DigBoston 6.7.18

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BOSTON PRIDE

SALSA CELEB ANA MASACOTE ON DANCE AND SEXUALITY PLUS: STONEWALL WHITEWASHED

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SWAT TOPIC

MILITARIZED COPS FOR PEACEFUL PROTESTS INTERVIEW

RENÉE ELISE GOLDSBERRY HAMILTON HERO ROCKS POPS

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JUN 07, 2018 - JUN 14 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

EDITORIAL EDITOR IN CHIEF Chris Faraone EXECUTIVE EDITOR Jason Pramas MANAGING EDITOR Mitchell Dewar MUSIC EDITOR Nina Corcoran FILM EDITOR Jake Mulligan THEATER EDITOR Christopher Ehlers COMEDY EDITOR Dennis Maler STAFF WRITER Haley Hamilton CONTRIBUTORS G. Valentino Ball, Sarah Betancourt, Tim Bugbee, Patrick Cochran, Mike Crawford, Britni de la Cretaz, Kori Feener, Eoin Higgins, Zack Huffman, Marc Hurwitz, Marcus JohnsonSmith, C. Shardae Jobson, Heather Kapplow, Derek Kouyoumjian, Dan McCarthy, Peter Roberge, Maya Shaffer, Citizen Strain, M.J. Tidwell, Miriam Wasser, Dave Wedge, Baynard Woods INTERNS Kuresse Bolds, Victoria Botana, Rob Katz, Murray, Brynne Quinlan

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ON THE COVER Photo of Ana Masacote by Enrique Yaptenco. Read our dance reporter Micaela Kimball’s interview with Ana in this week’s feature section.

ROYALE

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A POINT OF PRIDE

As I have opined before, I unfortunately (though conveniently) belong to a gym located minutes beyond Boston proper that is frequented by ignoramuses.

Like, seriously, some dumb, racist bastards, many of them old retired cops. Not that exercise rooms inside city limits tend to be filled with the most brilliant of minds, but my point is that you’re more likely to encounter Neanderthal provincialism, along with any number of other -isms, on the outskirts of the Hub. It’s an interesting feature of gentrification; while people of color and working-class folks may get pushed from urban neighborhoods, at least the people who replace them, while often horrid in their own ways, are less openly hostile to marginalized groups than were the whites who preceded them. Chad the finance asshole with the Southie condo may run an investment fund that makes bank on the prison industrial complex, but you probably won’t find him acting like a Wahlberg and assaulting young people of color.

In any case, the diseased suburban putzes in my locker room are hardly woke. They know enough to not make clearly racist comments, but they still see everything through bigoted Caucasian contacts and in many cases use the hateful “f” word frequently, mostly to insult those who don’t live up to their chickenshit idea of manliness. All of which makes it ironic that these sauna jockeys sweat each other so profusely and lament to no end about how they have to share the steam room with women these days. For a bunch of homophobes and stereotypical tough guys, they sure do have no problem speaking openly about the good old days of softening their skin and shaving in the company of nut sacks.

I rarely tangle with these assholes face to face.

Hence all my cowardly aggressive columns that I don’t intend on sharing with the suburbs. My entire life is confrontation, from social media to daily interactions, and with some exceptions I’ve been loathe to go to war in the one place where I have peace. Does that make me a shitty ally to my LGBTQ friends and family members?

Sure, but it also makes me someone who has yet to be arrested for brawling with naked seniors at the gym.

And that’s a good thing. I’m missing enough teeth already.

This month, however, I will proudly wear my loudest Pride shirt every time I go to work out. It’s an infinitesimal gesture, but I think that it will be somewhat productive, at the very least an exercise in humbling discomfort—for the knucklehead haters, sure, since they might realize that their anti-gay slurs aren’t welcome in my company (or in public, as an extension), but also for yours truly, as I can stand to better understand the ugliness that LGBTQ people encounter every day. The public overall may be evolving in this realm, but people always need reminders, and waiting patiently for prehistoric pruney pricks to wither up and die isn’t doing enough.

Sincerely,

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ATTACK OF THE PEACE POLICE SPECIAL NEWS FEATURE

Despite cries from advocates and experts, heavily armed SWAT teams are increasingly deployed to nonviolent protests in Mass

BY SETH KERSHNER Even to observers who were previously jaded by images of police violence that have gone viral over the past several years, the scene in Newnan, Georgia, this April was shocking: Beefy, heavily armed SWAT officers pointing assault rifles at a group of nonviolent protesters.

Screams and chaos as those same cops wade into the crowd to extract and arrest certain activists under an obscure state law forbidding the wearing of masks in public.

An array of armored vehicles and police aircraft buzzing around—much of it apparently provided gratis to local police through the Pentagon’s surplus equipment program.

It all started when anti-racist activists in Newnan, a suburb about 40 miles south of Atlanta, showed up to protest a rally being held by a couple dozen members of the neo-Nazi National Socialist Movement.

Captain Warren Campbell of the Coweta County Sheriff’s Office later told the Newnan Times-Herald that the aggressive tactics were needed because he and his fellow SWAT officers feared for their lives.

Referring to posts from far-right outfits that were later exposed as “fake news” sites, Campbell said, “Based on reports, we weren’t entirely sure if they were armed so it was a legitimate concern—especially being outnumbered.”

According to figures released to the press, there were a total of 800 law enforcement officers on the scene that day—that 4

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despite there being only about 700 protesters in total.

Such scenes have become all too familiar. As an article in a recent Police magazine special report notes: “In the last few years, law enforcement agencies in the United States have dealt with more civil unrest than they have seen in decades.” Yet oddly, nearly four years after Ferguson made police militarization a topic of national debate, heavily armed SWAT teams, with rifles and in armored vehicles, are still being deployed to non-violent protests. National surveys of police department tactical teams show the use of SWAT to respond to protests and “civil disorder” has increased significantly since the 1980s.

This increasingly common practice has made its impact felt in Massachusetts, where SWAT teams are routinely sent to protests in certain communities. And the trend has continued in spite of warnings from law enforcement leaders and civil liberties groups that SWAT should be deployed sparingly to such events.

DIFFERENT NEEDS, DIFFERENT TEAMS There has long been a distinction between SWAT and the type of police officers used for crowd-control duty. The modern SWAT team dates back to the 1960s, when law enforcement strategists began to realize that they needed

to prepare responses for emergencies involving hostages, terrorists, or crazed gunmen. Crowd-control units have a longer history but grew to prominence during the same turbulent decade. According to Thor Eels, a veteran law enforcement leader and now executive director of the National Tactical Officers Association (NTOA), civil rights and anti-Vietnam protests were a major factor.

“In the 1960s and 1970s you had a lot of protests,” said Eels, “and because of that many US cities developed specialized crowd-control units.”

SWAT and crowd control have vastly different missions, standards, and training. Officers assigned to the latter, for example, receive special instruction in riot control maneuvers. According to a PowerPoint presentation currently used in such trainings by the Massachusetts State Police Public Order Platoon, these tactics go by such exotic names as the “Crossbow Line,” “Patriot Formation,” and that old chestnut, the “Flying Wedge.” (As previously reported by the DigBoston, the same PowerPoint also contained an image of an I-93 Black Lives Matter protester that had been digitally altered to ridicule her body shape. The image has since been removed).

Public disorder or crowd-control units are also distinguishable from SWAT officers by their uniforms— black color schemes are generally favored over camo—and

their relative absence of heavy weaponry. All of which contributes to a vibe less about confrontation than cooperation. Shortly before the anti-racist protests in Boston Common last August, Daniel Linskey, a former Boston police superintendent in chief, summarized this approach: “There’s a need to take your helmet off and try the soft side first,” Linskey told the Boston Herald. Which can be accomplished, he added, by “engaging the crowd” and “keeping it friendly.” In other words, only when protests turn violent do departments typically dispense with softer tactics and bring in a “hard squad” outfitted with more body armor and preparations for battle.

In practice, some questioned whether the “hard squad” was deployed too quickly to the Common rally. Writing for the Intercept, reporter and observer Eoin Higgins (who has also written for DigBoston) noted a group of “mostly black men” as they “stood in front of police with their hands raised” in an act of passive resistance. “After a few tense minutes,” Higgins wrote, the police moved in and began hitting demonstrators and making arrests. [Ed. note: Several Dig reporters saw similar behavior and extensively documented multiple violent incidents.]

WHEN SWAT BECOMES THE DEFAULT “For a while they were well trained and equipped,” Eels, the National Tactical Officers Association executive director, said of the urban crowd-control units. “But that era passed and we went years without major rioting incidents.” Now, he added, with those units largely inactive, the job typically falls to SWAT “because they’re the only discretionary unit available to local police departments.”

A case in point comes from Berkshire County, where no local agency has sufficient resources to staff its own crowdcontrol team. Which is why every year the Berkshire County Special Response Team deploys its Bearcat and its officers to police the annual summer picnic held by Hells Angels in Lee State Forest. And why in March 2014, when hundreds of workers learned that they would lose their jobs after the abrupt closure of North Adams Regional Hospital, police called in the same regional SWAT team, whose members were tasked with forming a perimeter around the hospital complex to keep it secure.

Lack of dedicated crowd-control officers—sometimes referred to as a mobile field force—was later identified as one of the reasons police bungled their initial response to the Ferguson uprising. In September 2014, weeks after nonviolent marchers were met with SWAT officers bearing machine guns, then-head of the NTOA, Mark Lomax, addressed the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs: “With the exception of large metropolitan cities or jurisdictions that have had prior civil disorder events, most agencies have not invested in a mobile field force capability.”

In Massachusetts, the number of agencies that currently maintain their own crowd-control units remains small. Besides the State Police, they include Boston PD and the Northeastern Massachusetts Law Enforcement Council (NEMLEC), a mutual aid consortium comprised of officers from various departments and whose services are geographically flexible.

Even when agencies do have mobile field force or crowdcontrol units, they do not shy away from using their SWAT teams to police protests. In 2015 and 2016, state police deployed their Special Tactical Operations team a total of 20 times for either “protest support” or “event security,” according to state police annual reports released to this reporter under the public records law. Several years ago, NEMLEC came under fire over the use of their SWAT team for “event security” and dignitary protection.

In 2015, DigBoston spotlighted one absurd example: deploying 34 SWAT operators to police a 2012 appearance in Medford of his Holiness the Dalai Lama. Those embarrassing disclosures don’t seem to have stopped NEMLEC from sending SWAT to protests and other public gatherings. In 2017, according to documents reviewed

by DigBoston, more than a third of the SWAT team’s deployments were for such events.

Combine the recent surge in activism and street

protests in the US with the relative shortage of dedicated crowd-control resources and you get a situation where SWAT has become a routine response to public protest. In Mass, incidents over the past several years have reflected this trend.

• For a July 2013 protest outside the former Dominion Energy power plant in Somerset, more than 100 members of law enforcement had amassed to head off a nonviolent band of around 400 anti-coal activists. The police presence that a Fall River Herald News editorial later characterized as “excessive and expensive” included two armored vehicles and 17 camo-clad SWAT operators working with the Southeastern Massachusetts Law Enforcement Council (another mutual aid consortium). When asked about the riot gear, a protest organizer later told the press: “We were sorry that they felt the need to do that.”

• Coming just days after a protest in Dallas devolved into a major shooting incident, Cambridge police say they wanted to make sure protesters felt safe during a July 2016 Black Lives Matter demonstration. So, they dispatched members of the department’s Special Response Team, complete with—you guessed it!—a Bearcat armored vehicle.

The vehicle’s presence at the rally drew immediate condemnation on social media. As Black Lives Matter spokeswoman Stephanie Guirand later told the Cambridge Day: “It was meant to assure people that police were prepared, so people could feel safe if there was a situation like Dallas. It had the opposite effect, obviously.”

• On May 1, 2017, around 250 immigrants and their supporters observed Day Without Immigrants by marching through downtown Lawrence. NEMLEC reports obtained by DigBoston show that two plainclothes state troopers marched alongside community activists, while NEMLEC also sent 16 of its SWAT officers to the scene, one of whom followed the march in a van while others waited nearby in case arrests had to be made. In the end there were no arrests. Yet the total number of law enforcement present for the march likely exceeded 100, making for a nearly Newnan-esque protester-to-police ratio of two and a half-to-one.

Nationally, the trends are the same. Results of a large survey of tactical policing carried out by the NTOA show that the number of police departments using their SWAT teams to respond to protests and “civil disorder” has increased by a third between 2009 and 2013. This represents a major shift over the past few decades. According to an earlier national survey, sponsored by the DOJ’s National Institute of Justice, the “vast, vast majority of teams never deployed at any civil disturbances” between 1986 and 1998.

A ‘POSSIBLE CHILLING EFFECT’ Adam Bates, a policy analyst at the libertarian Cato Institute’s Project on Criminal Justice, believes the police response to protesters goes to “the core, fundamental constitutional values of our society, the right to protest and to dissent.” In 2016, Bates warned an Associated Press reporter of a possible “chilling effect on those rights when you have this faceless kind of law enforcement that threatens to escalate situations where things can get out of hand.”

Cambridge PD’s Special Reaction Team, a SWAT outfit by all measures, is a fixture at local protests. In 2017, according to CPD spokesman Jeremy Warnick, all but one of the team’s 10 activations were to provide security and crowd control at events like the March on Google or the Caribbean Festival. In 2016, nine of 10 SRT activations were for protests, public gatherings, or “dignitary security.” Noting that the department had received nearly $1,200,000 in homeland security grants since 2013 to purchase—among other

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things—the aforementioned Bearcat, DigBoston wanted to know if crowd control was the most appropriate way to use a tactical team designed for emergency situations.

“That’s certainly a consideration when we go ahead with our deployments,” Warnick said in a phone interview.

“The other part of it is the SRT’s presence is sometimes on request,” he added, noting that in 2017 the SRT deployed for two cases of “dignitary protection” following appeals from the US Secret Service.

As for that July 2016 Black Lives Matter protest, in an interview with the Cambridge Day, then-Vice Mayor Marc McGovern viewed the kerfuffle as “symbolic of how different groups would perceive an action differently.”

While McGovern said he did not have a problem with the presence of an armored vehicle, he conceded, “People with a different experience will see it as a tank and be intimidated.

It’s a symbol of our disconnect.”

‘NOT WHERE SWAT SHOULD BE’ One Bay State police department trying a softer approach is Brookline, which has had a Special Response Team since 2012. Thanks to more than $100,000 in grants from the state’s Office of Emergency Management, Brookline SRT is well equipped to handle SWAT missions but is rarely used. While the SRT team has deployed at full strength on only five occasions since its inception, most recently a 2017 incident involving a barricaded suspect in Chelsea, it has never been deployed to a protest.

In an email, Brookline PD’s Lt. Philip Harrington wrote: “We understand the concern for the use of SRT officers at peaceful protests, but this is not our policy and we have never used the Team in that capacity.” Harrington’s department does have a bicycle unit that can assist with patrolling local demonstrations. Those officers, who wear standard police bicycle officer uniforms, receive training on how to handle crowds and large demonstrations.

On the other side of the coin, NEMLEC SWAT officers— the ones who deploy so regularly to police protests and provide security at crowded public events—are apparently receiving little training in crowd-control tactics. Training memos reviewed by the Dig show that NEMLEC SWAT training actually emphasizes use of force. Since July 2014, NEMLEC has set aside only one day for SWAT training dedicated to crowd control—in April 2015, shortly before team members were scheduled to provide enhanced security at the Boston Marathon. During that time, dozens of other training sessions consisted of having officers fire off rounds at a shooting range or busting down doors (and firing off more rounds) at a Fort Devens “shoot house.”

Carlisle Chief of Police and NEMLEC president, John Fisher, did not respond to a call and email seeking comment from the Dig. Proper maintenance of a civil disorder or crowd-control unit entails hours of specialized training each month for the assigned officers—which adds a further financial burden, especially for the more than 80 percent of law enforcement agencies in the US that have fewer than 50 officers. Faced with such costs, the NTOA’s Eels said, “A lot of agencies gamble and think they won’t need it.”

Eels’ organization, which represents more than 1,500 SWAT teams in North America, is trying to make a case for saner, softer approaches to protests by offering trainings to local and regional gatherings of police officers on how to respond to civil unrest.

“We’re … trying to get the word out that the traditional way of managing civil unrest is obsolete,” he said in a phone interview. “Until we change the mindset and get leaders and lawmakers to appreciate that there’s a difference between SWAT and crowd control,” he added, “you’re not going to see a change.

“Through leadership and command classes, we’re teaching that this is not where SWAT should be.”

This article was produced in collaboration with the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism. To see more reporting like this, you can support independent media at givetobinj.org.

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ONE AND 20 EDITORIAL

DigBoston’s first anniversary of new management is also our 20th year of publication

BY JASON PRAMAS @JASONPRAMAS This edition marks a very special anniversary for the current owners of this paper. On June 9 it will be one year since we acquired DigBoston.

Which is funny because we never really announced the transition. And it probably wasn’t immediately evident that there’d been a change since our Editor-inChief Chris Faraone had been with Dig forever, other key personnel like Business Manager John Loftus had been around for a year or three, and I’d been on the masthead for a few months already. The only new face was Publisher Marc Sneider.

So consider this a retroactive celebration in addition to an upcoming one as of this writing. It’s also worth noting that this is simultaneously our 20th consecutive year of publication. Making us like one and 20 at the same time. A cool synchronicity we’ll talk about more in the future.

From the beginning of our tenure, we resolved to base our management of DigBoston on a few simple principles: cover all Boston’s communities on an ongoing basis, make our content a good mix of “hard news and serious fun,” and “punch up not down”—that is, focus our critical reporting on powerful interests rather than folks at the bottom of the political economic pyramid.

We developed this approach when we founded the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism three years ago. And we thought that it was important that we seamlessly link BINJ’s mission to produce investigative reporting in the public interest to the mandate of the new Dig. Especially in this tough time for the news industry—when all too many outlets are drifting from their duty to provide information that people need to function in a democracy in exchange for a few extra clicks on their increasingly vapid digital-only operations.

We think the result has a been a lot of solid work from our growing crew of talented writers, editors, photographers, and artists.

And several articles are especially worthy of note.

Our soup-to-nuts team coverage of last summer’s massive counterdemonstration to a tiny ultra-right rally on Boston Common, “We Came, We Saw, We Covered” by Sarah Betancourt, Britni de la Cretaz, Chris Faraone, Kori Feener, Nate Homan, Zack Huffman, Derek Kouyoumjian, Jay Lancaster, Dan McCarthy, and yours truly.

Sarah Betancourt’s immigration series, notably her article “Targeted Deportation in Mass?” on the seizing of a local Moroccan human rights activist by Immigration and Customs Enforcement during a routine check in.

Britni De La Cretaz’s groundbreaking sports writing in pieces like “The Yawkey Way” on the racist history of Boston professional baseball. Which sparked a major furor that ended with the suspension of a harsh WEEIFM host.

Music Editor Nina Corcoran’s huge catalog of music journalism—including her exhaustive coverage of the most recent Boston Calling festival.

Staff Writer Haley Hamilton’s analysis of the food industry through her features like “Ice Cold Democracy” about the opening of a worker-owned cooperative brewpub in downtown Boston and her restaurant industry-focused column “Terms of Service.”

Olivia Deng’s detailed examinations of complicated policy issues like whether bike transportation is keeping up with rising traffic congestion in “Jammed Up.” Patrick Cochrane’s coverage of this year’s statewide political horse races in missives like “Cash Rules Everything Around Mass.”

Lynne Doncaster, who came to us through our program aimed at training working-class area natives to 6

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be journalists, wrote one of the most-read articles in Dig history out of the gate, “Still Standing”—a fascinating look at the history of a group of enigmatic statues in Somerville’s Davis Square.

Film Editor Jake Mulligan’s deep and wide takes on independent films like his profile of the Safdie brothers’ Good Times.

Theater Editor Christopher Ehlers’ insightful theater criticism, including daring pieces like “Evita So White” on the race politics of a local revival of the eponymous musical.

Plus all the great work done by Comedy Editor Dennis Maler; cartoonists Tim Chamberlin, Pat Falco, Patt Kelly, and Cagen Luse; our awesome interns Kuresse Bolds, Victoria Botana, Olivia Falcigno, Rob Katz, Murray, and Brynne Quinlan; and dozens of freelance writers that we simply don’t have space to thank individually. With Managing Editor Mitchell Hansen-Dewar overseeing

everything, and making sure we always have the cleanest of copy.

All these people together produce a newspaper that we’re proud to bring to you, the Boston-area reading public, week in and week out.

Which is why, in conclusion, our biggest thanks have to go to our audience. Everyone out there who makes the time to pick up our paper, check it out online, spread the word to their friends and family, and frequent the businesses of the advertisers who allow this whole mad enterprise to keep publishing.

Your support makes all our collective efforts worth it.

Here’s to a great year two!

Jason Pramas is executive editor and associate publisher of DigBoston.

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THE BRADY BUNCH DEMOCRACY IN CRISIS

Prosecutors in the J20 case sanctioned for failing to inform defense about evidence

BY BAYNARD WOODS @BAYNARDWOODS

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A judge sanctioned the US attorney’s office in the District of Columbia, which has spent the last year and a half prosecuting people who protested the president’s inauguration with a Brady violation, which means that prosecutors failed to hand over evidence to the defense, a major breach in court procedure that endangers the justice system itself.

On Jan 20, 2017—J20—Washington DC’s Metropolitan Police Department threw more than 70 “nonlethal” grenades, sometimes hitting innocent bystanders in the head, and emptied dozens of canisters of tear gas against protesters. Then they cordoned off more than 200 people and charged them all with the Riot Act, including conspiracy to riot. Because they relied on a theory that anyone in black conspired to destroy property, all 200 people were charged with the windows—of a Starbucks and a Bank of America—that were broken.

The government was forced to drop the charges against all but 58 of the defendants after losing the first case this January.

Elizabeth Lagesse, one of the defendants, argued in a motion that the government continued to press charges against her not because they had any evidence that she had engaged in the destruction of property or even conspired to help anyone else do it but because she talked to the press—including Democracy in Crisis—and filed a civil suit against the police with the ACLU. “[Assistant US Attorney] Kerkhoff’s May 11 email also highlights the government’s ongoing fixation with Ms. Lagesse’s media presence and her pending lawsuit— protected conduct that has no relevance to the case,” the motion argues, making reference to an email from the prosecutor, which, it argues, “is filled with derisive asides about Ms. Lagesse’s public statements, which go as far as accusing Ms. Lagesse of spreading ‘misinformation.’”

Like most things Trumpian, this prosecution engages with the seediest parts of the alt-right. In this case, the prosecution relied heavily on a video surreptitiously filmed

by Project Veritas, the scumbucket, far-right video-editing outfit that brought down ACORN and regularly fails trying to “sting” media outlets like the Washington Post.

The Project Veritas video shows a group of people planning a march and mentioning an “anti-capitalist, anti-fascist” action and provides part of the basis for the conspiracy to riot charges—which otherwise hinge on wearing black. It has been central to the government’s case against the protesters because they claim it proves that defendants planned to destroy properties and shut the city down.

But in court last week, it came out that the government did not give the defense attorneys all of the video—three minutes were cut off. During those three minutes, the Veritas operative said: “I don’t think they know anything.” There was also evidence that the Jan 8, 2017, planning meeting included a session on how to de-escalate a violent situation.

The prosecution further failed to disclose that they got 69 other recordings from Project Veritas. One of the trial groups had an interview with the operative who said that he didn’t “think anyone was planning violence especially” and added more specifically that Dylan Petrohilos, charged by the government as a key conspirator, wasn’t planning violence.

The proceedings also revealed that Project Veritas visited the FBI before the inauguration to talk to them about the protest—and the government revealed nothing of that meeting to the defense either. The court still did not dismiss all of the charges against all of the defendants. It did sanction Kerkhoff and dismiss the conspiracy charges against all of the defendants.

“The evidence concerning the conspiracy and the conspiracy charge, because the government did not disclose those videos and allow proper investigation, I’m sanctioning the government from proceeding on that count or on that theory,” the judge said.

For Petrohilos, that meant that his charges would be dropped altogether since he was not even arrested at the protest but was picked up months later when police officers raided his home and took an antifa flag and copies of the Nation magazine as evidence of the conspiracy.

For others, the weight of a long prosecution and the potential of a long sentence was still there to bludgeon them. As one defendant, Ella Fassler, tweeted, “it’s starting to look like my co-defendants and I will...only..be facing up to ~10-20 years in prison now.” The prosecution has been intended as a form of punishment.

After testifying in last week’s trial, one officer named William Chatman wore a shirt with a slogan that condoned police brutality—“Police Brutality… Or Doing What Their Parents Should Have!”—in the courthouse. It is a clear message. Not only to the defendants, but potentially to the jury.

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KNOW THE REGS TALKING JOINTS MEMO

Everything you need to know with just under a month to go

BY DIG STAFF @DIGBOSTON The funny thing about writing these regulatory columns, which are a collective effort between those of us who cover cannabis at DigBoston as well as people in our network, is that for every reader who pays close attention, there are five who contact us on social media to ask us questions that we already answered.

Nevertheless, we’re still at it, this time with a green-hot update on the applications in the Cannabis Control Commission (CCC) pipeline (you’ll have to read to the end to see if Mass will really have full retail operations up and running by July 1).

In the meantime, all application types have been available since June 1. As of June 5, there were 1,002 total applications filed with the CCC, with 833 incomplete (meaning they have yet to finish any one of the four sections), 61 withdrawn, and 108 pending, which means they’ve submitted at least one of the four required packets (App of Intent, Background, Management/Ops, Payment). Of those 108, the breakdown between types is as follows:

• Craft Marijuana Cooperative: 1 • Marijuana Cultivator: 30 • Marijuana Establishment Agent: 22 • Marijuana Microbusiness: 7 • Marijuana Product Manufacturer: 14 • Marijuana Research Facility: 3 • Marijuana Retailer: 30 • Marijuana Transporter w/ Other Existing ME License: 1 As for those who dutifully submitted all four required packets, and who will now have their applications reviewed “for completeness” by commissioners as early as this week, the breakdown is as follows:

• Craft Marijuana Cooperative: 0 • Marijuana Cultivator: 18 • Marijuana Microbusiness: 2 • Marijuana Product Manufacturer: 12 • Marijuana Research Facility: 3 • Marijuana Retailer: 15 • Marijuana Transporter w/ Other Existing ME License: 1 That lot of 51 applicants represents 28 different entities, all of which must now have background checks (the deadline to apply to be an investigator for the CCC is June 15). Also, 38 of those 51 have priority status, which breaks down to 35 registered medical dispensaries and 3 empowerment applicants.

Geographically speaking, the 51 frontrunners come from the following counties: Berkshire: 1, Franklin: 4, Hampshire: 2, Hampden: 3, Worcester: 16, Essex: 3, Middlesex: 5, Norfolk: 5, Bristol: 5, Suffolk: 2, Plymouth: 5, Barnstable: 0, Dukes: 0.

As for how fast this is all moving along, according to CCC Executive Director Shawn Collins at Tuesday’s public commission meeting, “We are waiting on information back from municipalities and our background check vendor. That information does need to be verified to make sure everything submitted to the commission has been reviewed for completeness and thoroughness and sufficiency as it pertains to the regulations. If the background check process does come back substantive enough that there is a comfort level to recommend someone for licensure and that the municipality has in fact certified that there is a host agreement and that [the applicant] has complied with all other local and zoning bylaws … if all of those things come back, in the next few weeks we could have some applicants to recommend for provisional licensure.”

Until then, the commission is “developing templates that can be used for responding to applicants,” and members say they will identify what information is missing and encourage people to complete applications.

Those notices may go out as early as this week.

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WHERE IS THE PRIDE? GUEST OPINION

A survey of divisions and achievements since the troubled celebrations of last year

BY REV. IRENE MONROE

I like to say there was something in the air during Pride 2017. Here and abroad, it was a contentious affair, including here in Greater Boston (more on that in a moment).

Many in our LGBTQ communities, however, say the tension has always been present.

Pride parades will take place across the country this month. As we rev up for this year’s festivities, so too will the fault lines of race, gender identity, and class emerge. In addition to the main Pride events taking place in many major cities and towns, there will be segments of our communities—from women to trans people to people of color—holding their own gatherings.

Pride is about the varied expressions of the life, gifts, and talents of the entire community. But the divisions in our communities during Pride also show us something troubling and broken within ourselves. Even as some strive to make celebrations more inclusive.

THE FLAG IN PHILLY Last year saw a major controversy in Philadelphia over the city’s new Pride flag. Black and brown stripes were added to the rainbow flag as part of the Philly campaign “More Color More Pride, ” which was an attempt to visibly include people of color in the celebrations.

Amber Hikes, the executive director of the city’s Office of LGBT Affairs, told NBC, “It’s a push for people to start listening to people of color in our community, start hearing what they’re saying, and really to believe them and to step up and say, ‘What can I do to help eradicate these issues in our community?’”

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WHAT NOW? Since Donald Trump has taken office, there has been an erosion of LGBTQ civil rights under the guise of religious liberty. Lawmakers are codifying discrimination measures and denying us services on state and local levels, while the POTUS is in lockstep with these practices. Furthermore, it’s anybody’s guess how this week’s Supreme Court ruling in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, which ordered Colorado’s civil rights commission to reverse its ruling against a baker who refused to provide a specific service to a gay couple, will impact court decisions elsewhere.

Meanwhile, transgender Americans are being denied access to public lavatories, which is eerily reminiscent of the Jim Crow era, while there are laws in Kansas and Oklahoma that allow adoption agencies to refuse to place children in the homes of families they find morally reprehensible (aka us).

Where do we go from here? In my opinion, we need to recognize the need to network and build coalitions beyond one’s immediate communities; thus, creating an intersectional social justice activism throughout our cities and towns to foster healthy and wholesome communities.

While Pride events are still fraught with divisions, at their core, Pride events are an invitation for communities to connect their political activism with their celebratory acts of song and dance in the continued fight for justice. They should highlight the multicultural aspect of joy and celebration that symbolizes not only our uniqueness as individuals and communities, but also affirms our varied expressions of LGBTQ life in America.

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SEGREGATION IN DC The nation’s capital is always a big draw for LGBTQ communities across the country come Pride. At the same time, DC’s white hosts aren’t always inviting and welcoming, and last year many people of African descent spoke out about it.

“We don’t socialize together,” Earl Fowlkes, executive director of the Center for Black Equity, told the Washington Blade. Fowlkes’ group advocates for African-American LGBTQ people and helps organize black Pride events in the US and abroad. “There are very few places where black and white socialize together, which is the basis of relationships and friendships, the basis of understanding.

“Until we start doing that and creating those spaces to do that we’re going to have misunderstandings and a lack of sensitivity toward issues of race.”

BOSTON BEING BOSTON Boston Black Pride 2017 took place in February, offering hip-hop yoga in commemorating Black History Month and National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness, and featured a mix-andmingle drag paint party, among other events.

LGBTQ people of African descent in Greater Boston have focused on, among other issues, unemployment, housing, gang violence, and LGBTQ youth homelessness. Health issues are also of major concern and sadly show the growing distance between the larger white LGBTQ community and LGBTQ communities of color; whereas HIV/AIDS was once widely considered an entire LGBTQ community problem, it now predominantly impacts communities of color.

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FEATURE

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5/25/18 9:18 AM

STEPPING OUT FEATURE

Pro dancer Ana Masacote opens up about being bisexual in the salsa scene

BY MICAELA KIMBALL “I don’t consider myself an activist. I consider myself a person who is no longer afraid to be herself. I hope one day that that is not such a radical idea.”

That’s how Boston-based salsa celebrity Ana Masacote reacts when asked about her coming out as bisexual in the Latin dance world, and when she begins to speak about the challenges and opportunities that salsa brings for LGBTQ inclusion and social change.

Latin partner dancing traditionally has strict binary gender roles that many claim are sexist and heterosexist, with men assigned as leaders and women as followers.

With Pride upon us, we asked Masacote about her unique role in the dance world and about the challenges and opportunities that salsa spaces pose for social change and progress for the LGBTQ community.

What was your coming-out process like?

The first time I came out was when I was 16 back in the ’90s. I was unfortunately shunned and cyber bullied (before that was even a thing). I was told that hormone therapy was available to help me. [As a result,] I retreated back into myself.

When I came out [again] 16 years later, it was a period of anxiety for me. I had mixed reactions to it, but most people actually supported me. Still, [the second time I came out], I won’t say it didn’t phase me, but it didn’t stop me from being who I was. I realized the power I had was in really being myself and living my truth. I wasn’t willing to hide to make others more comfortable.

Did dance help put you in touch with yourself and your sexuality?

Bisexuality was something I came to terms with over time. It was something that was always a part of me.

When I was in my first relationship [with a woman], I didn’t place a label on it. I just had a deep connection to a woman. I questioned what that meant for me. Over time I realized it didn’t have to be so complicated. As long as I was comfortable with who I was, that’s who I was.

Dance was what really helped me to find my power and to be comfortable in my own skin. Before I started dancing, I used to be quite shy. Since I was often bullied, I had a hard time sticking up for myself. Add to that my coming out and continually being bullied through that.

Dance gave me a safe space to just be open and free. It made me more self-aware of the beauty of my soul, and that freed my spirit to move beyond the confines of what I had placed on my mind.

How have you navigated bisexuality in a dance world that traditionally has strict binary gender roles?

Although you see [strict binaries] a lot in the dance community, there is still fluidity. But in the mainstream, media partner dances in general are defined by these binary gender roles.

If you google “Latin dancers,” you’ll get pages of images of stereotypical straight male and females with Eurocentric features. … So there’s a difference between what people see and experience in mainstream media and what we experience in the salsa world. Dancing With the Stars is not the same as what you see at a salsa social.

I would say that people who come from an LGBT background more often or not feel hesitant when they see on the outside this traditional male and female binary gender dynamic. When they come into an environment like a dance school or space, first, they’re learning new steps and trying to understand the dance. Add to that that now they are in an environment that they are not used to, which can create layers of discomfort.

I think it’s great for people [of all sexualities and 12

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DIGBOSTON.COM

genders] to learn both leading and following. Just because you’re a woman that’s leading doesn’t mean you’re queer—sometimes people associate that. Most instructors also have to learn to lead if they are females and vice versa. It helps you to teach better so you see that a lot. Then in some cases, women learn to lead because they are tired of being “wallflowers.” They want to go out and lead and not feel like they are just waiting on the side for the guy to ask.

For me personally, following and leading has helped me be more open with my sexuality. It’s really helped me learn the art of communicating through energy with someone else and then balancing the duality of energies in whichever role I choose to take.

What opportunities are there in the salsa scene to create change and inclusion for LGBTQ folks?

I believe we’ve come a long way in the last decade, but there’s still more to be done. We’ve started seeing queer Latin dance festivals, salsa competitions with gay men performing together, and in social dancing it’s not a strange thing to see a woman leading and a man following now.

In general, there’s a need to understand how to educate people coming into the scene. I have people that tell me, “I went into a salsa class and the instructor said males on this side and females on this side.” This automatically creates a dissonance with the person coming in if that person happens to be queer, or even they are not queer and they happen to want to learn the other side. Now we are starting to see more instructors understand the effect that terminology can have. They’ll

PHOTO BY JEFF ROBINSON

say “leaders and followers” instead of “men and women.”

Something as simple as that can make a huge difference.

We’ve made strides, but we have a ways to go—that lies on the [responsibility] of instructors to help create that safe spaces for students. … I’m a strong believer we have a unique opportunity in partner dance to help create a safe space for personal exploration. It starts with helping people understand that gender preference and dance roles are two very different things.

You own an internationally renowned dance company with your ex-partner, a cisgender man, with whom you split up before coming out. Did coming out pose any specific career-related risks or rewards for you?

I’ve been a professional in the salsa industry for over 15 years. I knew coming out was going to be noticed in my industry worldwide. When I came out, there weren’t many majorly known women that were out in my industry, so it was a big deal. … While our reason for separation was completely separate from who I was [as a bisexual woman], one thing that caught people off guard is that Joel and I still have a deep affection for each other, and we still support each other very much. So some of that has made people look at love in a different way.

Some people also expressed concern because they thought it [my coming out] would hurt my business, and some even encouraged me not to come out publicly. I also received some unapproving or hateful messages given I have a very large fan base. But I knew that I didn’t need to be doing business with people who had any sort of judgement on whose hand I might be holding when I’m walking down the street. I felt that being true to myself would never hurt me in the long run. I’ve felt more light since [coming out]. I’ve been happier every day just being me, and that affects my business in a positive way, because ultimately I don’t feel there’s a side of myself that I’m hiding from people.

I’ve learned the power of bringing all my identities into the room since then; and that’s the commitment I continue to make moving forward.

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TWO FOR THE TEAM TRAVEL

A local’s journey into Boston’s Seaport District (Part 2 of 2) LIVE MUSIC • PRIVATE EVENTS

BY MARC HURWITZ @HIDDENBOSTON

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Last week, food writer and Appalachian Mountain Club hike leader Marc Hurwitz took us on a tour of the South Boston waterfront. This week he ventures out in search of affordable eats. -Dig Editors As pretty as the green spaces of Fan Pier are, the Boston Fish Pier is, to put it mildly, butt ugly, with a desolate strip of road leading to a gate. Beyond that are grim-looking utilitarian buildings on both sides where fish wholesalers can be found, along with a littleknown breakfast and lunch place called Trio Cafe and the legendary No Name Restaurant.

This latter spot represents everything that the new Boston waterfront is not, as it is a century-old haunt that caters to families and tourists alike, along with those who aren’t really into the hotspots nearby. It’s not the best seafood restaurant in town, but it is one of the last vestiges of “old” Boston around here, especially with places like Jimmy’s Harborside and Anthony’s Pier 4 no longer up and running.

As tempting as it was to dine at the No Name for the sake of old times, we had another throwback spot in mind, and after returning to Seaport Boulevard and walking the scenic dock behind such places as Tony C’s, Del Frisco’s, Temazcal, and Legal Harborside, we left the water for the time being. We crossed the street to J. Pace & Son, where we ordered sandwiches at the counter, grabbed some chips, cookies, and drinks, and sat in its plain little dining area off to the side, a world away from the traffic and hordes of people just outside the door, and also a world away from the prices at some of the eateries in the area (most of us paid about $10 for our dinners).

At this point of the walk two years ago, things started to go downhill in a hurry because we made the mistake of taking Seaport Boulevard back toward Fort Point, where we encountered loud, staggering groups, people literally talking about stocks on their phones (pro tip—we don’t care about your investments), and tourists who seemed hopelessly lost with one even asking where Faneuil Hall was. Having learned from our mistakes, this time we followed a mix of Park Lane and little green spaces behind Seaport Boulevard, passing by another cheap eats spot called Larry J’s BBQ Cafe as we made our way to the Seaport Boston Hotel, where we warmed up next to the fireplace (much to the chagrin of the woman sitting there, as there were 10 of us), then took a peek at the attractive Tamo Bistro + Bar before continuing through the building and exiting it near B street.

From there we crossed over to Northern Avenue then turned toward Fort Point at Gather (a restaurant and bar that feels like one of the few true community-minded spots in the neighborhood), going past the beautiful Massachusetts Fallen Heroes Memorial in Seaport Square Park. From there, we crossed Seaport Boulevard one more time and returned to Fort Point.

I’d be remiss to leave out our walk through the Fort Point neighborhood, because it really is one of Boston’s true gems. Within a minute or two of leaving the Seaport District, we were in an area of narrow lanes, big old industrial buildings, and absolute serenity with the sounds of traffic cut off and not a person to be found other than a guy carrying beer who wasn’t kind enough to offer us any.

Our route took us down a small piece of the quaint and charming Farnsworth Street, then over to A Street and Necco Street, where we raised an imaginary glass to the Channel, a legendary music club that remains sorely missed more than 16 years after its closing. From there, we wandered through the rather funky and artsy Channel Center area before taking a right on W 2nd Street to Dorchester Avenue, veering right again on another piece of the Harborwalk by a security gate and coming to what’s basically the start of Fort Point Channel. This part of the channel is, to put it simply, absolutely amazing, and if you’re a photographer, it is one of the best places to find views of the skyline. The Harborwalk continues north here for quite a distance (with endless views of the water and the city along the way) before ducking under a building, going up a staircase, and returning to the starting point on Summer Street.

So, is the Seaport District a pedestrian-friendly area with lots of independent restaurants and a real sense of community? Not really, but it isn’t the monster that some people think it is either, and if you do it right, you can actually spend quite an enjoyable afternoon or evening wandering the entire area. (And don’t forget to bring your bucket of fish to clean if you’re so inclined.)

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I KILL GIANTS MUSIC

The return of Boston’s beloved emo math rock band

BY NINA CORCORAN @NINA_CORCORAN

Emo bands live short lives. The majority of those years are spent playing in basements and crowded house shows, rarely leaving their sector of the United States.

Snowing existed for three years. The Brave Little Abacus existed for five years. Cap’n Jazz existed for six. Algernon Cadwallader existed for seven. Glocca Morra existed for eight.

In that sense, Boston band I Kill Giants is just like every other math rock-leaning emo act, and while true, that claim suggests a false notion of homogeneity. Like all of those bands, I Kill Giants means too much to its fans to be labeled mediocre, synonymous, or, perhaps worst of all, derivative. The band’s sound stands out in a sea of emo revival bros and finger-tapping guitars. If the band didn’t, then its surprise reunion wouldn’t have prompted such an ecstatic response.

After breaking up in 2014, I Kill Giants surprised fans by announcing the band would reunite to perform three shows. The three-date, co-headlining tour alongside fellow local act Cerce sees the band go out in style at the Sinclair this Sunday with openers DUMP HIM and Pink Navel. Naturally, it sold out almost instantly.

I Kill Giants’ upcoming reunion show proves that the four-piece act has its place in local emo, punk, and math rock history. It wasn’t supposed to be that way, though.

If it was, I Kill Giants wouldn’t have laid the band to rest in the first place. Back in 2014, all four members of I Kill Giants—vocalist and guitarist Dylan Hanwright, vocalist and guitarist Chris Lee, bassist Nick Koechel, and drummer Sander Bryce—found themselves at a conventional crossroad. Nearing the end of their time at Berklee College, the members found job offers calling and possible moves to other cities. Instead of trying to uphold the band via a long-distance musical relationship, the four decided to end the band on positive terms, essentially putting I Kill Giants to rest in the name of post-college careers and the vague looming beast known as adulthood. The band played a comically packed Democracy Center for its final show. The line was so long out the door that the venue had to turn fans away before the music even started.

But that was 2014. In the years since then, the allure of I Kill Giants has only grown the way the ghost of all defunct bands seems to swell, gathering momentum the more people speak its name.

When I call the band on the phone, Hanwright picks up. All four members are sitting around a table inside his home in New Jersey, eating dinner. It’s the first time the four have been in the same room together since disbanding. Together, fresh off their first rehearsal as a band since reforming, they’re pulsing with the various type of nerves that come with reuniting. Everything can be felt through the speaker: the giddiness of seeing friends again, the paranoia of expectations, the relief of fun coming with ease. The phone call is pillared by stories, mainly reflections on past moments and oneoff memories that make them all laugh. Their joy is

contagious. It’s hard not to picture them all smiling again, capable of. like an old photo of the band but with a few years’ worth “It never really hits you until you hear a kid younger of aging tacked on. than you, or older than you really, telling you that you I Kill Giants was built on eagerness and excitement. created music that meant a lot to them,” says Koechel.

All four members were accepted to Berklee College of “That’s what it feels like it’s all about, what making music Music and moved in to the school in the fall of 2010. On should be.” the first day of orientation, the band began. Hanwright That will come full circle when they perform at the tracked down Lee and later knocked on his dorm room Sinclair this weekend. The show marks the first time I door at night. He told him they should practice in one of Kill Giants play a venue with a capacity larger than 200 the college’s basement studios. Draped in his pajamas, people (Note: the Sinclair holds over 500 people). It’s the Lee followed, and the two found themselves jamming first time the band will have monitors onstage. It’s the together within the first few hours they were on campus. first time the band will play on a massive, elevated stage.

Bryce and Koechel followed suit in time, and the band There’s no hiding the nerves under their excitement, but found a natural chemistry. It’s what has allowed them the members aren’t really trying to hide that to begin to change sound over the years, morphing ever so with. Their band has always been about letting loose, slightly from a math rock ode to the flailing vibrancy of yelping, and playing a little sloppy. The comforts of the emo revival to the jazzier punk underscoring various Sinclair will just add a new level of professionality to I techniques.

Kill Giants that the band never got to experience in their It wasn’t until the band released their self-titled initial years as a band. album in 2013 that they finally found their sound. They In a wholesome turn of events, the three-date tour perfected the art of fast-paced songs, boisterous singing, kicks off at First Unitarian Church in Philadelphia. Seven and technical licks that peppered their music with equal years ago, a few of the members planned a roadtrip to parts talent and emotion. A song like “Collector,” all that very venue to see Snowing’s farewell show in the power-pop riffs and yelled statements, pairs perfectly blustery November of 2011. In many ways, it feels poetic. with “Lucky Shirt,” the type of sloppy singing that feels I Kill Giants get to play the stage some of their idols once impossible not to sing along to, even if you don’t quite performed on. And then, two days later, they will be one know what it is you’re saying. of those beloved emo acts performing for listeners who As I Kill Giants are slowly relearning their parts, the never got to see them in Boston during their original era. members have found a good chunk of what they wrote

“It was a fundamental show for us. It was the back then isn’t as easy as it sounds. The drumming is first tie I saw Glocca Morra. First time seeing the World demanding. The vocals require an intensity but flexibility Is. Dylan lost his glasses, and while he was stage diving that won’t scar your throat. Though certain guitar or bass for the first time. It’s wild to be playing that same stage. parts aren’t as witty as they once seemed, they have their I hope everyone experiences that kind of happiness we strengths, and seeing how it all pairs together live again did, too,” says Lee, before everyone begins talking over sets that in bold. one another in excitement. “Sorry, sorry. We’re going hard Perhaps the best part of I Kill Giants reuniting is the reminiscing right now, so I’m sorry, but it’s strange. All of fact that it lets Hanwright, Lee, Koechel, and Bryce realize this is strange. It’s the first time we’ve all been together in just how important their band is to a lot of people. There so long, and it just feels so good.” are all sorts of milestones that stick out. There were the Read a longer version of this article at DigBoston.com. opening slots they got with bands like the World Is a Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid to Die or Jeff Rosenstock of Bomb the Music Industry fame (“True validation was talking to Jeff [Rosenstock] at that show,” they all say, laughing, talking over one another in excitement). There were the local iconic bands like Animal Flag who revealed they, too, were fans of their music.There were people who got tattoos of I Kill Giants’ artwork or lyrics. But the weirdest (and best) part by far was learning how many lives they soundtracked. After hearing the news that I Kill Giants would reunite, one fan in the Midwest contacted the band to express her elation; she discovered I Kill Giants by happenstance in middle school and their music soundtracked her childhood as a result.

Hearing the importance their music had on other PHOTO BY NICK DINATALE people changed the way the members looked not only at their music, but at themselves and what they were

>>I KILL GIANTS, CERCE, DUMP HIM, PINK NAVEL. SUN 6.10. THE SINCLAIR, 52 CHURCH ST., CAMBRIDGE. 7PM/ALL AGES/$13. SINCLAIRCAMBRIDGE.COM

MUSIC EVENTS THU 06.07

I’M KIND OF A BIG DEAL TOUR JOYNER LUCAS + ELI

[House of Blues, 15 Lansdowne St., Boston.

7pm/all ages/$22.50. houseofblues.com]

16

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FRI 06.08

PUNK ROCK LEGENDS, OLD AND NEW HOT SNAKES + VUNDABAR + MEAT WAVE

[Brighton Music Hall, 158 Brighton Ave., Allston. 8pm/18+/$26. crossroadspresents.com]

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FRI 06.08

HAPPY BIRTHDAY EP RELEASE PARTY ELEPHANTS + MINT GREEN + HEXPET

[Great Scott, 1222 Comm.

Ave., Allston. 10pm/21+/$10. greatscottboston.com]

SAT 06.09

SUN 06.10

[The Wilbur, 246 Tremont St., Boston. 8pm/all ages/$25. thewilbur.com]

[Paradise Rock Club, 967 Comm. Ave., Allston. 7pm/18+/$20. crossroadspresents.com]

THE DARKEST FOLK HOUR BONNIE PRINCE BILLY + SIX ORGANS OF ADMITTANCE

HOW FAST CAN YOUR MATH ROCK TAP? CHON + POLYPHIA + TTNG + TRICOT

WED 06.13

A CELEBRATION OF THE LIFE & ART OF CALEB SCOFIELD CAVE IN + OLD MAN GLOOM + CONVERGE + YOUNG WIDOWS [Royale, 279 Tremont St., Boston. 6:30pm/18+/$40. royaleboston.com]

DEAR NORA WHEEL OF TUNES

Bouldering, Jakarta, and ditching old habits

BY NINA CORCORAN @NINA_CORCORAN It’s been a long road for Dear Nora.

Portland’s folk-bent indie rock band won hearts with Mountain Rock, an expansive record that captured what it meant to be an unsure kid in the Northwest, back in 2004. The band released another album after that and then seemingly vanished in 2008, with only a collection of rarities left to its name. It turns out Dear Nora wasn’t stuck wandering down a road. The band just decided to pause to soak up the view.

Dear Nora returned late last year PHOTO BY ANDREA ZITTEL for a few live shows. Now, the band has something to show for it. Songwriter Katy Davidson rallied musicians together to record a new record, the wistful Skulls Example, comprised of songs Davidson wrote between 2009 to 2017. With lyrical inspiration from visit to Oaxaca and Mexico City, and musical inspiration from artists like Frank Ocean and Leonard Cohen, Davidson—and, in turn, Dear Nora—managed to make a record that feels very of this moment while still holding true to the band’s original sound.

“Maybe this is overly universal, but I didn’t want to make something that sucked,” says Davidson. “After all this time, you can’t bring a band back and make something that’s bad. I knew it had to be good, and I knew it would be good. I brought my best energy to it. I wasn’t fearful of the process, but in the back of my mind I told myself that I had to make it count. A song like ‘Black Truck’ felt risky because I didn’t know how it would translate from my head to the tape. My bandmates had never heard the song before, so I told my drummer to play a beat, and I sort of played him the riff, and then the bass player made up his part. There was no context for that song, but it came together in an experimental sort of way.”

To better understand the modern mind of Dear Nora, we interviewed Katy Davidson for a round of Wheel of Tunes, a series where we ask musicians questions inspired by their song titles. With Skulls Example as the prompt, they gave answers that highlight why Dear Nora is such a special band in the indie rock world—an aura you can bask in when the band headlines the Lilypad this Friday.

1. “White Fur” In your opinion, which animal has the most beautiful fur?

Oh my gosh. I’m going to have to say wolf. I’ve always had a thing for wolves.

2. “Morning Glories” When is the last time you gardened or purchased a plant?

Maybe the most interesting answer would be that I don’t think a lot of people know that I was a professional gardener for six years of my life. I did it when I lived in San Francisco in the early 2000s. Since then, I haven’t done a lot of gardening. I bought some tomato plants and herbs for my partner about a month ago. Other than that, I haven’t done much recently.

3. “New to Me” Can you name a band or artist who has been around for a while but you only just recently learned about?

We’ve been covering this song called “Ever New” by this artist named Beverly Glenn Copeland. Beverly recorded a beautiful album, I believe it’s called Keyboard Fantasties.

It’s a late ’70s or ’80s record. It got reissued lately. It’s on one of those labels that digs up incredible records from the past, and that happened with this album. Everyone in the band really loves it.

Also, it’s very beautiful to me that we’re doing our Dear Nora touring at the same time that Liz Phair is. I pretty much write songs because of Liz Phair. We keep skirting around one another, but I’m going to see if something could happen with one of these tour dates.

4. “Simulation Feels” What experience, action, or event do you think everyone should experience at some point to better strengthen their empathy?

I’ve had periods of my life where I didn’t have much money. My family didn’t have much money growing up, and I’ve spent periods of adulthood being quite broke. You have to learn how to be resourceful in a very real way. I don’t know if that’s too serious of an answer, but having a lack of resources is very humbling. It’s a built-in limitation that oftentimes can lead to different forms of creativity.

Read the rest of Nina'a interview at digboston.com

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‘THE JUGGLE IS REAL’ ARTS FEATURE

Actress-singer Renée Elise Goldsberry prepares to work-work with the Pops

BY DAN PECCI @DANPECCI One might think that the woman who originated the role of Angelica Schuyler in the pop cultural phenomenon Hamilton (for which she received both a Tony and Grammy Award), played the titular role opposite Oprah Winfrey in HBO’s The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, or even famously performed the last (and somewhat also immortal thanks to being recorded on film) Mimi in Rent might be a total diva (and deservedly so), but star Renée Elise Goldsberry proves to be anything but. Both humble and unassuming, the mother of two took a few moments out of her busy schedule to talk about her upcoming performances June 12-14 with special guest Phillipa Soo (the original Eliza Schuyler Hamilton of Hamilton), famed conductor Keith Lockhart, and the beloved Boston Pops.

What’s it mean for you to be performing with the Pops?

It’s a dream come true. I’m such a fan, and it’s a huge honor to sing with them … a reward, almost. That is, after having been a part of so many musical projects that suit them. Keith Lockhart and I both attended Carnegie Mellon together, so it’s a thrill to reunite with him. And as if that weren’t enough, I get to perform again with my wonderful friend, Phillipa Soo, my dear Pip, as I call her.

Is this the first time you’ll be doing something together since Hamilton?

It is, actually. And I couldn’t be more thrilled to be onstage with her again. I’ve been excitedly going around telling people that I’m doing “the Pops with Pip!” and probably getting a little too much joy from just saying the words. I also like to joke that I won a Tony Award for just looking at and naturally loving her onstage. She’s a real treasure.

What can fans hope to see either of you perform with the Pops?

We’ll be doing songs from Rent, The Lion King, Carousel, Carmen Jones, Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812 … and of course “Burn” and “Satisfied” from Hamilton.

You seem to have had quite a satisfying and diverse career thus far: from soaps to Broadway, songwriting to the silver screen—has this been a product of saying “yes” to everything? Or maybe a conscious decision to try and keep it interesting for yourself?

As far as the diversity of it, that’s just the grace of God at work. I definitely don’t say “yes” to everything. Right now, my life feels like the year of “no” what with two small children and a husband. Maintaining a healthy personal and professional balance is hugely important to me. My kids are only young once, and they don’t care what show you’re in at the moment. They just hope that you pick them up from school and put them to bed.

That you perform the role of mother well. That said, I do try to say “yes” to things that they would, looking back someday, be proud to say their mom had been a part of.

Playing with the Boston Pops is one of those things.

Have you always had that mindset? Or is this a recent development due to motherhood?

If I’m being completely honest, while I try to be very particular about the projects I pursue, I have in the past tried not to say “no” to things frankly because I can’t believe that someone would be asking me to do something in the first place. You see, I’m always the first to be like, “Oh, I can probably maybe pull it off, but the >> THE BOSTON POPS. 6.12–6.14. SYMPHONY HALL, BOSTON. BSO.ORG

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person who you really want for this should be…” and then I’ll recommend someone I respect and admire instead.

It sounds like you’re incredibly humble in that regard.

I’d like to think so. In any case, I always have to talk myself out of it and remember that I have the training, that I work hard, that I try to bring a really good attitude to the table, and that they’ve invited me to be a part of something because they want me to succeed. You have to trust those friendships and partnerships. And the grace of God will make it work. That mantra hasn’t let me down yet. If anything, I think my career should be a testament to how some people are just freakishly successful. I genuinely hope that others look at it and say, “Well, if she did it, then I can, too.”

What advice might you give to working mothers, especially those in your profession?

The phrase I use for that is, “The juggle is real.” And I don’t know that you can do it without constantly questioning if you’ve made the right choices or if you’re making the right choices. While we all question ourselves, I do believe that the opportunities that come to us are really for our children, you know? The things that happen to us really shape the trajectory of their lives and their experiences. Mommy might not always be there every minute of the day, but hopefully those absences allow for some really exciting things the whole family can enjoy, benefit from, and maybe also take part in because mommy was away doing what she did. That thought helps me. Relationships with other women that are both working and not working are extremely helpful, too.

Thanks to the women who are working, I can say to my children, “See? Her mommy isn’t there all the time either, and that’s okay.” Plus, other working moms and I can look at each other and relate to each other in that way as working women. And the women who “aren’t” working—and I do want to stress that they are still working as full-time moms— can prove incredibly helpful in bridging those gaps from such absence. We can depend on each other as moms, as a community.

also just happened to have the best job in the world. To be a part of this amazing thing … I mean, you can’t exhaust me at all talking about how wonderful Hamilton is and has been to me. I keep waiting for it to end, assuming that it’s a wave that passes, but I’m still stopped for pictures, still asked to be a part of the conversations surrounding it, still receiving thanks and praise. In my heart I hope it remains relevant. There’s so much in it that’s beautiful and valuable and that can speak to so many different kinds of people. I do really hope that there are constantly new generations of people who discover it.

I do pray that will happen.

In talking to you, it sounds like you gain a lot of strength from your faith.

When you’re out here, it takes a tremendous amount of faith. I don’t know if there’s any career where you’re as deep in the waters as this one. Pursuing it, you might drown, but you might also catch the biggest fish.

I definitely have an awesome testimony of just being blessed and sometimes I have to pinch myself in response to my good fortune. In the end, though, I know who to thank for it all.

Lin-Manuel Miranda?

Very funny.

I kid, I kid. What are you looking forward to most about these upcoming performances in Boston?

I’m excited to enjoy. I’m excited to be there. I feel like we’re about to have a party.

Well, how lucky we are, Renée.

Thank you! Very much indeed!

As the saying goes, it takes a village.

Exactly. And I should add that it’s not just working moms. … It’s really working parents these days for many. We’re all just working to survive and support our loved ones.

Speaking of (work-)working, what’s it like for you now post-Hamilton? Has your life normalized somewhat yet or is it still pretty surreal?

I’m always surprised when I’m in the world and I get so much love from so many different groups of people, and I’m surprised because I just feel like a regular person in the world who RENÉE ELISE GOLDSBERRY. PHOTO COURTESY OF THE ARTIST.

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THEATER REVIEWS PERFORMING ARTS

BY CHRISTOPHER EHLERS @_CHRISEHLERS

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BRANDON VICTOR DIXON (GABEY), MEGAN LAWRENCE (HILDY), LAURA OSNES (CLAIRE), AND ANDY KARL (OZZIE) PERFORM ON THE TOWN WITH THE BOSTON POPS 5.31.18 (WINSLOW TOWNSON)

ON THE TOWN AT THE BOSTON POPS Something very special was in the air last week as the Boston Pops continued its centennial celebration of Leonard Bernstein with an all-star, solid gold concert of On the Town, Bernstein’s 1944 masterwork about a trio of sailors with 24 hours to kill in New York City.

Director and choreographer Kathleen Marshall has made a career out of transforming creaky old musicals into talk-of-the-town hits. With nine Tony nominations and three wins, Marshall’s uncanny ability to capture lightning in a bottle—which she did most unforgettably with the last Broadway revivals of Wonderful Town and The Pajama Game—was on delirious display at Symphony Hall in a lightly staged, flawlessly performed concert version of On the Town.

The three sailors were played to perfection by Brandon Victor Dixon, Andy Karl, and Christian Dante White, who all oozed effortless leading-man charm and ineffable chemistry with co-stars Georgina Pazcoguin, Megan Lawrence, and Laura Osnes. Osnes and Karl, in particular, had such delicious chemistry that we’re bound to see them paired up together onstage sometime soon, and Dixon’s “Lonely Town” could have gone on all evening and it would have been fine by me. Rounding out the cast was the great Marc Kudisch and the incomparable Andrea Martin who—let’s face it—none of us quite deserve.

It’s rather tragic that something so perfect was performed only twice, but worry not, lovers of musical theater: The full company will reunite with Keith Lockhart and the Pops on July 7 at Tanglewood, a mere two hours west of Boston or three hours north of New York City. This On the Town is the best excuse to get out of town this summer.

SWEENEY TODD AT THEATER UNCORKED Another brand-new theater company was birthed last Saturday at First Church Cambridge in Harvard Square where Theater UnCorked presented a one-night-only concert version of Sweeney Todd, complete with a cast of 34 and an orchestra of 16.

I’m on the fence about whether or not we really need another theater company in Boston, but it’s hard to argue with the ambition of Shana Dirik, UnCorked’s artistic director who also starred as Mrs. Lovett. The sheer scale of the operation was an impressive thing, and any theater company that begins its life with a full Sondheim concert is all right by me. And it would appear that I’m not alone: There wasn’t a seat to be found.

It was as impeccably sung as any Sweeney I’ve ever seen; I remain bowled over by the effortlessness of the performances. As Mrs. Lovett, Dirik was a marvel, and Ben Discipio’s Sweeney was first rate. (Both have played the roles before.) Jordan Reynolds’s “Johanna” was a highlight, as was Alex Boyle’s velvet smooth “Not While I’m Around.”

The evening was plagued by sound problems (churches are not known for their state-of-the-art sound systems), but the concert was a success nonetheless. What first seemed insurmountable (entire songs were unintelligible) amounted to little more than an annoyance as the gusto and passion more than made up for the sonic woes.

Small theater companies come and go all the time in Boston, but few have arrived with such fanfare. We won’t hear from Theater UnCorked again until November when Bobbie Steinbach will direct a staged reading of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and they promise to announce their first full production this fall.

Keep your eyes peeled.

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HUMOR

THE NOO KID

When it comes to dating, we’re all just stand-up comics trying to avoid bombing on stage

BY WILL NOONAN

LAUGH BOSTON HAS AWESOME ACTS COMING IN HOT! USE PROMO CODE DIG5 & TAKE $5 OFF YOUR TICKET TO SELECT SHOWS.

JESSICA KIRSON

ALONZO BODDEN

Last Comic Standing, The Tonight Show

WINNER of Last Comic Standing, Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!

DIG5 code valid on all shows – except June 9 at 8 pm.

DIG5 code valid on all shows – except June 16, 8 pm.

JUNE 7-9

As a stand-up comedian in 2018, it is required by law that I have at least five minutes of material about dating apps. If I don’t do it, the comedy police will leave the scene of whatever Facebook group they’re reprimanding, SWAT my apartment, and make a truTV documentary about it.

But even for the noncomedian, dating apps tend to lead to bizarre stories that you bring back to your social circle and reenact, as opposed to valuable human relationships.

It’s fun to post a quick status about an awful date, but then your real friends are want the story, and you had better not bomb. These bad-date tales have become the go-to small talk of the singles world, and your tight five needs to be on point to keep pals paying attention.

So I wonder: Has dating just become an awful series of encounters that we go through to have “life material” that we use to entertain our friends?

There are many apps at our disposal: Coffee Meets Bagel, where serious people screen their serious partners in the bullet-pointed fashion of a corporate job fair. And of course Plenty of Fish, which seems to be the best app for meeting divorced people whose side hustle is breeding mini horses.

I like Tinder. The Coca-Cola of dating apps.

My thought process has always been that it’s the most popular one, so it must have the widest spectrum of human, and thus my chances of meeting “the one” are vastly improved. Tinder, like most of the people on it, is basic. “Like” or “Dislike,” swipe left or right.

If two people “Like” one another, they “Match” and can chat in private. From there, you can trade phone numbers and info, or most likely never chat at all and simply sit in one another’s matches for eternity, our avatars an ongoing reminder of an alternate universe where we may have met, fallen in love, and perhaps co-authored a series of racially sensitive flip books for children.

Sometimes, you actually meet. This is the gold. These are the stories people, especially people who were married before Tinder existed, want to hear. What is it like to meet a complete and total stranger on a date? The blindest of blind dates? Is it awkward? Is it just filled with grabby hands and wild sex?

They look at you with eyes wide open and mouths tilting into smirks, and you know that you can’t disappoint them. They might have some kind of vacation timeshare, or a kid, but you have stories. Good stories that involve people who smell like wet subway floors.

In those moments, everyone’s a comic working out a bit: You open with the sketchy Uber driver who rolled you to the bar. You follow that up with a little light roast of your date’s animal-skin outfit and fried voice, and then close strong on a sexual mishap that brings it all home and leaves the crowd wanting more.

And just like any stand-up comedian, the dater’s never satisfied; we’re always on the hunt for new material. Diligently back to apps we go, an open mic than never ends and may even produce nudes.

Forget about finding “the one.” Most of the time, it’s all about finding material.

These are the stories people, especially people who were married before Tinder existed, want to hear.

JUNE 14-16

JOEL KIM BOOSTER

JEFF DYE

Conan, Comedy Central

NBC's Better Late Than Never, Girl Code

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JUNE 21-23

FRANK SANTORELLI, ORLANDO BAXTER + PETER MARTIN

JUNE 28-30

BROOKS WHEELAN

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Three of Boston's best comedians

JUNE 7-9

JULY 7 + 8

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laughboston.com | 617.72.LAUGH 425 Summer Street in Boston's Seaport District NEWS TO US

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WHAT WORKS SAVAGE LOVE

BY DAN SAVAGE @FAKEDANSAVAGE | MAIL@SAVAGELOVE.NET I’ve been married to my husband for two years. Five months into our relationship (before we got married), he confessed that he was an adult baby.

I was so grossed out, I was literally ill. (Why would this great guy want to be like this?) I told him he would have to choose: diapers or me. He chose me. I believed him and married him. Shortly before the birth of our child, I found out that he’d been looking at diaper porn online. I lost it. He apologized and said he’d never look at diaper porn again. Once I was free to have sex again after the birth, it was like he wasn’t into it. When I asked what the deal was, he told me he wasn’t into sex because diapers weren’t involved. I broke down, and he agreed to talk to a counselor. But on the day we were supposed to go, he was mad about every little thing I did and then said he wasn’t going!

I went crazy and called his mom and told her everything, and she said she found a diaper under his bed when he was 7! After this crisis, he agreed to work things out, but then I found adult-size diapers in the house—and not for the first time! I took a picture and sent it to him, and he told me that he was tired of me controlling him and he is going to do this when he wants.

He also said he was mad at me for telling his mom. I told him no, absolutely not, he cannot do this. Then I found adult-size diapers in the house again this morning and freaked out. He says he never wants to discuss diapers with me again, and I’m afraid he might choose them over me! Please give me advice on how to make him understand that this is not him! This is who he chooses to be! And he doesn’t have to be this way!

Married A Disgusting Diaper Lover First, MADDL, let’s calmly discuss this with a shrink.

“There’s a fair bit of controversy over whether people can suppress fetishistic desires like this—and whether it’s healthy to ask them to do so,” said Dr. David Ley, a clinical psychologist, author, and AASECT-certified sex therapist. “Personally, I believe in some cases, depending on the support of their environment and personal relationships, it is possible, but only when these desires are relatively mild in intensity.”

Your husband’s interest in diapers—which would seem to go all the way back to at least age 7—can’t be described as mild.

“Given the apparent strength and persistence of her husband’s interest, I think it unlikely that suppression could ever be successful,” said Dr. Ley. Now let’s bring in a voice you rarely hear when diaper fetishists are being discussed: an actual diaper fetishist.

“The common misconception with ABDL (adult baby diaper lovers) is that they are into inappropriate things—like having an interest in children—and this couldn’t be more wrong,” said Pup Jackson, a twentysomething diaper lover and kink educator. “AB is not always sexual. Sometimes it’s a way for a person to disconnect from their adult life and become someone else.”

Okay, MADDL, now it’s time for me to share my thoughts with you, but— Christ almighty—I hardly know where to begin.

“Great guys” can be into diapers; this is not who your husband “chooses to be,” since people don’t choose their kinks any more than they choose their sexual orientation; outing your husband to his mother was unforgivable and could ultimately prove to be a fatal-to-your-marriage violation of trust; a counselor isn’t going to be able to reach into your husband’s head and yank out his kink. (“I absolutely hate that therapists are seen as sexual enforcers who are supposed to carve away any undesirable sexual interests and make people ‘normal,’” said Dr. Ley.) You’re clearly not interested in understanding your husband’s kink, per Pup Jackson’s advice, nor are you open to working out an accommodation that allows your husband to explore his kink on his own, per Dr. Ley’s advice.

Instead you’ve convinced yourself that if you pitch a big enough fit, your husband will choose a spouse who makes him feel terrible about himself over a kink that gives him pleasure. And that’s not how this is going to play out.

- Follow Dr. David Ley on Twitter @DrDavidLey and Pup Jackson on

Twitter @pupjacksonbitez.

HEY, EVERYBODY: We’ve got rainbow ITMFA T-shirts and tank tops in time

for Pride, and you can order them at ImpeachTheMotherFuckerAlready.com!

ITMFA T-shirts and tanks—and buttons and hats and lapel pins—are a great

conversation starter. Wear one to a party or bar or parade, and people will ask you

what ITMFA stands for—and then you get to tell them: Impeach the motherfucker already! (If they laugh, take them home! If they frown, tell them off!) All proceeds from the sale of ITMFA merch goes to the ACLU, Planned Parenthood, and the

International Refugee Assistance Project. We’ve already donated more than $200K to those three great orgs and another $15K to hurricane relief efforts in Puerto Rico. Go to ITMFA.org to get your ITMFA tees and tanks in time for Pride!

On the Lovecast, Slate’s Evan Urquhart on dating a trans guy: savagelovecast.com.

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COMEDY EVENTS THU 06.07 - SAT 06.09

JESSICA KIRSON @ LAUGH BOSTON

Jessica has been seen in Robert De Niro’s, “The Comedian” & Nick Cannon’s, “School Dance” starring Jim Breuer & George Lopez. She’s a regular actor on SiriusXM’s Howard Stern show & featured on AXS’s “Gotham Comedy Live”, Comedy Central’s “The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore,” NBC’s “Last Comic Standing,” NBC’s “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno,” & ABC’s “The View.”

425 SUMMER ST., BOSTON | 8PM & 10PM | $25-$29 THU 06.07 - SAT 06.09

NICK’S COMEDY STOP

Thu.: Comics 2 Cure featuring: Dean Delray with Dan Crohn & Nick Chambers.

Hosted by Chase Abel Fri. : Best Of Boston Showcase featuring: Laura Severse, Trent Wells, Will Martin, Sam Ike, Liam McGurk, & Arty P. Hosted by Will Smalley Sat.: Christine Hurley from “Comics Come Home 21”

100 WARRENTON ST., BOSTON | 8PM | $20 FRI 06.08

THE GAS: ROB CREAN 40TH BIRTHDAY AT GREAT SCOTT

Featuring: Rob Crean, Angela Sawyer, & Terence Pennington.

Hosted by John Paul Rivera

1222 COMM AVE., ALLSTON | 7PM | $5 SAT 06.09

WE’LL DO IT LIVE! @ MIDWAY CAFE

A new variety show featuring: comedian Nate Shu, Puppet Master Jake, Medium & Intuitive Artist Ellen D., Music by Professor Caffeine & the Insecurities.

Hosted by Dan Wright

3496 WASHINGTON ST., JP | $10 | 4PM SAT 06.09

COMEDY @ ARLINGTON PORCHFEST

Featuring: Kaitlin Sofia, David McLaughlin, Jordan Parro, Denise Morin, Penny Oswin, Awet Teame, Randy Williams, Trevor Dion, Matt Sabian, Rachel Jane Andelman, Jai Demeule, Allison Dick, Chloe Cunha, Tyrone Jones, Chris Thomas, Todd Clay, Uri Shetil, & Asther Ashmelash.

Hosted by Stirling Smith

46 JASON RD., ARLINGTON | 4PM | FREE SUN 06.10

LIQUID COURAGE COMEDY @ SLUMBREW

Featuring: Dan Crohn, Jeff Smith, Emily Ruskowski, Deadair Dennis Maler, Chris Post, Ethan Diamond, Alex Giampapa, & Mike Setlow.

Hosted by Paul Roseberry

15 WARD ST., SOMERVILLE | 8PM | $5 MON 06.11

MONDAY NIGHT COMEDY IN THE SUPPER CLUB @ CAPO

Featuring: Brett Johnson, Matt P. Brown, Zach Russell, & Cher Lynn.

Hosted by Will Noonan

443 WEST BROADWAY BOSTON | 8PM | FREE WED 06.13

DAVE CHAPPELLE & JON STEWART @ THE BOCH CENTER Featuring: Dave Chappelle & Jon Stewart.

270 TREMONT ST., BOSTON | 7PM | $139+

Lineup & shows to change without notice. For more info on everything Boston Comedy visit BostonComedyShows.com Bios & writeups pulled from various sources, including from the clubs & comics…

WHAT'S FOR BREAKFAST

BY PATT KELLEY PATTKELLEY.COM

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GET YOUR LAUGH ON ALL SUMMER (AND FALL!) AT LAUGH BOSTON, YOU GUYS!

JESSICA KIRSON JUNE 7-9

ILIA AKSELROD JUNE 8

TRIXX JUNE 13

ALONZO BODDEN JUNE 14-16

BARRY ROTHERBET + GREG BARRIS

JOEL KIM BOOSTER JUNE 21-23

MICK FOLEY: TWENTY YEARS OF HELL JUNE 24

JEFF DYE JUNE 28-30

(WITH ORLANDO BAXTER + PETER MARTIN)

FRANK SANTORELLI

BROOKS WHEELAN JULY 7 + 8

FUNNIEST PERSON IN MASSACHUSETTS COMPETITION

JULY 10-14

ALEX EDELMAN JULY 19-21

CHAD PRATHER JULY 22 + 23

COREY RODRIGUES + KELLY MACFARLAND

JULY 27 + 28

THE WORLD SERIES OF COMEDY AUG 1-4

RYAN DAVIS AUG 8

DAN ST. GERMAIN AUG 10

FREDDIE PRINZE JR. + JOSH WOLF

PRINZE AND THE WOLF

KOUNTRY WAYNE AUG 16-18

KATE QUIGLEY AUG 23-25

COMING SOON

SEPT

AUG 11

JUNE 7-9

ROB LITTLE | AUG 31 + SEPT 2 BOS POD FEST | SEPT 3-10

OCT

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