not been discarded, then we move through other burroughs and workplaces to meet other figures affected by that very system. Maing’s film is constantly expanding its rhythm to make room for their respective narratives— once a figure is introduced, they remain in the film’s rotation of movements. Those additional subjects include a young man often targeted by police for arrest, despite the charges never sticking (he suspects the arrests are made without evidence purely for the sake of quotas and is awaiting trial on Rikers Island for yet another baseless charge); a private investigator hired by that young man’s mother for the sake of proving his innocence; and numerous other NYPD employees who join Gonzales in the case against the city, including Officer Felicia Whitely and Sergeant Edwin Raymond. In each movement, the film maintains a rigorous focus on the procedural nature of the case—such as by thoroughly documenting the means by which evidence is gathered (in some instances, with hidden cameras—another connection to cinematic lineages). But the film does suffer from the inherent limitations of its access: Crime + Punishment is a procedural that can only depict the process from one side (representatives of the NYPD, like former Commissioner William Bratton, are presented only as shadowy authority figures seen at media conferences—or when they’re captured by hidden recording devices), and even then it can only depict the process in an incomplete state (the NYPD12’s case against their department remains in limbo as the state works to have the charges dismissed). Yet the film does succeed in making a case for the court of public opinion—something that many of the officers profiled therein believe is of the highest importance. The evidence they’ve collected is damning, and Maing’s expansively drawn film gives it a very worthy forum. -Jake Mulligan Brattle Theatre / 7PM / not rated.

WHITE TIDE: THE LEGEND OF CULEBRA [2018], directed by Theo Love There’s an intensely mannered quality right from the start of Theo Love’s White Tide, a documentary heist film that takes a number of visual cues from the comedies of directors Edgar Wright and Wes Anderson. It also recalls a disclaimer employed by Domino [2005]—“based on a true story, sort of.” Love’s film allows primary subject Rodney Hyden to lead the audience through his attempts to uncover a buried fortune: two million dollars’ worth of cocaine (other interviews with involved parties give further context). What’s unusual is the way Hyden’s story is told—or rather, the way it’s retold: Love includes comedic recreations of the events being recounted in the interviews (which is a relatively common nonfiction technique), and he allows Rodney to play himself (which isn’t.) It creates an overwhelmingly aestheticized journey where unlikely characters come together in an attempt to strike it rich—and where symbolically loaded turtles run amok within the frame, alongside numerous other unexpected sight gags. The film’s primary question is one that has animated many narratives before: If you knew about a treasure, would you have the gall to get it? For Rodney, it’s a resounding yes. -Kori Feener Somerville Theatre / 9:30PM / not rated..

Friday, April 27th “Shorts Hereford: Documentary,” program includes DIANNA GOES TO THE FREE SPEECH RALLY [2018], directed

by Dan Albright DIEGO [2017], directed by Kristin Zimney and Annie Franks ELECTION DAY 2016 [2017], directed by Linda Moroney FIGHT FOR THE FIRST [2017], directed by Sharon Liese FOOTPRINT [2018], directed by Sara Newens THE SECRET HISTORY OF MUSLIMS [2018], directed by Joshua Seftel Diego offers a personal angle on DACA—its title character is a senior at James Madison University and was once a recipient of the program’s benefits. But since the end of that program in September 2017, he’s been left in a state of constant uncertainty regarding his future. We hear this expressed not only by Diego himself, but also via heartfelt and candid testimony from other figures, including his girlfriend, a former immigration attorney, and his mother. Even still, Zimney and Franks’ short keeps its distance—only scratching the surface of a deeper narrative.

Continuing the political nature of the “Hereford” program, Election Day 2016 documents an infamous day by looking at it from a new location. On November 8, 2016, over 10,000 people added their “I Voted” sticker to the grave of Susan B. Anthony. With stand-up interviews, stills, and b-roll, the film’s approach is cookie-cutter. But it nonetheless serves as a worthwhile reminder of how long equality can take to be fully embraced by the nation at large.

It’s too often that cinematic profiles of journalists and journalism give off a sense of self-indulgence. Fight for the First takes a constitutional freedom that has become an unexpectedly divisive part of national politics in the past few years—the freedom of the press—and creates a narrative displaying the continued resilience of those in the field. And by documenting the historic Columbia Missourian and the students that make up its staff, it provides a hopeful glimpse into the kind of journalism

that may endure in the era of “fake news.”

Footprint, a verite documentary that spends a single day at the 9/11 Memorial, says much while showing little.

Visitors have their conversations caught on camera (unbeknownst to themselves) as they process the weight of the memorial in front of them. Some have a personal connection to the devastation of those attacks, while others are merely tourists drawn to the symbolic void that currently sits in the footprint of the twin towers. An ambient score is mixed with natural sound throughout, giving off a subtle sense of uneasiness, as if a warning were being echoed through history.

The Secret History of Muslims, in the final spot of this politically charged block, could not be programmed any better. The three-minute Secret quickly offers tidbits about Muslim history in the United States, using animation to illustrate its facts. Surprising point after surprising point culminates in a feel-good (if extremely abbreviated) conclusion—that America really is a nation of immigrants. This newsfeed-ready film could, and should, go viral. -Kori Feener Somerville Theatre / 7PM. Program also screens on 4.29 at 12:30PM INTELLIGENT LIVES [2018], directed by Dan Habib It’s rare that a documentary communicates overwhelming empathy for its subjects while steadfastly maintaining a sense of journalistic integrity. Dan Habib’s Intelligent Lives, which profiles three individuals with intellectual disabilities, is such a film—a curious and compassionate nonfiction work that expresses its concepts and ideas merely by depicting observed behavior. It asserts the idea that “intelligence” is far more malleable in its definition than our current practices and quantifying techniques allow for and then uses three angles to assert that idea: personal anecdotal evidence, historical evidence, and the visual evidence revealed to us in Habib’s footage of his film’s three lead figures. Intelligent Lives captures the way its subjects communicate with the world—in addition to capturing their hopes, their dreams, and their ability to transcend their presumed limitations when given the chance or the means. And though Habib’s film discusses the background of topics like eugenics and disability discrimination, it’s not a particularly investigative work. Instead, it finds structure in its lead characters’ own pursuits, which cross between art, school, and the workforce (it’s also occasionally anchored by actor/ producer/narrator Chris Cooper, who provides the aforementioned historical evidence and background information while also relating personal anecdotes about his son, Jesse Cooper, who developed cerebral palsy shortly after his birth). Intelligent Lives works to amplify the voices of those who are often ignored—a task it accomplishes with soul-baring honesty. -Greg Vellante Somerville Theatre / 7:30PM / not rated.

Saturday, April 28th NORTH POLE, NY [2018], directed by Ali Cotterill Director Ali Cotterill stretches out her scrutiny of the titular hamlet, resulting in a 70-minute documentary that only delights occasionally. Santa’s Workshop, located in North Pole, New York, is without question a fascinating subject—the family-oriented attraction was one of the very first theme parks opened in the United States yet

>>INDEPENDENT FILM FESTIVAL BOSTON 2018. 4.25–5.2. FOR INDIVIDUAL TICKETS, FESTIVAL BADGES, AND OTHER INFORMATION ABOUT THE FESTIVAL, SEE IFFBOSTON.ORG. 20

04.26.18 - 05.03.18 |

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remains in operation today. Cotterill does attempt to examine the dichotomy between the small town’s community spirit and the financial baselines that the park nonetheless needs to meet—often considering the factors that keep its business dwindling, like general economic downturns in the region (the community in nearby Wilmington is given due attention) or the park’s relative inability to adapt to the digital era (despite the admirable gusto of its employees). However, the film jumps around from one topic to the next and back again, frantically, to an extent that can make it hard to keep up (or rather, hard to keep interest). That’s exacerbated by haphazard editing work that relies far too much on talkinghead interviews and Ken Burns-esque stock-photo inserts—as well as by the film’s inclination toward lingering far too long on rambling interview subjects. In one such interlude, a Santa’s Workshop veteran discusses the park’s origins and its layout INTELLIGENT LIVES while repeating a rather uninsightful mantra: “I told him to put it there, so he put it there!” Like that tour of the grounds, North Pole, NY is often more interested in telling than in showing. -Greg Vellante Somerville Theatre / 2PM / not rated..

“Shorts Gloucester: Documentary,” program includes THE CROOKED ROAD SHAKESPEARE KIDS [2017], directed

by Peter Logue LET THE RIVER RUN [2018], directed by Mary Jane Doherty ODE TO JOY [2018], directed by Michael Koshkin PARADE [2017], directed by Kira Akerman “We all realize that mortality is the only thing we have to look forward to,” describes the narrator of Ode to Joy— maintaining a humorous tone even as she reflects on her own lifespan. “It’s literally here today and gone tomorrow.

So you accept it for what it is.” The film profiles a kazoo band from the Brookdale Senior Living center in Houston, Texas, and its commentary on finding purpose and motivation after a life fully lived is both sweet-natured and heavy-handed. But stories about the elderly focus on loss and mortality as a negative to such an extent that it catches my attention whenever one treats our wise elders simply as human beings existing in the present day—a quality that Ode to Joy exemplifies, even at its most broadly sentimental moments. -Kori Feener Somerville Theatre / 4:30PM. Program also screens on 4.29 at 8:30PM.

Sunday, April 29th BLACK MEMORABILIA [2018], directed by Chico Colvard Chico Colvard’s Black Memorabilia succinctly

documents the consistent, worldwide demand for highly valued antiquities displaying anti-black caricatures, holding them up as tangible examples of racism in contemporary life and culture. In visual terms, it bears resemblance to the ending montage of Spike Lee’s Bamboozled [2000], where a stomach-churning montage of racist stereotypes and objects similarly drives the message home. But Colvard’s film doesn’t have the same direct punch as Lee’s. Instead, the documentary examines topics closely related to the initial production and continued distribution of these objects: It studies the sociopolitical implications of racist toys manufactured in China, the high profits that come with selling these “controversial” antiques, and what it means to reappropriate harmful stereotypes into ostensibly provocative art. Those segments are each announced by intertitles—“Manufacture,” “Consume,” and “Reclaim”— designed in the style of old silent movies. But the documentary’s soundscape expresses itself as eloquently as its visuals. Through audio clips, Colvard considers the degrading images of black people in culture within the context of the #BlackLivesMatter movement, studying media, including local news reports and right-wing radio.

Some connections may appear a little tenuous at first glance, yet the filmmaker’s bigger picture comes into focus eventually: No one can banish these racist images from our lives, but it’s up to us to make sense of them and the discrimination they propagate—an integral step in assessing the widespread damage created by the colonialism that fostered their existence in the first place.

-Monica Castillo Somerville Theatre / 2:15PM / not rated.

We’ve certainly heard a fair amount about “smalltown America” in the past year, especially whenever we’ve been unfortunate enough to glance at cable news. So it’s apt that Daniel Patrick Carbone’s film Phantom Cowboys, which first began production in 2010, sees completion and exhibition now—the documentary follows three boys as they grow up in small towns in California, Florida, and West Virginia. The film cuts between footage of them as teenagers, fresh-faced and tentative, and footage of them as young adults, where their hopeful tentativeness has turned into a more hardened acceptance. These cuts are undeniably moving—faces and lives seem to crystallize between frames, traced in light––but you also cannot shake the sense that what’s moving about the film is somewhat incidental to its subjects. It wants so badly to achieve poeticism and to be empathetic, to an extent that often seems forced. Aesthetically, it pulls out all the stops: rousing string music, slow-motion body movement, and landscape shots of high grass and roaring flames, approximating a kind of Malickian beauty. But it never lingers over the implications of that which it documents.

One of the boys, who is black, ends up caught in the prison system—and later, we learn that one of his friends has been shot and killed; yet the film mostly resists engaging with, or even detailing, the larger ramifications of those events. The most telling moment in that regard occurs when the West Virginian boy’s girlfriend asks him if he’s seen “the news about Rodney King”—he curtly responds, “Yeah, I’ve heard of it,” then asks to change the channel.

Like the clouds of dust and smoke so often documented by the film, Phantom Cowboys gives a glimpse of substantive insight, then evaporates before your eyes. -Hannah Kinney-Kobre

PHANTOM COWBOYS [2018], directed by Daniel Patrick Carbone NEWS TO US

Somerville Theatre / 5PM / not rated.

FEATURE

DEPT. OF COMMERCE

ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT

21

SAVAGE LOVE

THE TRUST ISSUE

BY DAN SAVAGE @FAKEDANSAVAGE | MAIL@SAVAGELOVE.NET

I’m a 42-year-old gay man. I’ve been with my husband for 21 years. We met in college and, except for a six-month break, we’ve been together ever since. I made an open relationship a requirement at the start. While my husband had jealousy and trust issues, he hooked up with others regularly. After a few tense years, we started couples therapy. During therapy, my husband revealed that he was never in favor of the openness.

After trying some new arrangements—only together, only at sex parties, DADT—he realized he wasn’t comfortable with any situation. He told our therapist that every time I hooked up with someone, he was retraumatized because it reminded him of the time I broke up with him for six months 20 years ago. I agreed to a monogamous relationship, and I’ve gone a year without hooking up with anyone else. He seemed genuinely relieved and said he felt more secure. But almost immediately, he began talking about how he wanted to hook up with others. I’m at a loss. I feel tremendous guilt for even thinking about splitting up, so I keep hoping we’ll stumble on the thing that will work for us. I don’t know what to say when he says I should be monogamous to him while he gets to hook up with others. He says this would be best, since my hooking up triggers him. We are at an impasse. It sucks that we could break up over this.

Gay Marriage Having Crisis I’ve written about a few gay couples—and a few straight ones—where one half gets to hook up with others while the other half doesn’t. But they were cuckold couples, GMHC, and the half who didn’t “get to” hook up with others didn’t want to hook up with others. The cuck half of a cuckold couple gets off on their partner “cheating” on them. While people outside the relationship might perceive that as unfair—one gets to cheat, the other doesn’t—what’s more ideal than both halves of a couple getting just what they want?

But if an eroticized power imbalance—an honestly erotized one—doesn’t turn you on, the creepily manipulative arrangement your husband is proposing certainly isn’t going to work.

Which means it’s both ultimatum and bluff-calling time.

So long as your husband thinks he can dictate terms by pointing to his triggers and his trauma, GMHC, he has every incentive to continue being triggered and traumatized. So with your couples therapist there to mediate, tell him your marriage is either open or closed. You’re not interested in being his cuckold and he can’t point to his trauma to force you into that role. You’re a handsome couple—thanks for enclosing the lovely picture (sometimes it’s nice to see the face of the person I’m responding to!)—with a long history together, and here’s hoping things work out. But if they don’t, GMHC, neither of you is going to have a problem finding a new partner. He can get himself a guy who likes being dictated to, if that’s really what he wants. And you can find a guy who wants an open and egalitarian relationship, which is what you deserve.

P.S. If your therapist is taking your husband’s side in this, GMHC, get a new therapist.

On the Lovecast, piss play! With the hosts of American Sex Podcast: savagelovecast.com.

COMEDY EVENTS THU 04.26

THE FINAL STAND UP BREAK IN @ THE RIOT THEATER

Featuring: Dana Jay Bein, Kate Procyshyn, James Huessy, Sam Ike, Laura Severse, Paul Landwehr, Tooky Kavanagh, John Sucich, Laura Merli, Kwasi Mensah, Gloria Rose, Dylan Uscher, Kindra Lansburg, Jeff Medoff, Vally D, Nate Davis, Kathleen DeMarle, Josh Do, & Brett Johnson.

Hosted by Danielle Andruskiwec and David Thomas

146 SOUTH ST., JP | 8PM | $5 THU 04.26

JELLY: WOMEN IN COMEDY NIGHT @ IMPROVBOSTON Featuring: Xazmin Garza, Reece Cotton, Laura Severse, E.J. Edmonds, & Diana Lu, with Jelly announcers Ellen Sugarman & Roxy, & the Jelly House Band with Jeff Greenwald.

Hosted by Nonye Brown-West

40 PROSPECT ST., CAMBRIDGE | 9:30PM | $10 FRI 04.27

COMEDY NIGHT @ ARTLOUNGE ARLINGTON

Featuring: Benjamin Bosunga, Diana Lu, Dom Smith, Etrane Martinez, Kristin Carnes, Laura Burns, Stephen McConnon, & Tooky Kavanagh.

Hosted by John Sucich

1346 MASS AVE., ARLINGTON | 7:30PM | $10 FRI 04.27 - SAT 04.28

JAY LARSON @ LAUGH BOSTON

Jay Larson is best known as a stand up comedian with multiple appearances on The Late Late Show, four appearances on Conan and his own half hour special on Comedy Central. Jay’s style is completely original and his ability to connect to an audience through storytelling is unmatched. As a storyteller his “Wrong Number” story went viral after climbing to #1 on Reddit and was also featured on “This American Life” with Ira Glass claiming, “Perfect Comedy, Perfect Storytelling...” Jay’s Storytelling has also been featured on Comedy Central’s “This is Not Happening” and can be heard every Toozdee on his wildly successful podcast, The CrabFeast. Jay’s first album, “Self Diagnosed” was released in 2011 by AST records and his follow up album, “Human Math” is set to release in the fall.

425 SUMMER ST., BOSTON | 8 & 10PM | $25-$29 SAT 04.28

LAUGHS FOR LUKE @ MALDEN MOOSE LODGE

Comedy Show to Benefit the Mass Down Syndrome Congress, this event will be held at the Malden Moose, there will be a DJ and Dancing after the Comedy Show, as well as 50/50 Raffle.

Featuring: Paul D’Angelo, Joey Voices, & Johnny Joyce.

562 BROADWAY, MALDEN | 7PM | $25 SAT 04.28

BOSTON COMEDY FESTIVAL ALL STARS @ THE ROCKWELL

Featuring: Lamont Price, Bethany Van Delft, Andrea Henry, & Spike Tobin.

255 ELM ST., SOMERVILLE | 8PM | $15 SUN 04.29

LIQUID COURAGE COMEDY @ SLUMBREW

Featuring: Chris Post, Liam McGurk, Deidre Mollura, Daniel Macrobe, Rohan Padhye, Ben Quick, and Kevin Salisbury.

Hosted by Rick Jenkins

15 WARD ST., SOMERVILLE | 8PM | $5 MON 04.30

FREE COMEDY @ CITYSIDE

Featuring: Casey James Salengo, Karli Maruli, Will Abeles, & Nonye Brown-West.

Hosted by Sam Ike & Anjan Biswas

1960 BEACON ST., BRIGHTON | 8:30PM | FREE

savagelovecast.com 22

04.26.18 - 05.03.18 |

DIGBOSTON.COM

Lineup & shows to change without notice. For more shows & info visit BostonComedyShows.com

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