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DEAR READER YOUR TESLA’S IN MY SPOT

I pulled into a rest stop on my drive to New York City last week and went right into my typical routine: I bypassed the big parking lot, pumped my gas, then headed for one of the short-term spots outside the quick mart so that I could step inside and use the restroom, perhaps purchase some junk food. I’ve been doing this for 20 years, as I imagine others have, but on this recent southbound journey I was paused in my tracks; the few, rather the only spots available outside the market were marked NO PARKING EXCEPT ELECTRIC VEHICLES, with sleek red signs below that read TESLA SUPERCHARGER. To be clear, I don’t mean that some of the prime spaces that one might use for a few minutes after they gas up were taken by regular cars, while the only ones remaining were for plug-ins. Oh no, I mean that other than a single spot for disabled persons, it was exclusive Tesla territory. Anybody else who wants to enter the building after they pump is screwed; it’s illegal to drive in the opposite direction toward the big lot, which makes it so that if we have to pee, nonelectric luddites like yours truly have to stay parked at a pump after we finish fueling. Or hold it.

Up until now I’ve avoided jumping on the bandwagon that likes to roll parades over the hopes and dreams of Tesla daddy Elon Musk. But I happen to be reading the Kurt Vonnegut Jr. novel The Sirens of Titan, whose brotagonist, Malachi Constant, is something of a cross between Musk and his occasional pal President Trump, and so this rest stop horror hit a nerve. As long as pols and public figures keep on getting more cartoonishly despicable and greedy, I’m quite sure Vonnegut will only get more relevant. Certainly Constant, the “richest American” and a “notorious rakehell” with “preposterous credentials testifying to his ownership of even more preposterous enterprises, with testimonials that attributed to him virtues and strengths that only three billion dollars could have,” would have hatched such a Tesla truck stop takeover if given the opportunity.

While I impugn and lambaste big polluters as a journo and polemicist, and make a somewhat serious effort to avoid trappings like bottled water and single-use shopping bags that are flagrantly unsustainable, I’m also guilty of hypocrisy when it comes to environmental standards. In any case, I’m not against electric cars, or even Teslas, no matter how garish I find the latter. I just think they ought to have a designated charging station in a place that doesn’t inconvenience thousands of drivers a week. Perhaps near the truckers out back. Like they would even…

In Googling around to write this column, I came across a message board for Tesla drivers that I first thought was some kind of spectacular satirical site. Between the comments, which seemingly came from the most grotesque Silicon Valley caricatures, and the fact that it wasn’t a password-protected walled garden for Musk rats, I truly thought the forum was a clever stunt. But as it turns out, the page is an actual sewer of unconscious bro babble; one fanboy even goes so far as to groan, “Theres [sic] nothing like taking a piss, grabbing a drink/bite to eat, and sharing your ownership experiences for 20 minutes with other Tesla drivers.”

Hold my teslas while you’re at it, dude. I have nowhere else to park them.

CHRIS FARAONE, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Need more Dig? Sign up for the Daily Dig @ tiny.cc/DailyDig

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NEWS+OPINION ACCESS THE VOTE NEWS

At long last, disabled activists connect locally, nationally

BY CHRIS FARAONE @FARA1

There weren’t many venues where volunteers from Access could feasibly host its National Disability Voter Registration drive last week. The group, whose longer name is Advancing Community inClusion and Equality on the South Shore, ruled out several buildings for their lack of close proximity to public transportation, among other features that would make it difficult for some heads to participate. Braintree Town Hall, where Access wound up holding the regional meetup, itself only had fully friendly bathrooms finished a few years ago, while organizers had to make a special map for their event to keep people away from certain treacherous sidewalks.

I first met Crystal Evans, a leading Access advocate, at a media event at the magnificent Crane Public Library in Quincy two months back. She explained how sometimes, in order to traverse the thick construction gauntlet in the surrounding vicinity, people like her with limited mobility have no choice but to call the cops for rides. The injustice struck me as particularly tragic, not to mention inconvenient for all parties. Our conversation was still weighing on me weeks later; so when Evans reached out about her group’s new voting initiative, I began to see the issue of fair access to elections for people with disabilities, from those who may not be able to navigate a conventional voting booth to folks with impaired vision, as not only critical, but as a microcosm of an enduring Bay State hypocrisy.

“From grassroots organizations to the major political parties, they’re really not thinking about this,” Evans said.

She’s moving between tables in the Braintree auditorium, greeting allies of her group who have brought information to distribute at this local launch of the REV-UP campaign, which is designed as a national “effort to get more people with disabilities registered to vote, educate voters about issues and candidates, promote turnout of voters with disabilities across the country, engage candidates and the media on disability issues, and protect eligible voters’ right to participate in elections.”

Hoping to lure more of the tens of millions of people 4

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with disabilities who are eligible to vote to the polls— plus their friends and family members—Access has linked with the Boston Center for Independent Living, a stalwart in this tough arena since the 1970s, plus a range of other groups, including the National Disability Rights Network, the National League of Women Voters, Paralyzed Veterans of America, and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

“We’re doing this because we’re finding access problems—businesses, infrastructure, day-to-day things like sidewalks without curb cuts,” said Laura Sabadini of Weymouth, who directs civic engagement for Access. “We started Access in January after we had had enough. … They treat you like you are the only one, but then you see that there are others. We’ve been on our own, so now we’re trying to work together.”

“We’re being left out of so many conversations,” Evans added.

Sadly, there are few more tortured cliches in these throes than that which notes how Mass is hardly the progressive graceland it is often heralded as being.

Nevertheless, it’s a perspective worth considering in regard to the frequently forgotten realm of disability access.

Though anecdotes and testimonials speak louder than statistics ever could on this avoided topic, there are plenty of numbers available that can help frame the discussion. Among all the compelling research is a 2015 disability inclusion study by United Cerebral Palsy, in which Massachusetts ranked 14th among the states in fulfilling the “duty and necessity of a civil society … to aid and empower these individuals, who are often the most vulnerable among us, to succeed.” Looking at specific categories, that relative classification falls from mediocre to ogre, with the Commonwealth placing 34th in “reaching those in need,” 23rd in “promoting productivity,” and 40th in “keeping families together.”

At the risk of oversimplifying or conflating topics for the sake of adding drama to a situation that’s already quite dramatic for the people who are impacted directly,

I have to wonder out loud if the Commonwealth’s left-wingers, from Back Bay to the Berkshires on to Barnstable, who are deeply concerned about families that are separated at the southern border also care about families that are shattered on this front, or about those among us who have trouble accessing resources in their own municipalities.

Fortunately that’s where Access enters the equation.

Its goal: to “increase the political power of the disability community by getting more people with disabilities registered and committed to vote on election day while simultaneously engaging candidates for public office and the media on disability issues.” For example, the looming statewide ballot question on nurse staffing ratios is of major importance this group, as many spend a lot of time in hospitals, their lives in the balance.

All of the above reasons combined spurred Evans into action. On the voting front, she says the process was much easier back when she lived in Somerville. There, Evans said, there were services available to help her and others in similar positions get to polls. But commuting got more difficult when she moved down the Red Line and away from regimented street grids more common in Boston, Somerville, and Cambridge. Crystal’s only been able to find a lone van at one taxicab service—in neighboring Quincy—that can accommodate her chair (and zero in Braintree), a problem compounded by the construction and blocked sidewalks around Wollaston Station and the Quincy Center transit hub. And the twisted figure-six that strangles Quincy’s downtown shopping district is a notorious boondoggle.

“In general, [accessibility] is a problem,” Evans said.

“So on Election Day, how do you get back and forth? A lot of voting places on the South Shore have issues—at one place I’ve been, there are poles down the sidewalk [that would impede any walker or wheelchair].”

These aren’t always blatant, malicious violations. Or problems that are necessarily covered by statute or law.

At last week’s forum, Braintree Town Clerk James Casey showed attendees some of the small but demonstrative improvements officials have made in that town— including the purchase of new wheelchair-friendly booths, as well as their proactive use of an AutoMark machine, which gives voters with disabilities like blindness the ability to vote independently.

Crystal said that she is not a fan of demonstrating problems that she faces daily for the sake of entertainment, a practice she disparagingly calls “disability simulation.” With so much on the line, though, her group’s prioritizing external communications, which is what compelled Crystal to attend the media event where we first met. As far as she’s concerned, it is imperative for all the organizing Access has done thus far to accrue and then accelerate with a primary (Sept 4) and then an election (Nov 6) coming up this year.

In Braintree, Marlene Sallo, executive director of the Disability Law Center, said, “These are issues nobody realizes are as serious as they are.” That’s clear. But in some respects, simple solutions aren’t always difficult to come by.

“Some of this is just providing education about absentee ballots,” Evans said. “A lot of people don’t even know that’s an option. We’re here to show them what is possible.”

NEWS

STATE WIRE: WILL MASS LEAD ON RENEWABLES?

Clock is ticking for House, Senate to reach agreement

BY LINDA BARR BOSTON - Last week, the Massachusetts House and Senate passed energy bills that dictate the percentage of renewable energy in which the Commonwealth will invest by raising the renewable portfolio standard.

That’s the percentage of electricity that utilities have to get from renewable sources.

The House wants to raise the RPS to 2 percent a year, starting in 2020 for several years, then reduce it to 1 percent. The Senate wants 3 percent.

Casey Bowers, legislative director for the Environmental League of Massachusetts, says a 3 percent RPS would make the Commonwealth a leader in renewable power and attract businesses that want to produce it.

“The Renewable Portfolio Standard basically sends an announcement to the utilities that there is going to be a market for these renewable sources—be it offshore wind, be it solar, be it another renewable standard,” she explains.

Now, it’s up to three members each from the House and Senate to decide on the percentage. And the decision needs to be made quickly—before the end of the formal legislative session on July 31.

Bowers says increasing the RPS to 3 percent would send the signal that Massachusetts is serious about renewables—and about fighting climate change.

“If we were to see the 3 percent, we would be, like, the top in the country,” Bowers states. “We’d have the highest RPS. “And right now, New York—and, I believe, Connecticut—are a little bit ahead of us. So, we’re hoping to keep the strides up and keep being the leader that we know we can be.”

Conservation groups have an even more ambitious goal. They want to see lawmakers push for Massachusetts to get 100 percent of its power from renewable sources by 2050.

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FLIPPING US THE BIRD APPARENT HORIZON

Scooter-sharing company litters Camberville with dangerous vehicles no one asked for

BY JASON PRAMAS @JASONPRAMAS

The transportation-sharing gold rush that began with Uber and Lyft is moving from cars to other types of vehicles. Leading to new bike-sharing companies, often in partnership with cities around the world, also starting to experience explosive growth. With both docked systems (like Lyft-owned Blue Bikes) that make riders pick up and drop off bicycles at designated docks.

And newer (and more controversial) dockless systems like LimeBike that allow riders to grab bikes wherever they’re left. So it’s perhaps unsurprising that the vehiclesharing torch is now being passed to electric scooters.

Also known as motorized skateboards with handlebars.

Which use dockless systems, and which boosters say are useful for “last mile” transportation to subway stations and the like. But definitely not for generally wreaking havoc in all the urban spaces cars can’t go. Or so we’re told.

Bird Rides is part of a pack of electric scooter sharing companies that include Spin, Jump Bikes (an Uberowned company that rents motorized bicycles), and LimeBike (that just got major investment from Uber and Alphabet/Google aimed at deploying scooters). And last week, as it has done in several American cities over the last year, Bird unceremoniously dumped a bunch of scooters on the streets of Cambridge and Somerville.

Without first discussing the precipitous action with the governments of those cities.

It’s hard to know where to begin criticizing such a mercenary move. But, out of the gate, it typifies the arrogance of this latest wave of tech startups aimed at affluent flâneurs game to buzz around town for short periods of time on an unregulated rattletrap.

For starters, unceremoniously saddling municipalities with more unwanted sidewalk furniture is clearly the result of a cost-benefit calculation. While some communities—like Santa Monica, California, where Bird HQ is located—do manage to ding such companies for extralegal business models, the resulting settlements are usually disappointingly small. For example, although Santa Monica hit Bird with eight misdemeanor charges for its antics, the resulting $300,000 settlement is pocket change for a startup capitalized for hundreds of millions of dollars and valued at $2 billion last month, according to the New York Times. So that’s presumably considered to be part of the cost of doing business.

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And given that the leadership of rival Lime just pointed out to Commonwealth magazine that a big reason for companies like Bird moving toward dockless systems is to skip the cost of building out docks—which a spokesperson estimated is $50,000 per dock—it’s easy to see why it’s far more affordable for such companies to take a few legal slaps on the wrist while saving millions.

Then negotiate with cities retroactively, after they’re already making bank on the ground.

Second, unbelievably, Bird has put out electric scooters—which leave riders completely exposed to every kind of potentially deadly accident on city streets—around Camberville and across the nation, but made helmets optional. Sure, they tell riders to pay for postage to be mailed a “free” helmet from the company, but they are obviously passing the cost of inevitable accidents onto rushed users who generally will not be bothered to wait days to get a helmet. For a conveyance that screams out to be jumped on and ridden in the heat of the moment of encountering one. At least to the hapless people-children with more money than sense of the type at whom Bird is aiming its marketing—with all the talk of “birds” and “flocks” and “nests.”

Yeah, real cute. And the red of the hipster blood that will be sprayed all over local asphalt each of the many times such cheap metal toys get doored by just-parked cars will be “cute” too.

Sadly, Bird is not alone in failing to provide helmets.

Major bike and scooter sharing companies seem to default to making the provision of that basic piece of safety equipment up to the individual riders. Which can only be compared to an alternate universe where Uber and Lyft left it up to individual riders to provide seat belts in the cars they hired.

It’s already bad enough that vehicle-sharing companies are adding more bicycles to streets that are largely unprepared to handle them. The less so as companies like Uber and Lyft that are now trying to cash in on bikes and scooters have already made vast sums adding more and more car trips to those same overburdened thoroughfares. In the case of Boston, 100,000 extra rides per day last year according to Mass Department of Public Utilities data.

But at least most people learned to ride bikes in childhood. How many people learned to safely ride electric scooters? And Bird doesn’t even appear to be

bankrolling fake safety studies to wave around. It’s just putting motor vehicles capable of doing 15 mph with no safety features of any kind out there, obstructing city sidewalks for disabled and elderly residents (as recently came up in city council hearings on the company’s practices in San Francisco), and ringing that digital cash register. Ka-ching. Ka-ching. Ka-ching.

Finally, and worst of all, companies like Bird and the rest are engaged in privatizing what should be part of an improved public transit system. As I’ve written before. While one can certainly make good arguments for adding noncarbon-burning vehicles like bikes to the mix of multimodal urban transportation—especially in service of the environment—that doesn’t change the fact that we’re allowing private corporations to enrich themselves providing services that take urbanites off of public transportation. Training those who can afford it to spend money on private transportation. Money that is then taken away from public transit systems already starved for funds in an age of austerity. Thus hastening their demise.

Some of these sharing companies at least make deals with cities in advance and jointly develop programs like Boston Bikes’ Discounted Blue Bikes that offer their services at cut rates to working families.

But Bird’s model looks to be entirely profit-driven and completely mean-spirited. No matter how much CEO Travis VanderZanden tries to equate the unasked-for and unwanted service to “freedom.” Doubtless Cambridge and Somerville solons are already figuring out ways to regulate the corporation. But in this case, I’ve actually got to applaud my long-time foil, Boston Mayor Marty Walsh, for warning Bird off with a statement bluntly explaining that if Bird plunks its bikes down in the Hub without prior agreement, city workers will immediately seize them. And let the company pick them up at some city tow yard. Until Bird agrees to play nice.

In the meantime, it may well also come to pass that enraged Cambridge and Somerville burghers (and/ or drunken teens, as has already happened elsewhere) will take matters into their own hands and dispose of scooters on or near their property (and/or hangouts) in the manner that possibly just contributed to dockless bike sharing company ofo pulling out of Lynn, Quincy, and Worcester—by throwing them into any nearby bodies of water. Like the Charles and Mystic rivers, for example. Not that I would ever condone such a course of action. Because that would be wrong.

Still, public officials need to hear from constituents about Bird and similar corporate scofflaws early and often. To stiffen their resolve to not only regulate them, but also to start offering municipally run vehicle-sharing services as part of the vastly expanded multimodal public transit system we desperately need on both cost and environmental grounds—for less money to riders while paying the people that run them a living wage with benefits. All by removing rent-seeking sociopathic corporations from the equation.

And wouldn’t that be a nice change from governments just throwing their hands in the air, as they did when Uber and Lyft arrived on the scene, and saying, “Sorry, nothing we can do… That’s capitalism, folks.”

Apparent Horizon 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.

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THAT N-WORD AGAIN OPINION

A short history of rationalization, hate, and debate

BY REV. IRENE MONROE

• Dennis Lehane, Boston native and best-selling novelist of Gone Baby Gone, Shutter Island, and Mystic River, to name a few, used the word at Emerson College’s commencement last year.

In talking about Boston’s 1970s busing crisis, Lehane highlighted how white opponents of school desegregation shouted, “Niggers out” at protests. Twitter blew up attacking Lehane, and he apologized immediately.

Pizza mogul “Papa” John Schnatter is only the latest public figure to use the n-word and then (kind of) apologize. Because Schnatter blurted out the insult during a communications training session rather than directly in the face of an African-American, he argues that his use of the word doesn’t constitute a “slur.”

“It was a social strategy and media planning and training,” he argued, “and I repeated something that somebody else said and said, ‘We’re not going to say that.’”

Of course, this is just one example. In this political climate, it seems an overview and brief examination of the n-word, its use, and relevant examples is in order.

• In 2002, Harvard Law professor Randall Kennedy, who wrote the book Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word, said that while the word has been used to “terrorize and humiliate” AfricanAmericans, “it’s also been used as a term of endearment and a gesture of solidarity.”

• In 2006, Michael Richards, who played the lovable and goofy character Kramer on the TV sitcom Seinfeld, used the n-word on stage. His racist rant was a tirade aimed at hecklers in the audience at the Laugh Factory in West Hollywood, and subsequently aired nationwide. The outburst shocked not only his fans, but summoned an ugly time in US history and derailed his career.

• In 2011 it was disclosed that at the entrance

of former Texas governor and then-presidential hopeful Rick Perry’s hunting camp features a rock painted in block letters with the word “Niggerhead.” For decades leading up to that, Perry’s camp hosted lawmakers, friends, and supporters, none of whom apparently had enough of a problem with the fixture to speak out about it publicly.

• In discussing Perry’s highly offensive racial marker, Barbara Walters, co-host of The View, herself used the n-word, sparking a debate with her then-co-host Sherri Shepherd. “I’m saying when you say the word, I don’t like it,” said Shepherd, who 8

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added that she’s used it among African-American family and friends. “When white people say it, it brings up feelings in me.”

• In 2015, President Barack Obama used the word on the podcast WTF with Marc Maron during an interview about America’s racial history—creating shockwaves. At the time, legal analyst Sunny Hostin said the president’s use of the word was inappropriate because of his office and the history of the word itself. On the other hand, New York Times columnist Charles Blow countered that assertion, saying Obama used the word correctly in a teaching moment.

• Obama’s send-off at the 2016 White House Correspondents’ Association dinner ended with the n-word. Comedian Larry Wilmore, and thenhost of Comedy Central’s The Nightly Show, in his closing remarks thanked Obama for his tenure as president and the mark he made in the world, saying, “…to live in your time, Mr. President, when a black man can lead the entire free world.

Words alone do me no justice. So, Mr. President, if I’m going to keep it 100: Yo, Barry, you did it, my n—. You did it.” Indeed, there were audible gasps and visible grimaces of shock, pain, and embarrassment.

• Last year, Martha Stewart dropped the N-bomb during a taping of Martha and Snoop’s Potluck Dinner Party. Stewart, still a neophyte to hip-hop culture, asked during a filming with Lil Yachty on the show, “Does it upset you when Snoop says ‘nigga shit?’”

• The word by comedian Bill Maher last year on his HBO show, Real Time with Bill Maher. A lot of hurt came after the guest, US Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska, invited Maher to visit Nebraska and “work in the fields,” and Maher mockingly responded, “Work in the fields? … I am a house nigger.”

Is there a double standard here? After Maher dropped the word, some people on social media defended him, saying that he used a modified version, as in it ended in an “a” rather than an “r.” They claimed he morphed the word into a term of endearment. I contend that you can’t conjugate the word, because it’s so firmly embedded in the lexicon of racist language and is still used to disparage African-Americans today.

Many slaveholders pronounced the word with the “a” ending, and in the 1920s, many African-Americans used the “a” version as a pejorative to denote class difference.

The confusion, however, illustrates what happens when an epithet like the n-word, once banned from polite and public conversation, gains a broad-based cultural acceptance.

Many African-Americans, and not just the hip-hop generation, say that reclaiming the n-word serves as an act of group agency and is a form of resistance against the dominant culture’s use of it. In other words, only they have a license to use it. However, the notion that it is acceptable for African-Americans to refer to each other using the n-word while also considering it racist for others outside the race unquestionably sets up a double standard. Also, the notion that one ethnic group has property rights to the term is a reductio ad absurdum argument, since language is a public enterprise.

The fact that some African-Americans appropriate the n-word does not negate our long history of internalized self-hatred. Rather, our society’s neorevisionist use of the word makes it even harder to purge the sting of it from the American psyche.

Language is a representation of culture, and reinscribes ideas and assumptions about race, gender, and sexual orientation that we consciously and unconsciously articulate in our everyday conversations, and consequently transmit generationally. My enslaved ancestors knew that their liberation was not only rooted in their acts of protests, but also in their use of language, which is why they used the liberation narrative of the Exodus story in the Old Testament as their talking book. The Exodus story was used to rebuke systemic oppression, racist themes, and negative images of themselves.

Our use of the n-word speaks less about our rights to free speech and more about how we as a people—both white and black Americans—have become anesthetized to the damaging and destructive use of epithets. Some activists argue that Michael Richards and offenders like him should be made to volunteer in a predominately African-American community, while others claim that in such places African-Americans are keeping the n-word alive. What could work for many, though, is a history lesson, because reclaiming racist phrases doesn’t eradicate baggage or correct fraught racial relations.

As “Papa” John Schnatter has proven again, what’s clear is that use of the n-word is capable of keeping hate and hurt alive.

“YESTERDAY WE TRAVELED TO KAHN AL-AHMAR, A BEDOUIN VILLAGE THAT HAS BEEN FACING DEMOLITION BY THE ISRAELI MILITARY OCCUPATION.” -NOAH WAGNER (@NOAHRWAGNER) VIA TWITTER

BIRTHRIGHT WALKOFF GUEST OPINION

Jewish students leave free Israel tour citing “political propaganda”

BY NOAH WAGNER @NOAHRWAGNER When I signed up to go on Birthright this summer—a 10-day fully funded program for Jews to tour Israel—I hoped to learn more about Israel/Palestine from multiple perspectives. Besides seeing the Western Wall and celebrating Shabbat in Jerusalem, I hoped to speak with both Israelis and Palestinians, to hear their stories and get a complete picture of Israel in 2018.

But instead, Birthright offered me one-sided political propaganda, refusing to let me learn about the experiences of Palestinians living under occupation. That’s why I walked off the trip.

Going in, I hoped to hear at least some of the truth about the occupation, and I was disappointed to learn that Birthright would carefully, meticulously sidestep the occupation—even going so far as to drive past the West Bank without saying a word about it. I was also disheartened to see Birthright explicitly exclude Palestinian perspectives from their programming.

For many young Jews, Birthright is an entry point to identifying with Judaism and their first interaction with Israel. And yet 50,000 young Jews go on Birthright each year and return not having talked to a single Palestinian— and often not even knowing that the occupation exists.

The truth is, Birthright pushes this pro-occupation agenda because it’s mostly funded by the Israeli government and far-right American donors. Sheldon Adelson, a right-wing philanthropist who has given $200 million to Birthright, also gave the singlest biggest political donation to a presidential inaugural ceremony ever when he contributed to Donald Trump’s in 2017. Birthright won’t show us the occupation and take a stand against this violent system because Birthright is literally invested in maintaining the status quo.

It’s because of this backing that Birthright pushes its ideology, a tactic I observed firsthand. Birthright handed out maps that referred to the West Bank as “Judea and Samaria.” And not only did Birthright not allow us to visit

any Palestinian sites or homes—Birthright has a policy of not allowing Palestinians to speak to their tours. When I expressed concern about this, I was told that our bus driver was Bedouin—as if that were somehow sufficient representation.

I was raised in a Jewish tradition that is founded on asking tough questions and confronting difficult truths.

As a leader in the Progressive Jewish Alliance at Harvard, I helped push for Harvard Hillel to host an anti-occupation Seder, because I believe Passover—like so many other Jewish traditions—calls on us to seriously grapple with the meaning of freedom in justice in our world today. In Boston, I have found a community of Jews who are guided by principles like tikkun olam and who actively gather to question the status quo and speak out.

That’s why I made the choice to walk off the trip, along with seven other participants spanning two different Birthright trips. We needed to see the reality of the occupation and hear a Palestinian perspective, and because we needed to stand up and make it clear that the one-sided political agenda Birthright was pushing was not our Judaism.

Our peers on the trip were supportive of our decision to walk off, applauding us as we went to meet with the Sumarin family. The heads of Birthright, on the other hand, immediately canceled our flights and called us threatening to sue. Their reaction to our efforts to see the truth about the occupation shows just how out of touch they are with their own participants.

After walking off the trip, I saw a side of Israel that Birthright would never have allowed me to see. I traveled to Khan al-Ahmar, a Bedouin village that is facing demolition. With Breaking the Silence, a group of antioccupation former Israeli soldiers, I took a tour of Hebron, the largest Palestinian city, in which 850 settlers live protected by 400-500 soldiers and police—and in the name of security, Palestinians are subjected to military NEWS TO US

law (while Israelis are under civilian law) and are even banned from traveling on certain streets. While there, I was subjected to harassment and intimidation by settlers— one man stood over us and filmed us, calling us dogs, and adults actively encouraged a child to throw paint in our tour guide’s face. The soldiers who stood around us as we were being harassed were unable to stop the settlers: They can only enforce military rule on Palestinians, and not Israelis. If Birthright had had its way, I would not have known about demolitions, settlements, or Israeli military control of Palestinians.

I came to Israel-Palestine for the first time on Birthright, and like the thousands of other Jews visiting the region for the first time on Birthright trips, I wanted to see what’s really happening in Israel, and that includes the occupation. Young Jews, who are increasingly questioning the damaging and violent acts of Israel, deserve the truth.

Birthright has a responsibility to educate its participants about Israel. That means telling us the truth about the occupation and the daily nightmare that is Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.

All of us can make the simple choice to stand up and hold Birthright accountable, whether by researching Birthright’s donors, asking tough and meaningful questions on a Birthright trip, or walking out if Birthright refuses to show its participants the honesty we deserve.

All of us can start here and now, by adding our names to the petition calling on Birthright to tell the truth about the occupation. You can sign at actionnetwork.org/forms/notjust-a-free-trip.

A New York transplant and recent college grad, Noah helped bring IfNotNow to Harvard’s campus while studying there. Noah now lives in Jamaica Plain.

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SURVIVOR PHOTO FEATURE

Persia Lynette Brewer transitioned in the toughest conditions imaginable. Still she endures, using her experience to help others.

WORDS AND PHOTOS BY CRYSTAL MILNER

According to the national numbers, the average life expectancy in the United States is slightly short of 80 years old. In 1900, the average life span was 47 years; 118 years later, transgender women of color aren’t expected to live beyond 35.

Homelessness, violence, and lack of healthcare are common contributing factors. And Persia Brewer, a black trans woman born and raised in Boston, is no stranger to these troubling adversities. Forced from her home on Blue Hill Avenue at 17 and fed to the streets of her native Dorchester, Brewer quickly learned how to survive.

“I was traveling all over the nation doing sex work,” Brewer says. “I went to a lot of different states. I dealt with celebrities, I dealt with politicians. That was what I knew, that is what a lot of other trans women had exposed me to as a means to survive.”

During the early stages of her transition, most of the knowledge that Brewer acquired came from the streets. She started injecting illegal hormones that a friend scored in New York, each shipment arriving in two small containers—one red, and one clear.

“I really didn’t know what it was,” Brewer says. “I knew it was hormones, because of the way it was changing my body, but I really wasn’t clear on what she was giving me.”

At the same time, living at the intersection of transgender, black, and woman left her vulnerable to microaggressions and discrimination.

“You’re smart and intelligent, and that has value way more than whatever you see in the mirror or whatever other people see when they look at you,” Brewer says.

In her mid-30s, Brewer has experienced life in ways most people couldn’t imagine, let alone survive. This is her story, in snapshots:

“That was what I knew, that is what a lot of other trans women had exposed me to as a means to survive.”

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Weekday mornings begin around 6 am for Brewer. She takes a shower, brews a pot of coffee while she picks an outfit, then begins her makeup routine. There was once a time Brewer couldn’t wear makeup so freely: “I can remember going in my grandmother’s closet, taking her shoes out, walking around the house in her shoes, taking her dresses out, putting on her lipstick, playing in her makeup and trying to put it all back before she came home,” she recalls. “My family always knew.” Born as Jason Wade Anthony Brewer in 1981 in Roxbury, she legally changed her name to Persia Lynette Brewer in 2014.

SURVIVOR continued on pg. 12

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For roughly three years leading up to her participation in this project, Brewer woke up in an apartment just off Blue Hill Avenue in Dorchester, located in the same complex she lived in two decades ago. “I was 17 and living here,” says Brewer. “We lived upstairs from this apartment, and they kicked me out. … Well, my dad kicked me out.” During most of Brewer’s adolescent years, her dad, a local drug dealer, was in prison. Brewer visited him almost every weekend, and while she didn’t consider herself to be transitioning at the time of those visits, she recalls sitting across from her dad with nails painted and hair permed, wearing tight jeans and a shirt to match.

Being ostracized by family was just the beginning. At 25, Brewer was diagnosed with HIV after finding a boyfriend’s HIV meds and getting tested herself. Now she takes a Delestrogen shot, her hormone injection, every two weeks in addition to three pills she takes every day and evening for the virus. Four medication changes and 11 years later, Brewer says the HIV is undetectable.

When Brewer left home, she made sure to keep in touch with family. She visited for birthdays and during the holidays. Their relationship was slowly healing, but when Brewer started to get hormone treatment and shared that information with her family, even her mom, who had defended her against her father in the past, had trouble accepting the news. “She was actually very upset,” Brewer recalls. “She really did not agree with me taking a medication that would change the child that I guess she thought she raised.”

“Persia, is that you?” One evening while working for AIDS Action in Dorchester, Brewer ran into an old friend. They shared some laughs then went their separate ways. “I really try to make an impact because those people I pass by, a lot of them know me,” Brewer says. “A lot of them have watched me transition from being a homeless trans woman on the street to a secure trans—I don’t even want to say trans—a secure advocate of women and struggling people.”

Brewer works for AIDS Action Committee in Roxbury. For 30 years, AIDS Action has advocated for fair and effective policies, and run cutting-edge prevention programs as well as various services for people living with HIV. A few times a month, Brewer joins a fellow colleague from AIDS Action to walk around Boston and do outreach.

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Brewer witnessed lots of violence on the streets. “I learned in time that the sex work industry is compiled into so many different facets that there is a huge portion of it that can be done without having sex at all. I really worked that niche as much as I could. I had one client who paid me $20,000 to put a leash around his neck and sponges on his knees and arms and he cleaned my whole house—walking around like a dog and barking,” she says.

During her three-month stay at Boston Medical Center, Brewer was given multiple painkillers to help manage the pain from the surgeries.

“Once those medications stopped, I ended up with a heroin addiction,” she says. Recognizing the toll substance abuse took on her life, she later checked herself into rehab, where she met a friend who in time became her live-in partner. “We enjoyed being social, going to movies, going shopping, we had a lot of similarities,” Brewer says.

As Brewer transitioned, she was also homeless and in and out of jail, at one point finding solace in a local drug dealer. “He made sure that I had money, shelter, food,” she recalls. “Pretty much anything I wanted, he would take care of.” One night, as Brewer was leaving her boyfriend’s house, three men on his stoop began harassing her. “The next thing you know,” she says, “two of them sort of move back, the other one takes a step back, I see the barrel of a gun, and I’m out.” She woke up three blocks away covered in blood. At 27, Brewer had been shot in the face—twice. “I was in the hospital for three months,” she adds. Brewer’s face was reconstructed with 52 titanium plate and 36 screws. The shooters weren’t found or brought to justice.

In addition to working at Aids Action Committee of Mass as a transgender health navigator, Brewer lends her talent and effort to other grassroot causes as well. On some Wednesday evenings she helps to facilitate a chronic disease management program at Fenway Health. It’s a free six-week course open to anyone with a chronic illness, as well as their friends and family members. The class offers techniques for dealing with frustration, fatigue, pain, and isolation, and teaches students how to advocate for themselves during doctor’s visits, plus make healthy diet and exercise choices.

“One of the things I really try to push in the class,” says Brewer, “is don’t allow your disease to be the reason why you don’t live.”

Brewer began her transition 15 years ago, during a time it was less socially acceptable. “They had always put it under a term of like drag queens,” she says.

“I really started learning to love and to value myself. … It literally took about 4 or 5 years of just figuring it all out. If I wanted to really make the best of the life that I have, I’ve got to work at it and give myself the same amount of energy that I think I gave so many other people. … I think I would tell my younger self that your family is always going to love you—even when you don’t believe it.”

Though her partner was supportive for a while, Brewer ended the relationship after three years. Her boyfriend had a gambling problem and was not contributing to bills or chores.

In the aftermath, he drained their shared bank account, and then worse. On a Monday morning last November, Brewer awoke to him entering her home at 3 am using a golf club. He destroyed a television and ransacked the kitchen; as he tried to enter Brewer’s bedroom, she used her strength to lean against the door as he repeatedly bashed the golf club into it. Police arrived before any more damage was done. The next day, Brewer changed her locks, filed a restraining order, and packed the rest of his belongings. Brewer’s landlord warned her that he found a pallet topped with sheets and blankets in the basement, and he suspected it belonged to her ex.

This article was produced in collaboration with the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism.

To see more reporting like this please consider making a contribution at givetobinj.org.

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CREATE SPACE EATS

A beloved chef brings art and cocktail vision to Bow Market

BY HALEY HAMILTON @SAUCYLIT

LIVE MUSIC • PRIVATE EVENTS 7/26

Radium Girls, Sister, Thrust Club, Baluchitherium Indie Rock 7/27

Culture Feat.

Kenyatta Hill, DJ Junior Rodigan Roots Reggae 7/28

Bellows, Soft Fangs, Happy Little Clouds Alternative Indie 7/29

Local Beats Dance Party

Feat. DJ Anthony Alvarez & DJ Lady Ly 7/30

Chris Korda

Electronic Polymeter Trance 7/31

Heavy Metal Mayhem Feat. White Mountain, Panzerbastard, Upheaval, Sea.

156 Highland Ave • Somerville, MA 617-285-0167 oncesomerville.com a @oncesomerville b/ONCEsomerville

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Louis DiBiccari likes projects. Chef and co-owner of the now (unfortunately) closed Tavern Road in Fort Point, he’s launched everything from a full bar and restaurant, to a social media company, to the Best of Boston 2018 award-winning Mediterranean pop-up Humaari.

His latest venture? Building a permanent home for his grandest invention, the food, drink, and art festival CREATE Boston.

DiBiccari launched Create in 2012 to combat the massive displacement of artists being purged as Fort Point transformed from a warehouse and studio haven to a neighborhood full of luxury condos. Since then, Create has popped up twice a year in spots including the Power Station in SoWa and the Boston Design Center, the whole time bringing together chefs, bartenders, artists, and vendors of all things food, drink, and craft.

Now, DiBiccari and his team are looking to establish a more permanent brick-andmortar gallery and cocktail lounge to keep the spirit and mission of CREATE open year-round.

“This is a huge departure for me,” he says, “to step away from the kitchen and from food and to put all my focus and energy into two areas—art and the bar—that I don’t know a lot about. … It’s terrifying, but also really exciting. I like to do new things.

If I can’t stop thinking about something I know I have to do it. And this idea refused to leave me alone.”

To make it happen, DiBiccari has chosen a space at the new Bow Market in Somerville’s Union Square, where he will take up residence with more than 30 other independent food, art, and retail shops around an open courtyard. The rough idea is for artist residencies to last 45 to 60 days, and to feature not only opening and closing nights, but also time between those events to have other events to promote their work. The bar, meanwhile, will feature rotating draft cocktails developed by the region’s top bartenders, while the space will also be available for private events.

“When we make decisions for Create,” says DiBiccari, “every decision goes through the same filter and we ask ourselves, Does this help develop a larger platform for artists?

“If the answer is yes, then we try to do it.”

The concept of a gallery and lounge passes that test with flying colors.

DiBiccari buzzes, “We have the opportunity to go from giving artists three to four hours a night, once or twice a year [with Create], to what, five days a week? Of having an annual event to a 45-60 day residency?

“This is a no-brainer. It’s the most natural evolution for Create. We just do it.”

Last week, DiBiccari launched an Indiegogo campaign to raise funds to secure the gallery space. It’s critical, he says, to secure proper financing.

“The second part of our decision-making with Create is [to ask], Can we be profitable doing it at the same time?” DiBiccari explains. “As much as we want to be leading the charge for a lot of these local artists who are having trouble finding gallery space … you’re only helpful if you’re financially healthy.”

So, what’s next?

“We’re trying to figure out the business model,” DiBiccari says. “Once we start operating, it’s going to evolve. It’s going to take on a life of its own. I like to put something out and see how the world reacts to it, and try to understand it better.

Once people start using whatever I’ve brought into the world, I try to get the hell out of the way.

“Now that Create is going to be out there in the world full time, we have the opportunity to develop it in different ways, add branches to the tree. … I’m really openminded. We certainly haven’t thought of everything.

“Hospitality is in my blood. … The way I see it … we’re throwing a party every night.”

The CREATE gallery and cocktail lounge Indiegogo campaign is live through 8.8. To catch DiBiccari’s awardwinning Humaari menu, check him out in residence at Wink and Nod through 9.15.

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THE FESTS THEY ARE A CHANGIN’ MUSIC

Newport Folk Festival rights a whitewashed wrong

BY NINA CORCORAN @NINA_CORCORAN Newport Folk Festival earned its iconic status for a reason. The beloved Rhode Island music festival began in 1959 and cultivated a festival that looks beyond marquee names and trending topics to instead challenge the status quo of a specific scene. While the time and place of American folk music has shifted over the years, the festival has bent along with it, loosening up on the definition of folk to encompass everything the genre has to offer, a way to better represent what music can offer in time of political upheaval, personal struggle, cultural change, and regional pride. It manages to do all of this while remaining family friendly, too, bringing in the radical undercurrent without going rogue. It’s why DigBoston has covered the event ever since we began, returning time and time again with full hearts and happy ears.

That’s also why, in 2017, we took issue with what looked like an increasingly tone-deaf pattern in what, previously, looked like forward growth for the festival.

While Newport Folk Festival had several artists of color billed, last year’s lineup felt staggeringly white—to the point where it began reflecting in the crowd. As the US Census continues to prove, New England is a predominantly white region. The biggest music festival in the area can’t be blamed for an imbalance in diversity amongst attendees. Instead, it can question how to better represent Americans at large and the folk scene our country continues to foster. As was stated in our review of Sunday’s event last year, a Chuck Berry tribute saw a swarm of musicians collaborate while covering him without noting how Berry’s efforts helped elevate the black community. Why not note that?

Newport Folk Festival’s lineup is a fascinating tradition in the world of music festivals because organizers roll it out slowly over the months before the festival. There’s no dramatic reveal or countdown to a poster appearing. Instead, they trickle out artist names, varying in size, day, and placement on the overall bill.

The festival can afford to do this because presale tickets are nabbed without regards to who is performing, the result of festival management carefully creating a talentridden, consistently comfortable, and dependably fun event over the years. It’s why this year’s lineup sold out long ago, including individual day tickets. Newport Folk Festival is a supreme standout festival in a market that is rapidly muddling, and the decades of successful events it’s thrown only serve as concrete proof of such.

So it’s with genuine excitement we say that this year’s Newport Folk Festival lineup is looking like one of their best yet and one of their most well-balanced. Over the course of this year, the festival has slowly announced that this year’s event—which goes down July 27, 28, and 29— has 53 acts scheduled to perform. Of those, 22 include one or more musician of color. That’s 42 percent, almost half of this year’s lineup—and that doesn’t even include surprise guests that will pop up. The gender balance is nearly identical, with 23 of 53 acts including one or more female or nonbinary members, clocking in at 43 percent.

It’s a step forward many potential attendees have been silently pining to see.

As useful as statistics are, they strip life of its details.

If nothing else, the way lineups are formed and then acted out shouldn’t be measured solely by the numbers.

The diversity in this year’s group is spread evenly across genre and group size, with each act bringing something unique to the festival. Bedouine sings about her transnational upbringing growing up in Syria and Saudi Arabia. Ben Harper will trade generational blues with harmonica player Charlie Musselwhite. Alabama Shakes frontwoman Brittany Howard will bring her new band Bermuda Triangle to flex fresh music. Counterculture icons Cheech and Chong will play up their stereotypes while embracing their identities. Curtis Harding will drop his guard through vintage-tipped soul. Boston indie folk quartet Darlingside will get apocalyptic sans politics.

Fantastic Negrito will play some of his freshly awarded Grammy-winning blues tracks. Gary Clark Jr. will reclaim his title as the kind of modern blues guitar. Delta Spirit’s Matthew Logan Vasquez and the rest of Glorietta will let their voices bloom simultaneously, six band leaders with personal tales to tell. Rostam of Vampire Weekend fame will show off his flair for pop through his recent collaboration with Hamilton Leithauser. Houston trio Khruangbin will blend dub, psych, and soul with southern ease. Low Cut Connie will show what Philly’s rock revival has been up to. Wunderkind Moses Sumney will silence crowds with his moving control of looming questions and even bigger looped folk tricks. MexicanAmerican charmer Shakey Graves will bring every last speck of magical Texan storytelling to life. Mali singer Sidi Touré will break out the songhaï blues. NPR Tiny Desk Contest winners Tank and the Bangas will bring their

SAT 07.28

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TUE 07.31

[ONCE Somerville, 156 Highland Ave, Somerville.

6:30pm/18+/$10. oncesomerville.net]

[The Democracy Center, 45 Mt. Auburn St., Cambridge.

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MAKE IT NEW: CHILEAN DJ DANCE PARTY SHANTI CELESTE + BALTIMORODER [Middlesex Lounge, 315 Mass. Ave., Cambridge.

9pm/21+/$10. middlesexlounge.us]

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AUS T. REXTASY + LONELY PARADE + MINT GREEN

[Lilypad Inman, 1353 Cambridge St., Cambridge.

7:30pm/18+/$10. lilypadinman.com]

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FINAL FIST, WAVING PALM, BEDROOM POP FOREVER BELLOWS + SOFT FANGS + HAPPY LITTLE CLOUDS

ART OF SURVIVAL / RAICES BENEFIT MACSEAL + OLDSOUL + ENJOYER + PUSHFLOWERS

POST-HARDCORE STRAIGHT OUTTA THE ’90S QUICKSAND + GLASSJAW + PRIMITIVE WEAPONS

[Royale, 279 Tremont St., Boston. 6:30pm/18+/$35. royaleboston.com]

WED 08.01

AMERICAN UTOPIA: REASONS TO BE CHEERFUL DAVID BYRNE

[Blue Hills Bank Pavilion, 290 Northern Ave., Boston.

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PHOTO BY GUS BENNETT eclectic hooks to life on a real stage. The Sunday Groove will team up with the Preservation Hall Jazz Band to shine some light into the world. The War and Treaty will get down better than any other lovebirds around. Reggae icons Toots and the Maytals will show why they’ve earned their legendary status. Tuck & Patti will represent the soft side of jazz, and Annie Clark of St. Vincent will be there cheering on her aunt and uncle. Valerie June will break out the blues rock bluegrass with some extra Memphis twang. And in true Newport Folk Festival fashion, there’s a few special surprises, too, like when Jon Batiste and the Dap-Kings will host a special performance dubbed A Change Is Gonna Come that calls upon other on-site acts.

Reading through that list is a breath of fresh air no matter what festival you’re used to attending in the summertime. What Newport Folk Festival is doing is reminding attendees of where folk music got its roots in the first place while looking ahead at the future generations moving the baton forward. But perhaps the most important reason why Newport Folk Festival’s 2018 lineup is worth shouting from the rooftops about is because it sets a new standard for the festival booking game at large. If a genre-specific music festival can elevate the vibrant diversity that has been existing within its scene for decades, then music festivals that book rock, hip-hop, electronica, dance, ambient, and metal can certainly do better at representing what the American population, and the music population, looks like at large.

Technically this year of Newport Folk Festival hasn’t happened yet, so we can’t say it’s the best edition of its ranks that we’ve seen. But looking at a lineup like the festival’s 2018 one has us infinitely excited to see how it unfolds. There are artists to fall in love with, new music to discover, local acts to cherish, and beloved elder acts to cross off the bucket list. Newport Folk Festival has booked the type of lineup you feel excited to see before it happens and look back on years later in shock at the prefame undercard.

We’re willing to bet this year is one everyone will be talking about. And to think, the festival still has a handful of acts left to announce, too. >> NEWPORT FOLK FESTIVAL. FRI 7.27– SUN 7.29. FORT ADAMS, NEWPORT, RI. 12PM/ALL AGES/$90. NEWPORTFOLK.ORG

PHOTO COURTESY OF CURTIS HARDING

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FIDDLEHEAD MUSIC

How a mini hardcore supergroup learned to have heart post-death

BY NINA CORCORAN @NINA_CORCORAN

PHOTO BY REID HAITHCOCK You never quite get over the loss of a parent. And really, why should you? No matter how formative or destructive a role they played in your life, a parent has ties to your foundation that are hard to shake long after they’ve passed. The best you can do after losing them is to accept the memories and pain left in their absence—a process that takes far longer than most people will admit.

Patrick Flynn’s father, LTC Richard Flynn, passed away peacefully in his sleep on March 30, 2010. He was only 63 years old. Richard Flynn grew up in Hyde Park, the son of children of immigrants, determined to make the most of his family’s relatively poor income. After attending the US Military Academy at West Point to pursue a free education, he received a master’s degree in English from Indiana University. Because of his West Point enrollment, he briefly served in the Vietnam War. Then, after 25 years of service, he retired from the US Army and returned to teaching poetry and literature, this time at a high school level. His death occurred in the middle of a school semester. It was unexpected by all. Patrick Flynn and his aunt had to pick up all of his belongings in the classroom.

They both cried throughout the day.

Richard Flynn served as a role model in more ways than one. He was poetic and well-versed, stern but forgiving, the type of man who chooses his words with care and his silences with even more. Or at least, that’s how Patrick describes him to me, a bittersweet smile on his face, in the upstairs corner of Crema Cafe. He drove here straight from Lexington, where he teaches AP history in high school. His eyes light up as he talks about his father. Over the course of nearly three hours, Flynn rushes through words as if each sentence is the next best part of the story, all while taking his time so that each detail can contextualize the stories to a deeper level.

“My father was incredible but also an asshole because he was a human being” Flynn says with a side grin. “My favorite memory of him is from the very first Have Heart tour, back when we were all 18. I had a break between the

fall and spring semesters of freshman year of college. The van me and the friends we were touring with fell out, so we had to fit everything into two shitty cars and drive down to Baltimore where someone was willing to lend us a van.

We were all at my house.

That’s when my father told everyone to stop. He sat us down in the living room and asked, ‘What are you doing? What is the plan? I’m getting the impression zero adults have asked you this.’ I was sitting there with my head down. It was humiliating because my father was infantilizing me in front of all of my friends. He was talking about it in a way as if he wouldn’t let us go. It was dead silent. Then he stopped and said we could all go. I was so pissed that this was how the tour was starting off, as if he had almost ruined the tour itself. Right before we drove off, he said, ‘You know, Paddy. Heavy is the head that wears the crown.’

Which I now understand. But back then, I was like, ‘Fuck you, cool, bring up some Shakespeare bullshit.’ I got in the car and sat there with a merch bag shoved in my face.

I thought about it that whole ride and realized that he was trying to tell me I’m the leader in this situation; of course it will be shitty because I’m the one doing all the hard work, but I should revel in the fact that I made it all happen. And here I am, still thinking about his words some 16 years later.”

That tour was the start of Flynn’s musical career, an outlet that would extend from his young teenage years all the way on through to where he’s at now, a 30-something Massachusetts native who got married several weeks ago. He founded the iconic Boston straight edge hardcore band Have Heart in 2002. That soon turned into Free, and off stemmed other punk side projects like Sweet Jesus and Wolf Whistle. By the time he reached his mid-20s, Flynn unintentionally became the role model for droves of Boston hardcore kids and, as they shared his bands’ music with friends, listeners throughout New England. The music was aggressive and fast on the surface, each notated by Flynn’s reckless yells, but careful at its core. His mother and father were just glad that he joined an anti-drug and -alcohol community.

So it’s funny that Flynn ended up in Fiddlehead, a band that’s more canorous and dynamic than anything he’s ever been in before. With Basement member Alex Henery on guitar, Casey Nealon on bass, Shawn Costa on drums, Alex Dow on guitar, and Flynn on lead vocals, the five work their way through melodies more in tune with post-hardcore and alt-rock than anything else. Their 2014 debut EP, Out of the Bloom, bears direct comparisons to artists like Slint and Fugazi. The band’s debut full-length, Springtime and Blind, released this April via Run For Cover Records, continues that musical trend, but leans into

influences like Samiam and Archers of Loaf as well.

The band came together when Flynn was living with Dow on Saunders Street in Allston, both looking to create new music beyond the hardcore scene because they recently hit a low point in their lives. Basement had just broken up at the time, so Henery would swing by the apartment to hang out, play board games, and chat. In the summer of 2013, they decided to jam together and invited Costa over to drum. They turned one riff into “My Arboretum.” Then another stringy guitar line turned into “Birdnest.” They tried their hand at a Mission of Burma cover. Flynn doesn’t play instruments, so he acts as a director, offering input by only seeing songs through the lens of the lyrics, stripping away the technical elements to push boundaries to high, and oftentimes unrealistic, expectations. Soon, they had amassed a demo and decided Ned Russin of Title Fight would record it. But once Basement reunited, Fiddlehead had to put things on hold. The following year, they started making music again in an easygoing, patchwork fashion. They put out their debut EP that fall.

If you’ve seen Fiddlehead perform live before, congratulations. The band is pretty hard to track down even if you keep your eyes peeled for concerts. Because all of the members live in different cities and, in the case of Henery, different countries, it’s difficult for them to line their schedules up for a show, nevermind a tour. It’s been 15 weeks since Springtime and Blind came out, and Fiddlehead have yet to hold a proper record release show in Boston, the city they cite as their hometown. That changes this Friday. On July 27, the band will play the Elks Lodge in Cambridge to celebrate their debut album. Lilith and Mil-Spec will open. The fact that Fiddlehead were able to find the time to record an album is a feat in that sense. Between 2014 to 2016, the period in which they wrote Springtime and Blind, the band only practiced as a unit five times, each session clocking in around four hours.

With a new outlet like Fiddlehead to share his thoughts, Flynn realized the band’s proper album could be a chance to try more personal material. Because Fiddlehead already stuck out as the unlikely artsy outlet he was in, he decided to push things further by discussing something he had yet to tackle in music: the death of his father. Instead of focusing on the personal and private aspect of losing his father, Flynn decided to focus on arguably a much harder aspect of loss: watching, questioning, and wanting to comprehend his mother’s grieving process. “This album is me essentially ferociously trying to understand someone’s pain while knowing the whole time that you never will,” he says.

It’s hard to do for many reasons. For one, his parents had a fairy tale marriage. They were the type of couple who wrote letters while separated by distance during the war, prioritized education above all else, and raised a family on happiness while hiding the struggles they had to handle. But before he could analyze the way his mother handled the death, Flynn had to move past his own memories first. He began replaying memories on loop. The way he saw it, he had to get to the point of exhausting the emotional side of loss, but not the importance of it, in order to move beyond the pain it caused. If he wanted to retain these memories forever without feeling the extreme emotional tax they tolled each time, he had to.

On its surface, Springtime and Blind addresses what it’s like to watch a loved one lose someone. What makes the record stand out in the way it handles death, however, is the details built into the record beyond its lyrics. In the middle of “Poem You” comes an old answering machine

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message Flynn’s father recorded, one that remains on his family’s home phone to this day because his mother couldn’t bring herself to delete it. The story his mother tells on “4/17/70,” where she recounts his father returning from the war a week early, was a recording Flynn secretly captured on his phone during a dinner conversation.

Songs swap effortlessly between his voice and hers, be it in her words or her delivery.

There’s a lot of duplexity in the music because there was in real life. It’s why the album’s title—Springtime and Blind, riffing on the idea that blindness resonates more deeply with someone if it occurs during a vibrant season—is juxtaposed with the album cover: a photograph taken by Flynn’s father of his mother, her arms spread wide and eyes closed, while on a roadtrip through the south. One of the album’s most commonly misread song titles, “Widow in the Sunlight,” came from Flynn realizing the weight of this juxtaposition in real time.

“My father passed away on the eve of March 30th, and it was a perfectly gorgeous spring,” says Flynn. “I remember one time, I pulled into my driveway and my mother was sitting in a chair in sunlight. She was sitting there, right in the middle of the lawn. And it was fucking sad. Seeing her sitting there, taking it in, the warmth, and yet you know she’s just terribly, terribly upset deep down. I’ll never forget it.”

It’s been eight years, and only now is Flynn learning how to grapple with the proper aftermath of his father’s loss. He doesn’t want to throw away the memories he has of his father. He just wants them to lose their emotional baggage so he can finally look back on those times with a happy, reflective nostalgia—an important distinction if there ever was one. His lyric-writing process became twice as hard because of that. Flynn doesn’t write lyrics the way most songwriters do. There’s no romanticized moment of the pen hitting the paper while at a restaurant. There’s no frantic iPhone note filled with ideas. There’s no trash bin filled with rejected poems he crumpled into balls. Instead, his lyric-writing process centers around total isolation. At home, he waits for everyone to leave the house, lowers the blinds, turns off the lights, and then yells a melody, waiting for the words to form themselves. The method’s on par with a sensory deprivation tank, but it works.

Flynn waited until the band was in the studio recording Springtime and Blind to come up with the album’s lyrics. So he locked himself in the studio’s soundproof room—a tiny, pitch-black space whose only light filters in through a small window— because he could scream inside it without a peep being heard by the rest of the band.

It was the closest he could get to emulating his dark home environment. “It was the most intense situation I’ve ever been in,” he laughs. “Just me in complete darkness, finally, letting out massive screams that nobody could hear.”

But the clock ticked faster than Flynn anticipated. While he was able to figure out lyrics for the majority of Springtime and Blind in that room, a few songs remained untouched, requiring him to come up with lyrics while literally in the process of recording. Album opener “Spousal Loss” is the most vivid instance of such. The unscripted sentiments that appeared were unfiltered truths: “Can’t feel the pass of time / Or any warmth above / Or the sun’s light / Then here’s a son’s love: / All your loss of love, just leave it on me.”

“Thankfully I’m comfortable with my emotions in life, but singing like that [on “Spousal Loss”] was hard,” says Flynn. “I was in front of two guys, Alex and our engineer Jesse, trying to articulate how my mother grieves the loss of my father.

After 10 minutes, I started yelling through the lack of lyrics—not while crying, but somewhat teary—and conjured up some honest, reflective, and thoughtful lines.

Those lines introduce what the record would be about.”

For those wondering (like I was), Flynn’s mother hasn’t heard the record yet, but she knows it exists. “I told her that some of her audio would be on the record, that the photo Dad took of her on vacation would be the cover. She just responded, ‘Oh. Oh cool.’ So I told her, ‘I think you might like the music this time around because it’s not only yelling, so it’s kind of nice?’ and she said, ‘Oh cool, cool,’” he says with a laugh.

He told her this about a month ago.

They were gathered with family at a memorial service for his uncle who passed away from heart disease. The record had just come out. At one point during the memorial service, she went outside for a cigarette break and Flynn followed.

He showed her the album cover and played “4/17/70” off his phone, marking the first time she would hear the voice memo Fiddlehead turned into a beautiful, instrumental-like track. He said they shared a short conversation and some silence.

In a way, that was all he needed to hear. Flynn isn’t looking for a thank you from his mother or any kind of praise. He just wants her to know that he’s there.

“She hasn’t heard the record yet. No, not in full. I don’t know. I told her that the record is about Dad and her dealing with the passing. But no, she hasn’t heard it.

She’s funny like that,” he says. “My mother has only ever been to one show of mine: the last Have Heart show, which was a benefit for the women’s shelter my mom runs.

There were over 2,000 people there and [my parents] were both like, ‘What the fuck?’

Kids flew in from places like Japan and London. But no, I don’t know if she will listen to this. She doesn’t have to. And if she does, I just want her to know that I want to understand. I want her to know that I care.”

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FEATURE

DEPT. OF COMMERCE

ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT

19

WORKING FOR THE WEEKEND FILM

Sundays are for the boys in Jim McKay’s latest film

BY JAKE MULLIGAN @_JAKEMULLIGAN

FERNANDO CARDONA BEING DIRECTED BY JIM MCKAY. EN EL SÈPTIMO DÌA (ON THE SEVENTH DAY). COURTESY OF CINEMA GUILD. En el Séptimo Día (On the Seventh Day) [2018] takes place across a nine-day timeline, beginning on a Sunday and concluding on a Monday. The milieu is revealed on day one: We’re in the Sunset Park neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York, and most of the characters we’re seeing are undocumented immigrants originally from Puebla, Mexico.

But it’s not until a dinner-table conversation on day four that lead character José (Fernando Cardona) reveals all his conflicts in their entirety: (a) that his boss at the La Frontera restaurant is forcing him to work on this coming Sunday despite the fact that he already works the other six days of the week, (b) which means he’ll miss his recreational fútbol team’s much-anticipated championship game, but (c) if he quits his job to play then he’ll lose all the paid time off he’s accrued, and (d) that’s something he truly can’t afford to lose, because his wife is still in Mexico, six months pregnant, and he needs a “vacation” imminently so that he can accompany her into the States before their child is born.

It’d be easy for a viewer, any viewer, myself included, to look at the scenario and say: Well, obviously, he’d skip the game, and that just is what it is. But how dishonest! To pretend that we don’t all knowingly fuck up here and there just to indulge in the acts which bring us real pleasure—and especially in those cases where said pleasure is more than overdue, and would stick it to the boss as a side effect. What bullshit to front by saying this isn’t drama on a high scale!

The film operates from a triangular dynamic that is deeply recognizable—the relationship between the people we love, the things we love to do, and the labor we undertake to secure time for them both.The film is written and directed

by Jim McKay, who thankfully pays due attention to the labor itself, particularly in the film’s earlier passages. Each day is announced by a new intertitle, so they essentially function as chapters. And two of the first ones—“Lunes/ Monday” and “Martes/Tuesday” (everything in the film is presented in a bilingual fashion, and both English and Spanish subtitles are included for dialogue and title cards alike)—work to approximate the pattern of a day’s work as experienced by José. In the “Monday” chapter, which runs for about 15 of the film’s 90 minutes, there’s a clear

structural conceit: José make his deliveries, but in between each delivery, he goes to see one of his other teammates at their own place of work, which means we’re cataloging some of the jobs available to undocumented immigrants in Brooklyn (we see one teammate stocking a bodega, another making deliveries for a different restaurant, another mopping up the floors at a 24/7 porn shop, and a few others loading up a truck for construction work). The “Tuesday” chapter commits to documenting his means for making a living even most rigorously: Though it runs for only 8 minutes, it seems to contain the whole of an 8+ hour work day.The “Martes/Tuesday” chapter functions as a miniature portrait of the mental and emotional work required by pretty much any job that’s adjacent to the service industry.

During the segment, we see José make two separate deliveries, one of which is complicated by a customer’s faux pas; and in between those deliveries, he’s browbeaten and ballbusted at La Frontera itself, save for a friendly exchange with a coworker named Lisa (Mathia Vargas). She is the exception: Everyone else in the segment speaks to José with either a monotonous or condescending tone—and José, still a bit shaky with English himself, generally keeps his voice down too. The passage ends with José finally home, talking to his wife via Skype, looking dead exhausted, by the biking, by the heat, by the people, and presumably by the general lack of respect he’s been faced with all day long.

When she tells him that she’s feeling horny, he pretty much rebukes her—I suspect not so much out of embarrassment, but more because he’s far too worn out to react any other way. Of course no minds will be blown to find that service workers are often made to carry the blame for both their managers and their customers, nor will many be surprised to see that people who speak only English often treat neighbors who speak mostly Spanish with a verbal manner that borders on the inhumane. But the “Tuesday” segment manages to boil all the implications of those dynamics into a deeply natural movement of circumstances, behaviors, and effects—a little grace note that almost seems to stand alone within the larger structure of the film.From there McKay’s film settles into a more traditional rhythm: José’s

inability to come clean to the team about his scheduling conflict leads to barroom arguments, added stress at work, and a shorthanded team on the day of the championship game, all climaxing in a coup de théâtre that brings José’s work life and his soccer life into a deeply unbalanced coexistence. The sports-movie drama does play, albeit not as naturally as the labor cycle. And in all this, there are recognizable echoes of specific cinematic forebears: In the explicitly financial narrative concerns and in José’s primary method of travel, there is the shadow of Vittorio De Sica’s Bicycle Thieves [1948]; and in the way the film exudes a sense of documentary realism and then offsets that very realism with a narrative coup, there is something of the films of Jafar Panahi, including of course his soccer-specific masterpiece Offside [2006]. The Panahi influence is one that McKay has spoken about on record: “I was drawn to the aesthetic of nonactors or not-known actors— the rawness of that—and a very simple camera,” McKay told Amy Taubin, in an interview published by Film Comment. “You’d watch it and you’d go, ‘Okay, is this real?’ But truthfully when we started shooting, I realized, these guys are actually doing it. … It also threw me off a little because the feel, the tone, of the film is actually now different, and because of that, they’ve actually got to be even better. Now that they’re acting, they’ve got to really act.” This gets at something the film itself doesn’t manage to untangle: Around the soccer pitch, the performers “really act”—in a traditional emotive manner—because that’s what the script is calling for—hell, some moments in the final passage even appropriate the feel of a caper movie.

That’s far removed from the dispassionate presentation of “Monday” or “Tuesday.” One could say the shift is the very point: that McKay draws a discernible line between the way he depicts one kind of need (the kind sated by paid work) and the way he depicts another (the kind sated by play, on the pitch or anywhere else). And who am I to say the film should be something other than what it actually is? So instead I’ll just say I found En el Séptimo Día’s portrait of grinding workdays to be deeply empathetic, and counterintuitively so, because its empathy grows from depictions of purely dispassionate behavior. And in that, I found it strangely beautiful—though by the time the film had ended, nearly in theatrics, I’d lost my grasp on that same feeling. The Brattle Theatre will be playing En el Séptimo Día this weekend, before playing Girls Town [1996], another film by McKay, a few days later. And Girls Town is pretty much unavailable for home viewing, despite its reputation as a “defining New York independent film feature” (per that same Amy Taubin article). To see it, one has only two options: purchase a used VHS copy online, or see a 35mm print at a repertory theatre, like the one the Brattle will be playing on Aug 2 at 5 and 9:30 pm. That’s one night only, on a weekday, in the evening, so if you’re working a night shift on the weekdays—like, full disclosure, myself—then you’re pretty much cornered. It’s a rare opportunity, and one that may never repeat itself. But is it worth missing a shift?

>> EN EL SÉPTIMO DÍA. BRATTLE THEATRE, 40 BRATTLE ST., CAMBRIDGE. FRI 7.27–MON 7.30. SEE BRATTLEFILM.ORG FOR SHOWTIMES. DIRECTOR JIM MCKAY WILL BE PRESENT FOR A Q&A FOLLOWING THE 8:30PM SHOW ON 7.30. >> GIRLS TOWN. BRATTLE THEATRE. THU 8.2. 5 AND 9:30PM. RATED R. 35MM. 20

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THEATER REVIEW PERFORMANCE ARTS

BY CHRISTOPHER EHLERS @_CHRISEHLERS

If there’s only one thing you do this week, it should be to find time to get to Chelsea’s PORT Park to catch Apollinaire Theatre Company’s practically perfect (and free) production of William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. It isn’t only that this outdoor production takes full and inventive advantage of Chelsea’s unique waterfront landscape, but it also features a deliriously funny ensemble of THE CAST OF A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM. actors who—under the thrilling PHOTO BY DANIELLE FAUTEUX JACQUES. direction of Danielle Fauteux Jacques—quite literally make magic under the summer stars.

Hermia (Olivia Z. Cote) and Lysander (Jon Vellante) are in love and wish to marry but Hermia’s father, Egeus (Tony Dangerfield), has already promised her to Demetrius (John Manning). Despite the young lovers’ protestations, Theseus, the Duke of Athens (Demetrius Fuller) rules that Hermia must either follow her father’s wishes, live out her life as a nun, or be put to death. Hermia’s best friend, Helena (a scene-stealing Kelly Young), was engaged to Demetrius before he was set up with Hermia, and she’s still madly in love with him despite the fact that he has moved on to Hermia. Lysander and Hermia decide to elope and set off into the woods, a magical place filled with mischievous fairies. Demetrius takes off in pursuit of Hermia and the scorned Helena runs after Demetrius, intent on winning him back.

Also traveling through the woods are a group of “rude mechanicals” who are rehearsing for a play that they are to perform at the upcoming wedding of Theseus.

(The five laborers turned actors are played with comic perfection by Joey C. Pelletier, Brooks Reeves, Samuel Warton, David Picariello, and Erik P. Kraft.)

The king and queen of the fairies, Oberon and Titania (played by the terrific Cassie Foote and Michael John Ciszewski), are having a spat of their own, and Oberon enlists his magical sprite, Puck (Benjamin Finn), to enact some revenge on Titania. There is a flower in the enchanted woods that, when brushed over the eyes of someone as they sleep, will cause the person to fall in love with the first thing they see when they wake up. Oberon has Puck rub the flower over Titania’s eyes and, having overheard Helena begging Dimitrius to take her back, Oberon tells Puck to intervene. But Puck gets it wrong and applies the flower to Lysander instead, causing chaos (and hilarity) among the four lovers. Puck also decides to have a little bit of fun while he’s at it and turns Bottom, one of the laborers, into a donkey. (Can you guess who Titania will first gaze upon when he wakes?) By play’s end, as you might imagine, spells are reversed, the lovers are set right, Titania and Oberon reconcile, and the mechanicals’ play is finally performed at the wedding of Theseus.

I love everything about this production, and that includes its first-rate cast.

John Vellante, John Manning, Kelly Young, and Olivia Z. Cote have blissful comedic camaraderie, as do Brooks Reeves, Joey C. Pelletier, and the band of laborers. The genders of Oberon and Titania have been flipped for this production (if fairies have genders at all)—Cassie Foote is a formidable, punkish Oberon and Michael John Ciszewski is a delicious Titania, the fairy queen who has been reimagined as, well, a big queen. Benjamin Finn has just the right of mischievous pep as Puck.

The first and third acts are performed at the grassy amphitheater where the lushness of plants and flowers add natural, indispensable ambiance. For the second act, the audience is moved to one of the giant salt mounds where set designer Marc Poirier has constructed a cribwork playing space made out of World War II-era fir timbers. Illuminated by Chris Bocchiaro, the massive playing space looks undeniably magical. Susan Paino’s costumes, too, get everything right. David Reiffel has composed a bit of original music for this production (as he did for last year’s production at Actors’ Shakespeare Project), and it is performed by Fernando Barbosa (who also doubles as a fairy) on a piano mounted on an actual pile of salt. The music gives the production an added layer of mysticality that, when paired with the sounds of the Chelsea River rippling just feet behind the audience, makes the experience feel very dreamlike.

With just one bathroom and intermissions only long enough to allow the audience to move to the next location, at least one longer break is needed. And if you’re bringing a picnic, arrive extra early as the first act runs for only 20 minutes before you’ll need to abandon it and move over to the salt mounds.

Those two points aside, there is no better way to spend a summer evening right now than with Apollinaire in Chelsea. This Midsummer is transportive, serene, and one of the best productions of 2018. It is two hours of nonstop joy I would wish on anyone. >> A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM. THROUGH 7.29 AT APOLLINAIRE THEATRE COMPANY AT PORT PARK, 99 MARGINAL ST., CHELSEA. APOLLINAIRETHEATRE.COM NEWS TO US

FEATURE

DEPT. OF COMMERCE

ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT

21

QUICKIES SAVAGE LOVE

BY DAN SAVAGE @FAKEDANSAVAGE | MAIL@SAVAGELOVE.NET I’ve been faithfully reading your column in the Chicago Reader for years, and now I’m reaching out to you about my own problem. I’ve been dating this guy for almost a year. Everything is great, except one thing: He wants me to kick him in the nuts. It really bothers me, and I’m not sure what to do. He’s very serious about it, and he brings it up every single day. It makes me really uncomfortable that this is some sort of fetish of his and I need help taking steps forward.

To Kick Or Not To Kick P.S. I play soccer and I kick hard.

It’s a kink called “ball busting,” TKONTK, and as long as you don’t kick him full force—or even half force—you’re unlikely to do permanent damage. That said, childless guys who are into ball busting are often advised to freeze their sperm just in case. And while it’s not a hugely popular kink, it’s common enough that ball busting porn exists, and ball busting Tumblrs, ball busting blogs, etc. Take it slow at first, particularly if your guy has only fantasized about this and not experienced it.

P.S. A guy who brings up his kink every single day deserves to be kicked in the nuts—unless he’s into ball busting, in which case he doesn’t deserve to be kicked in the nuts.

My husband and I were married in Toronto, Canada, in 2005, before marriage equality came to the United States. Does the US government recognize our Canadian marriage or do we need to remarry in the US? Can you find out from one of your legal friends?

Does Our Marriage Apply?

“The US government does recognize your marriage,” said Robbie Kaplan, one of my legal friends—and the attorney who represented Edith Windsor before the US Supreme Court and won. In United States v. Windsor, the Supreme Court ruled that the federal government was required to recognize legal samesex marriages, thereby gutting the Defense of Marriage Act. “We did the same thing,” Kaplan added. “We were married in Toronto in 2006, and the US recognizes our marriage. No need to get married again here.”

Hi Dan, I am getting in touch because I thought you might be interested in the following article: “Getting to the Bottom of Pegging.” For open-minded people who are open to butt play, pegging is a great way to spice things up in the bedroom. But what exactly is pegging and why is it a thing now? Sex and relationships expert, Tami Rose, knows how important it is to try new things in the bedroom. She would be able to provide an article explaining what pegging is and tips for your more adventurous readers who want to give it a go. I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

[Redacted] PR Agency Pegging? Never heard of it. Wait—what’s that, Wikipedia?

“Pegging is a sexual practice in which a woman performs anal sex on a man by penetrating the man’s anus with a strap-on dildo…

The neologism “pegging” was popularized when it became the winning entry in a contest in Dan Savage’s Savage Love sex advice column [in 2001].”

What’s the fairest way to determine who should get tied up?

Bondage Bottom Boyfriends Whoever was tied up last time does the tying up this time and vice versa.

On the Lovecast, Dan and the lesbian panel!: savagelovecast.com

22

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COMEDY EVENTS THU 07.26

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DON’T TELL BOSTON

Secret locations. Secret comedians. BYOB! Don’t Tell Comedy is a secret comedy show that hosts some of the best and brightest comedians in the United States. Purchase a ticket and the exact location will be emailed to you by our event coordinator the day of the show. To purchase tickets go to: http://www. donttellcomedy.com.

Friday: Allston Saturday: Brookline/Coolidge Corner

7:30PM | $25

FRI 07.27 - SAT 07.28

DAN CROHN @ NICK’S COMEDY STOP

100 WARRENTON ST., BOSTON | 8PM | $20 FRI 07.27

THE GAS! @ GREAT SCOTT

A Garfield Tribute featuring: Sean Sullivan, Rob Crean, John Paul Rivera, Anthony Scibelli, Brandon Vallee, & more.

Hosted by Nick Ortolani and Katie McCarthy

1222 COMM AVE., ALLSTON | 7PM | $5 SAT 07.28

OFF-MIC @ GALLERY 263

Featuring: Logan O’Brien, Jere Pilapil, Emily Ruskowski, Sam Pelletier, Kwasi Mensah, & Colleen Genevieve.

Hosted by Chris Post and Ryan Chani

263 PEARL ST., CAMBRIDGE | 8PM | $5 SUN 07.29

LIQUID COURAGE COMEDY @ SLUMBREW

Featuring: Ethan Diamond, Jimmy Whitman, Stirling Esse, Alex Giampapa, Mike Settlow, Dan Crohn.

Hosted by Liam McGurk

15 WARD ST., SOMERVILLE | 8PM | $5 MON 07.30

FREE COMEDY @ CITYSIDE

Featuring: Carmen Lagala & more.

Hosted by Sam Ike & Anjan Biswas

1960 BEACON ST., BRIGHTON | 8:30PM | FREE TUE 07.31

COMEDY PARTY @ GARCIA BROGAN’S

Featuring: Danny Kelly, Brian Longwell, Mark Turcotte, Ellen Sugarman, & Sam Pelletier.

Hosted by Matthew P Brown

240 MOODY ST, WALTHAM | 9PM | FREE WED 08.01

LIMELIGHT COMEDY CLUB

Featuring: Ethan Quinn, David Thomas, Dan Crohn, & Ted Pettingell.

Hosted by Terence Pennington and Elisha Seigel

204 TREMONT ST, BOSTON | 7:30PM | FREE

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

HEADLINING THIS WEEK!

Corey Rodrigues + Kelly MacFarland Friday + Saturday

COMING SOON Ron Jeremy’s XL Comedy Tour Special Engagement: Sun, July 29

The World Series of Comedy

THE WAY WE WEREN’T

BY PAT FALCO ILLFALCO.COM

Aug 1-4

Ryan Davis

Social media sensation Special Engagement: Weds, Aug 8

Dan St. Germain

No Real Winners Here Album Tour Special Engagement: Fri, Aug 10

OUR VALUED CUSTOMERS

BY TIM CHAMBERLAIN OURVC.NET

Prinze and The Wolf Live Podcast Hosts: Freddie Prinze Jr. and Josh Wolf Special Engagement: Sat, Aug 11

617.72.LAUGH | laughboston.com 425 Summer Street at the Westin Hotel in Boston’s Seaport District NEWS TO US

FEATURE

DEPT. OF COMMERCE

ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT

23

SHIFT GEARS. GET WEIRD.

featuring

THE VOIDZ CITY HALL PLAZA • 12PM - 5PM • $15

AUGUST 11 BOSTON TH

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