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THE S S E N R E WILD N OF RUI
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R NT FO THE HU YOUNGEST CA'S AMERI I AL KILLER SER
FEATURE
BOB LOBEL BOSTON SPORTS BROADCASTING ICON +THE NEW FACE OF
MEDICAL CANNABIS IN MASS
NEWS
MEET THE REAL PRINCIPALS OF
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check out page 8
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NEWS TO US FEATURE DEPT. OF COMMERCE
VOL 17 + ISSUE 15
APRIL 15, 2015 - APRIL 22, 2015
NEWS, FEATURES + MEDIA FARM EDITOR Chris Faraone ASSOCIATE MUSIC EDITOR Martín Caballero ASSOCIATE A+E EDITOR Spencer Shannon CONTRIBUTORS Boston Bastard, Nina Corcoran, Emily Hopkins, Micaela Kimball, Jake Mulligan, Cady Vishniac, Dave Wedge INTERNS Paige Chaplin
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ON THE COVER
This week, legendary sportscaster Bob Lobel hangs out for our cover to deliver an important message. Read all about it on page 12. Photo by the equally legendary Derek Kouyoumjian.
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DEAR READER As the most aggressively pro-pot media outlet in the Hub, we consider our annual 420 issue one of our favorite special annual editions. And this year is no different. As the messy and confusing process involved with following the lead of states like Colorado on legalization continues to unfold here in Mass, we consider it a point of pride that through it all DigBoston remains on the front lines of the discussion. And on that note, we are excited to return with more about the need for pot reform and to applaud all there is to celebrate when it comes to cannabis. Our feature this week centers on local sports broadcasting icon Bob Lobel, who due to chronic pain and an aversion to addiction-laden modern pharmaceuticals has become the unlikely new face of medicinal marijuana. His moving story can be read on page 12. Additionally, we have an easy-to-recreate recipe for a dynamite batch of pot brownies that anyone who has ever been interested in the effects and benefits of edibles will want to keep on hand for future bake sessions (which can be read both ways). Additionally, Blunt Truth—our weekly column on the cannabis industry in New England—focuses on Healthy Headie Lifestyle of Boston, which was recently selected for a business accelerator for the cannabis industry. It’s a new world. Sure, progress in repealing cannabis prohibition in Mass is a slow slog through red tape and outdated thinking. But while we’re here, we’ll continue to fight and spread awareness until one day soon we’ll all be able to look back on this time leading up to the post-prohibition epoch and know that us pot proponents and supporters saw legalization as inevitable.
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DIGTIONARY
CANNABAVOID
noun ˈkanəb əˈvoid 1. The demonstrated absence of legal medicinal cannabis due to outdated thinking, and improper regressive legislation, in any municipality.
OH, CRUEL WORLD Dear Racist Cab Driver, Are you really going to make me be an outspoken ally to my friends of color right now? I’m just trying to overpay for my ride home. Is that too much to ask? But since I’m lily white, you think it’s okay to slander every minority who drives by, and so now I have to make this utterly uncomfortable. I wonder if you’d do this if you drove an Uber, where customers can give you the shitty rating you deserve. Of course, you’d probably just give me an equivalent evaluation in return, since I spat on your driver’s side window and called you a “Racist Motherfucker” as I ran off after farting in your back seat. Keep it classy.
ILLUSTRATION BY ELISE CAMERON
EDITORIAL
NEWS US
THE OPERATORS NEWS TO US
Meet the third-party partners who are really running Boston Public Schools BY CHRIS FARAONE @FARA1
No New England boy was allowed to question that he was destined to succeed in life, and Boston was determined that the boys and girls, and the blind and the lame as well, should have the opportunity to know enough.
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So wrote historian Van Wyck Brooks in his 1936 regional portrait. Describing the impact of Horace Mann and the ensuing whirlwind of education reform that transformed the commonwealth and eventually young America, Brooks emphasized the strong New England tradition of pushing growing minds to overcome inadequacies and become scholars. In retrospect, that description by Brooks could pass for the motivational speak in which contemporary ed reformers traffic. Take, for example, a 2010 report by the Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education (MBAE); titled “Human Capital in Boston Public Schools,” the manifesto calls for a “commitment to a high quality public education system that will prepare all students to engage successfully in a global economy and society.” The tone sounds familiar. Unlike in Horace Mann’s day, however, in 2015 the push for sweeping overhauls in schools comes from business groups like MBAE, whose directorial board is a who’s who of construction, banking, and other executives. Said human capital research was conducted with grants from the Barr Foundation, The Boston Foundation, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, all major players in this steady and ubiquitous disruption. The “corporate ed reform movement,” as some critics categorize such venture philanthropy, has come under fire of late due to various brazen grabs for public education dollars. As Business Insider reported last month about a Gates Foundation forum in Manhattan, which was titled Bonds & Blackboards: Investing In Charter Schools: Hedge funds and other private businesses are particularly interested in the growth and success of charter schools.
The growth of charter networks around the US offer new revenue streams for investing, and the sector is quickly growing. Funding for charter schools is further incentivized by generous tax credits for investments to charter schools in underserved areas. Beneath the surface war between unions and charter school cheerleaders like Gates, a much more nuanced shift in administration and policy has gone virtually unnoticed, at least in the Bay State. As ascertained by interviews conducted for this story, very few families, administrators, or even workers inside Boston Public Schools (BPS) know exactly what’s happening, as the line between traditional schools and their charter counterparts grows blurrier. Even if the public institution in your neighborhood, or the one that your child, niece, or nephew attends, is a public school in name, outside partners may be tasked with duties ranging from teaching to counseling. Similar to the way in which the MBTA Commuter Rail is operated by Keolis, a private company, an increasing number of third-party players are being given control of Hub schools. Unlike the MBTA arrangement though, this is a case in which money flowing from taxpayers to nonprofit BPS partners is often difficult to trace, and is not always itemized for transparency purposes. Despite tepid-toweak results stemming from partnerships in Mass so far, the trend continues; in one recent example that spurred controversy among Roxbury residents, BPS handed over the struggling Dearborn School on Geneva Street to a nongovernmental entity, along with a new $70 million state-ofthe-art Science Technology Engineering and Math (STEM) facility. The new Dearborn won’t technically be a charter school, but it will be run by a charter operator (or “receiver,” as they’re sometimes called). Charter partners have varying roles in almost every school where they have contracts, which in certain cases seems to make for an administrative mess. Upon discovering that Shaun Harrison, a dean at English High School in
Jamaica Plain, had apparently shot a student who was dealing weed for him, BPS was unable to immediately pinpoint how Harrison first became a city worker. By the time he was employed at English, Harrison had held jobs at four BPS schools, all of which had receiverships or partner agreements during his tenure. More than a month after the arrest, however, very little remains known about his movements as a dean and educator. The Boston Globe concluded in early April that, “His path to Magazine Street [where he allegedly tried to execute a student] may never be fully known. But Harrison worked alone.” Though pieces of his personal mystery persist, the trail of Harrison’s steps within BPS help to explain how schools in Boston, heck, in all of Massachusetts have been quietly overtaken by many of the same forces behind the Boston 2024 Olympics, the subprime lending crisis, school software and testing companies, and dozens of investment funds and business interests that are impacting everything from policy to curriculum. This is not another article about the fight over the number of commonwealth institutions that operate outside of the direct purview of school districts and unions— the “charter cap” debate, as reporters have characterized that polarizing spat. Nor is this a wholesale attack on the socalled “education reform movement,” which even many of its critics reluctantly concede has forced public school loyalists to welcome new challenges. This saga is infinitely more complex than any of the buzzword dramas playing out in the media, and that may be the most alarming part.
THE BLUEPRINT
More than two weeks after his arrest, BPS was still mining its internal files for any applications and paperwork related to the tenure of reverend and accused shooter Shaun Harrison. Records that were eventually found and disclosed to the media suggest he first turned up in the system at Odyssey High School in South Boston, where Harrison reportedly THE OPERATORS continued on pg. 7
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“This saga is infinitely more complex than any of the buzzword dramas playing out in the media, and that may be the most alarming part.”
nantucket
began working in 2010 on the strength of prior training in human services. For three years prior to that, he worked as an outreach case manager and mentoring specialist for the Bird Street Community Center, the whole time running a side business called Youth In Crisis Ministry Inc., which Harrison appears to have incubated throughout his gradual downfall. If there ever were a place where Harrison could slip through the cracks or go unseen, that place was Odyssey, one of three experimental institutions (along with Excel and Monument high schools) carved out of South Boston High during the “small schools” craze. Amidst a seismic overhaul in his time there, an army of consultants and assorted ed reformers swarmed Southie High, using the building as an experimental teaching lab and an apparent dumping ground for undesirable cronies. Years later, the Boston Globe discovered that the Odyssey headmaster, whose official attendance record didn’t reflect his penchant for tardiness and absenteeism, had dated a former colleague of Superintendent Johnson. In the wake of the headmaster debacle, BPS closed Odyssey and relocated its students to Boston Green Academy in Brighton, where Harrison shows up on the city payroll as having worked as a community field director making $36,000 in 2012. A district spokesperson says Harrison was interviewed and vetted for every job he took in BPS, all paraprofessional positions until he was tapped as a dean at English last year. Notwithstanding his being disciplined twice by supervisors at Green Academy— once for allegedly pushing and throwing a roll of tape at one student, and again for using inappropriate language—in 2013 Harrison was hired at the Orchard Gardens K-8 pilot school in Roxbury, where his salary increased by $15,000 to nearly $51,500. A BPS spokesperson told the Dig he was picked out of an “excess pool” of candidates. Other than an incarcerated son— one of his eight children—and a few students who have remained loyal to the street pastor, most former acquaintances have publicly distanced themselves from Harrison since his arrest in March. In news reports, delegates from churches with which he has been affiliated told several versions of the same story, all roughly accurate as far as Dig sources confirm, about a consummate outsider who bounced between careers and ministries. There’s no clear paper trail to tell who pulled which strings and for whom, or if there were favors in the first place, but at the least it appears Harrison was wired to the right people. Every school he worked in had some kind of thirdparty partnership in place; before imploding, Odyssey was steered by the titular High School Renewal Workgroup, a joint venture between the deep-pocketed Boston Private Industry Council and others. However Harrison wound up in such important positions, it’s unfair to blame any schools or organizations with which he was affiliated for his brutal actions. At the same time, one source told the Daily Beast that Harrison was known as someone who would hold knives for students during school, while two people who worked with him at Green say his inappropriate remarks included asking a female student for her digits. Considering his transience, noted behavior, and reputation, the accused shooter dean serves as an especially ugly emblem of apparent oversight run amok. “You don’t know what the hell is going on,” says Heshan Berents-Weeramuni, a co-chairman of the Citywide Parent Council and member of the anti-corporate ed reform group Quality Education for Every Student (QUEST). He continues: “Nobody has a plan of any coherent form … With the partners they partner with, they’re just grateful for the help.” At English, where Blueprint took the reins last year, and where Harrison worked his final district job, a BPS spokesperson told the Globe that he had a “community or family outreach coordinator role, charged with coordinating services for students and families.” Harrison was part of Blueprint’s mission to “work in partnership with the district to implement high-impact strategies to help the schools more rapidly improve outcomes for students.” A BPS spokesperson told the Dig that Blueprint was not involved in the hiring process, and that Harrison beat out between 35 and 40 other applicants. Sandra McIntosh understands the difficulty of the duties with which Harrison was tasked. She worked at English for 13 of her 15 years as a BPS employee, first as a volunteer, then as a librarian and paraprofessional in various roles. When a new headmaster established a center for parent outreach, McIntosh was given the responsibility of handling and resolving home issues. “It’s a very delicate position,” she says. After surviving a round of layoffs in 2010 that severed other family outreach coordinators, McIntosh saw her job description eroded until she was finally let go last June. She was out; Harrison was in. “I was a part-time social worker. I did home visits with nurses. I had monthly parent meetings. I was the parent liaison to the governing board,” says McIntosh. “Students would come to me sometimes when they couldn’t go and talk to other people. I’ve had to call employers to make them stop working my kids more than 20 hours a week; I’ve met with the managers at Stop & Shop.” Ironically, McIntosh says programs she participated in with a partner organization in the ’90s helped lead her to a rewarding career at English—possibly more proof that individuals, students and teachers alike, are more important than programs or perhaps even infrastructure. With hope along those lines in mind, she still reads to BPS kids at after-school programs affiliated with AARP. She recently opened retirement papers.
FEATURE
THE OPERATORS continued from pg. 4
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BY MIKE CANN @MIKECANNBOSTON
LEFT TO RIGHT- HOLLY AND STEVE EVANS WITH STEVE AND ANDREW DEANGELO
NEWS TO US FEATURE
Two columns in one for the sake of 420
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ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT
BLUNT TRUTH
9 HEAD TRIP Healthy Headie Lifestyle of Boston, a longtime friend of ours was recently selected as one of 10 companies for CanopyBoulder, “a seed-stage business accelerator for the cannabis industry.” More than 115 companies applied for CanopyBoulder, and the winning startups have entered a 12-week boot camp that started last month. Healthy Headie is a direct marketing company for cannabis-related consumer products, catering to those seeking personal or medical cannabis consultations. They’re essentially a full-service operation, even demonstrating different vaporizers for clients. Healthie Headie’s Hollie Evans is a regular cast member on my WEMF Radio show, The Young Jurks. Naturally, we asked about her current trip from Boston to Boulder with her husband, Steve Evans and company aces Greg Capolino and Ross Bradshaw. How’s the trip going? We miss the Young Jurks but it’s been an amazing experience thus far. All four of us are living in the same house until June. We were awarded $20,000 with the selection to CanopyBoulder, and the money has made the move easier. It’s a very exciting time to be in Colorado; we’ve already made many connections from all over the country. CanopyBoulder kicked off with an amazing networking party with a truly inspirational speech from Steven DeAngelo [of the landmark Harborside Health Center in Oakland, California]. We are inspired. What are your hopes for CanopyBoulder? We’re aiming to refocus and to prepare for the demo final where we will get to present before the ArcView Investor Network. Demo Day is June 29 at the National Cannabis Industry Association’s Cannabis Business Summit in Denver. The ArcView Group has awarded millions of dollars to start-up companies in the cannabis sector, and we hope to be one of the finalists to draw additional funding. We’re also very excited about the mentorship and introductions we are receiving here; you couldn’t ask for better in the cannabis industry. What happens after CanopyBoulder, will you return to Boston or stay in Colorado? We’re not sure. We probably will be coming back to Boston, that is the goal, but Colorado is tempting. We’re pretty open to the opportunities as they might arise. We do know we can’t wait to get back to Boston to see The Young Jurks. We miss you. RIG’D Earlier this month, several hundred medical marijuana patients and caregivers protested a new bill at the Rhode Island State House that would replace the state’s current caregiver system with a monopolistic medical marijuana dispensary model. The bill in question is co-sponsored by five Democratic state senators, while a group called Responsible Caregivers of Rhode Island started a gofundme campaign to raise money for an opposition lobbyist. At the time of this writing, they had already, rather quickly raised more than $5,700 from 31 individuals. “If [the bill] passes, the medical marijuana program in [Rhode Island] loses its caregivers and thousands of patients would be priced out of the program,” says Ocean State medical patient Peter Benson. “It would prevent many of us from obtaining safe natural affordable medicine. Personally, I would need to go back on opiates and pharmaceutical muscle relaxers.” Meanwhile, the unexpected may have happened in Mass. First, the Boston Globe finally admitted that delays in Department of Public Health medical marijuana dispensary licensing have scared away potential investment dollars—something we have reported in the Dig for two-plus years. But that wasn’t all … the DPH’s new commissioner, Dr. Monica Bharel, with support from Governor Charlie Baker announced that the DPH licensing process would be “aggressively revamped.” Her words: “What we have in place now is a confusing, overly lengthy process that has delayed appropriate patients from getting access.” The following weekend, Mass Patients Advocacy Alliance Deputy Director Nichole Snow sought out Governor Baker at a public appearance in Salem. He seemed to remember her name, she says, as well as the name of her group. “I told him that we are in the process of scheduling a meeting with him and a couple of our patients,” Snow wrote on social media. “Then I gave him my card.” “I am so sorry,” the governor told the advocate. “I don’t know why they did the licensing that way.”
THE WILDERNESS OF RUIN: SPECIAL EXCERPT
A Tale of Madness, Fire, and the Hunt for America’s Youngest Serial Killer by Roseanne Montillo
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A junction not far from Dorchester Avenue and Forest Street in Boston had been given the benign name of Glover’s Corner, though it had quickly acquired a disreputable reputation and was nicknamed Sodom and Gomorrah. It was an area teeming with taverns, billiard parlors, houses of ill repute, and gambling shacks. Sailors who found themselves on land for a few hours sought Glover’s Corner and the willing arms of the prostitutes who arrayed themselves at its perimeter like rotted fruit. Glover’s Corner was not a place for the children. Instead, they headed to Savin Hill, a rocky outcrop near the beach. From there they could watch the boats and the doings of the Tuttle House, the first seaside motel in the area. Its owner, Joseph Tuttle, had renamed the place Savin Hill because of the many juniper (savin) trees that grew nearby. He thought its previous name, Old Hill, was not descriptive enough. But the trees weren’t what drew the children to the spot. They went there for the beaches, where they could splash in the waters or stroll along the banks. On August 17, 1872, a very hot day, seven-year-old George Pratt walked leisurely across a small sandy patch of land bordering the waters. He was an unusually pale boy, and so small for his age that his mother often worried about letting him out on his own. It was so quiet that day that George thought he was alone as he began to meander near the water’s edge, stooping down every so often to collect shapeless pieces of driftwood that had washed up with the tide, shiny rocks for his collection, and empty seashells. He was so involved in his treasure hunt he did not notice the tall shape of a boy overcoming him until it was too late. Some hours later, the authorities and local newspaper reporters picked up the story, as it had a ring of the familiar to it: the Boy Torturer had struck again, but he had not used a wooden stick to beat up his victim, as he had previously done. On this occasion he used a long sewing needle and had pierced the little boy’s limbs and genitals, drawing blood. Worse still, as the little boy pointed to his backside, the police noticed something even more disturbing: the Boy Torturer had bitten off a chunk of flesh from George’s buttocks and poured fresh seawater on the open wound; this had been done, the officers reckoned, in order to inflict additional stinging. And though he had followed his same routine, more or less, this assault was quite different because a geographical shift had occurred: it had happened not in Chelsea, as the earlier ones had, but on the beaches of South Boston. But it was the torturer’s next victim that would give detectives the first clue into the assailant’s identity. Even though five-year-old Robert Gould was terrified during questioning, he still managed to recall something peculiar about his attacker: the big boy had a “funny” eye, he told the detectives. Funny, and as white as the marbles he played with. JESSE DIDN’T KNOW WHAT had caused his marbled eye. He often blamed a bad batch of childhood smallpox vaccines, while Ruth Ann insisted he had suffered an infection when he was just a toddler. Either way, when strangers saw the whitish film over Jesse’s eye, they often reacted with repulsion. Some thought there was a “white lace curtain” covering the pupil, while his own father, Thomas Pomeroy, had taken such an aversion to the boy’s eye albinism that he often recoiled at his son’s face. Ruth Ann also mentioned that Thomas eventually thought of it as “the evil eye” and used his belt in an attempt to drive the devil out of Jesse. Many of the neighborhood boys and even the ones Jesse went to school with often mocked and teased him for it. As a result, he had had very few friendships when the family lived on Bunker Hill Avenue, and that didn’t change when they moved to South Boston. Part of it was Jesse’s own fault. By age twelve, he had become so intensely withdrawn that he did not join the local games, nor did he make an effort to get to know those children beyond his own new neighborhood. Sometimes he silently appeared by the playground, as if he wanted to partake in the other kids’ games. He would mill about for a few minutes, then stare at the boys already playing an impromptu game of baseball until he finally shrugged his shoulders and, with a book in his hands, moved away to find a place of his own. A local boy named George Thompson later acknowledged that Jesse did occasionally stay behind. He even took part in the
“extravagant talk” the boys indulged in, talks of blood, scalping, and the roasting of Indians like “venison.” Thompson said the children talked in this manner because at the time Boston was in “a sea of excitement” over the awful deeds someone was perpetrating on little boys in Chelsea and South Boston. Neighborhood boys had heard the stories about the little boy who was beaten on Powder Horn Hill and another boy to be especially careful of a man with “red hair and beard.” In the fading twilight of summer, they spoke of this fiend as years later they would speak of the doings committed by Jack the Ripper, comparing the merits of their own monster to that of London. But Jesse never contributed much to the conversations, his neighbor later recalled. For the most part he only listened. Nonetheless, one thing seemed to cheer up Jesse: a game of Scouts and Indians. He would stare spellbound as the boys took on their guises of Wild Bill, “who had killed thirty-nine Indians,” Buffalo Bill, Charlie Emmett, Texas Jack, Squirrel Cap. The Indians were often portrayed by the smaller and more defenseless children, those whose demeanor, Thompson went on, “generally deserved nothing but a good thrashing.” >> MONTILLO WILL READ FROM THE WILDERNESS OF RUIN ON WEDNESDAY, APRIL 15 AT 6PM IN THE ABBEY ROOM AT CENTRAL LIBRARY (BPL) IN COPLEY SQUARE, 700 BOYLSTON ST., BOSTON.
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ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT
DEPT. OF COMMERCE
FEATURE
NEWS TO US
LOBEL PRIZE FEATURE
A Boston sports broadcasting icon lends his voice and legend to the medical marijuana reform movement in Mass
BY DAN MCCARTHY @ACUTALPROOF
To a certain demographic, 72-year-old Bob Lobel needs no introduction. Before his retirement, as an anchor for WBZ, Lobel was for many years the face of local sports. He has called games for the Celtics and Bruins, and led broadcasts of the New England Patriots pre-season, the Boston Marathon, and home games for Boston College. Lobel also dispatched from the sidelines of NCAA men’s tournament basketball in the ’90s. But until now, few would have considered him to be the unlikely new face of the growing marijuana movement in the Bay State. As time and research increasingly side with cannabis supporters, what once seemed out of place or even taboo is becoming the norm in Massachusetts—and in Alaska, Washington DC, Colorado, and any number of other frontiers. Lobel then is representative of a larger construct, and so I wanted to learn about how somebody in his shoes experiments and finds medical cannabis, if for no other reason than to sometime in the future reminisce about the dark ages when a lack of education kept medical weed sidelined. In time, we may see public figures like Lobel as harbingers of the tipping point. If large swaths of the older generation, now retiring in record number, begin to come around to the boon of medicinal marijuana, then they will need leaders like Lobel to set the stage.
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I meet up with Lobel at the Northeastern Institute of Cannabis (NIC), a Natick-based learning and treatment institution that opened last September with the mission “to advance knowledge and educate students in cannabis as a plant, the cannabis industry, and other areas of learning that are of importance to cannabis culture and business.” The sports broadcaster is here for a consultation with Dr. Uma Dhanabalan, an NIC instructor who also runs a medical consulting business out of an adjoining office, where she’s the certified physician trained in Family Medicine and Occupational & Environmental Medicine. Dhanabalan, or Dr. Uma as she’s better known, is also certified by the Society of Cannabis Clinicians, one of the major professional organizations promoting cannabinoid benefits for the sick or injured. While anxious to seek a Massachusetts medical marijuana card—he wants to “keep everything on the up and up”—Lobel is new to the state process, which is still a work-in-progress, and in some ways a mystery (though there aren’t dispensaries yet, patients can obtain medicine, with several restrictions, from personal caregivers). To that end, he has visited the institute on two recent occasions to seek information on the movement; watching Lobel maneuver around the classroom, it’s clear that he’s a perfect a candidate for alternative treatments. Once a spry professional broadcaster, he now relies on two forearm crutches. Lobel smiles through his hobbling, but his positive attitude is occasionally interrupted, his smile turning to a slight grimace from constant pain. He’s exhausted. And he should be. Since 2007, Lobel has endured around 10 major surgeries spanning nearly his entire body. He’s had both knees and his rotator cuff replaced, repaired broken femur bones on each leg, and had most of his back fused and thoracic spinal work done, all of which was accomplished in a considerably short time, and all of which has run him through the ringer. Excessive pain and long recoveries brought prescriptions for serious medications, and like so many people suffering in Mass and other places where cannabis relief is hard to come by, Lobel’s options were either to hop on the pain pill train, or to venture out and find less addictive ways to manage. “I was taking a lot of OxyContin for one of my first knee replacements,” he says, adding that within just weeks of beginning his first regimen he felt the fangs of addiction gripping his system. After taking Oxy for a couple of months, he remembers finishing in short time a prescription that in theory should have lasted through a longer time frame, and going in for one refill after another. “That’s how hooked I was, [and] in such a short period of time,” he says. “I think it ended up being a lot worse than people thought it was going to be over the long haul. It’s bad stuff.” On his initial visit to the institute, Lobel was more curious than he was expecting results. Picturing stereotypical LOBEL PRIZE continued on pg. 14
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LOBEL PRIZE continued from pg. 12 “THAT’S WHAT THE MEDICINE IS ABOUT: QUALITY OF LIFE AND GIVING HOPE.”
WHAT ABOUT BOB? 1969
Bob Lobel is hired as a sportscaster by WVNY in Burlington, Vermont. No experience. No education in the field. Nothing. Just gets it.
1972
The up-and-comer joins WGIR in Manchester, New Hampshire, as host of a nightly show about high school sports, Saint Anselm and Dartmouth hockey, and American Legion baseball.
1976
Lobel joins WBZ, and soon after fills in for Boston Celtics play-by-play announcer Johnny Most during the NBA Playoffs.
1979
Lobel becomes WBZ TV’s weekend sports anchor. Two years later, he is promoted to weekday anchor and sports director.
1984
Lobel lands every Bostonian’s dream part and gets to play “Customer #1” in an episode of Cheers (“Coach Buries A Grudge”).
2003
On WBZ’s Sports Final program, Boston Globe columnist Bob Ryan says to Lobel that the wife of New Jersey Nets guard Jason Kidd needs someone to “smack” her, ostensibly for taking their children to games where they can be taunted. Lobel interrupts Ryan and badgers him to retract his comment, but Ryan refuses and is afterwards suspended for three weeks.
2005
Lobel plays himself in the Jimmy Fallon and Drew Barrymore movie Fever Pitch.
2008
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It’s announced in April that Lobel will be released from WBZ-TV after nearly 30 years.
2013
Lobel is selected as a public address announcer for Fenway Park.
“weed” environs and a troupe of stoner brethren out of Central Casting, he was pleasantly surprised to discover a professional atmosphere—couches, sterile work and teaching areas, offices and desks! “I was like ‘Woah, how’d this get here?’” he says. “Everything is very well packaged.” He jokes, “There wasn’t smoke around or [I] couldn’t smell marijuana.” (Ed note: Members of the Dig staff teach at NIC, and there is in fact no cannabis allowed on campus). Lobel is now under the care of Dr. Dhanabalan, whom he has come to trust. She’s encouraging and even enthusiastic to newcomers, and is in the process of teaching the retired journalist about the science behind cannabis. “She understands totally the power that this stuff has for pain,” Lobel says. “I’m not talking about get high power; I’m talking about keep out the pain power. I am a believer of [what’s] in there—I just have to figure out how to separate the pain part [and] the high part. The pain power definitely works. Not that it wouldn’t work with the high stuff, but I think sometimes you don’t want to deal with the high stuff, you want to deal with the pain and not much of anything else.” Lobel’s phrasing of “get high” power can be explained in the difference between THC, the long-ago identified and best known psychoactive component in most strains of marijuana, and the non-psychoactive CBD, which is often used for pain relief and has minimal “high” effects. To make matters more complicated, researchers have also identified that our own bodies produce natural endocannabinoids, which kind of makes the political bickering over legalization and “testing” all the more nonsensical. It’s this school of thought that Lobel is now studying, and it’s vastly different from traditional laboratories where clinical trials are often high-stakes medical endeavors. “We [have] learned that nobody dies on this medicine. Nobody,” says Dr. Dhanabalan. “Why, I wondered. We die from aspirin, we die from over-the-counter meds, [so] why not this medicine?” The answer? She continues: “We found out there are no receptors in the part of the brain that controls our breathing and our heart rate. That’s why nobody dies from [cannabis use]. Respiratory depression does not occur.” The demonstrable fact that nobody has died from cannabis— not one person, ever—should in theory be a driving force
“I’m not talking about get high power; I’m talking about keep out the pain power. I am a believer of [what’s] in there--I just have to figure out how to separate the pain part [and] the high part.”
behind the ongoing national discussion of pain relief as well as the debate over legalization. More often than not, however, opponents to the growing marijuana movement cite junk science and sensationalism, often in the name of saving people in the same communities who are suffering hardships. But while Mass remains a prohibition state by most means, for people like Lobel, who haven’t had the easiest time securing the medicine they need, information and research on cannabis are available in increasing abundance.
AND THEN THERE WAS SCIENCE
The fight for the first medical dispensaries to open in Mass has raged for more than two years, and in spite of innumerable setbacks, the dream is inching closer to reality for patients like Lobel and scores of others suffering from ailments that cannabis can help to treat. At present, there are two medical marijuana dispensaries on track to open in the Bay State through the summer and fall of 2015, with the state Department of Public Health (DPH) giving one firm the greenlight to start growing plants at its Franklin facility for a Northampton dispensary (the same company has a facility pending approval for Brookline as well). For now though, there’s also popular momentum in another direction, toward full-out legalization (with terms to be mapped out by petitioners or lawmakers) especially given that Colorado, a state with a population slightly smaller than that of Massachusetts, legalized cannabis for medicinal and recreational use in 2014. With roughly $44 million in first-year tax revenue from recreational sales, legalization advocates are quick to use the Rocky Mountain State’s example to help pave the way for similar results here, making for a preview of sorts for proponents eyeing Mass. For Lobel and others, it’s reassuring to see progress, even if it’s all the way across the country. Take the Medical Marijuana
NEWS TO US ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT
DEPT. OF COMMERCE
FEATURE
Registry Program Update, published earlier this year by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment and based on data from more than 100,000 participants. Among the findings: Of those administered to by the state’s medical pot program since 2001, a majority of applicants cited “severe pain” as their reason for joining the registry. As for the ratio of young folks to retirees and other patient groups; nearly 40,000 people from that research group were over the age of 50, and comprised 34 percent of the total research registry. Proper cannabinoid dosing and intake are becoming the chosen route for many people in Lobel’s state, who are reluctant to subscribe to the smorgasbord of available modern pharmaceuticals or whose prescribed regimens leave them prone to serious chemical dependence. Dr. Uma’s thoughts on these matters, all drawn from experience, are clear: “When I did family medicine, the average patient had five pills, a blood pressure pill, a diabetes pill, a cholesterol pill, something for reflex, and something for anxiety or depression. That’s just to mention perscription, never mind the over-the-counter crap like Benadryl, Nyquil, Advil (which gives people gut rot), Tylenol … the list goes on.” She continues: “I believe cannabis is not an entrance drug; it’s an exit drug from pharmaceuticals and narcotics, and I truly believe this. I’ve seen this. I’ve had patients get off their narcotics or reduce them; they’re able to improve their quality of life and give hope. That’s what the medicine is about: quality of life and giving hope.”
15
PARADIGM SHIFT
PHOTOS BY DEREK KOUYOUMJIAN
Since he’s on the cover of our annual marijuana pride issue, it should be noted that Lobel isn’t a seasoned cannabis veteran, recreational or otherwise. He only recently began experimenting with different strains and varieties of medical cannabis, the first of which came in some moderately dosed brownies his daughter gifted him last year. “I took one bite [before] getting in the car to drive somewhere, and before I got out on my road, I knew I was in trouble,” Lobel says with a chuckle. “I think I was aware [of it], so I had to turn around and go home. [It’s] the smartest thing I’ve ever done.” A veteran of the modern sports world, Lobel’s not a fan of smoking. Still, he’s used a vaporizer with success, and is open to alternative ingestion methods. So far, properly dosed edibles work best. “My wife was complaining about the residual [vapor],” he says, “so I said I’ll [stick to] the edibles.” For many, turning to experts like Dr. Uma—to oversee dosages, to monitor intake methods, to help make marijuana more palatable—removes a lot of the confusion from the cannabis equation. Lobel is now officially among those in his age group who just needed an entry point to this relatively new realm; for him, it came when he attended and heeded requests to appear onstage to speak at the Dig-sponsored New England Cannabis Convention in Boston last month. Since telling his story of hardship there, he has found the culture and rules around medicinal weed much easier to grapple with. As for the treatment itself; “It takes the edge off,” Lobel says, “whether it’s the bottom of my feet or my shoulder or whatever … [cannabis] is the absolute better alternative.” In saying these things and becoming in some regards an advocate, Lobel has found that he isn’t alone in his enthusiastic but responsibly cautious support for medical and recreational cannabis. When it comes to actual dispensaries coming online, he finds that while many in his generation still to cling to old stigmas and corrupted social perspectives, they’re also discovering the benefits of medical grass through peers, friends, and family members like him. In other words, the kind of people whom you wouldn’t have expected to be sounding these alarms, and who probably wouldn’t have spoken out under other circumstances. “People of my generation, which is two or three years ahead of the Baby Boomers, might as well have blinders on when it comes to marijuana,” Lobel says. “Just after us by two or three years was the ‘Woodstock’ group … I think, usually people in my generation have not touched it.” He adds: “It’s a little tough to sell, but I don’t think it’s impossible … There’s a lot of sick people my age, a lot worse than I am. People that could really use the pain [relief].” Lobel grins: “And the high for that matter.”
DEPT. COMMERCE Prep time:
10-15 minutes
EATS
COOKING WITH CANNABIS
Weed cook time:
30 minutes
A sure-fire method for whipping up a batch of delicious chocolate edibles
Baking time:
30-40 minutes
John Phish says: “This is the one I do the most often, as it wastes less product, [and] is easier to create with no complex requirements.”
BY DIG STAFF @DIGSTAFF Maybe it’s because you’re holding our annual issue celebrating cannabis. Or maybe it’s because your yearly day off and all-day party fest, Marathon Monday, approaches. Which, of course, also happens to be 4/20. Whatever the reason, you’re probably thinking what we’re thinking. It’s a great time to talk about pot brownies. Thus, we enlisted the help of a friend of ours, to whom we often for such things. We’re told he lives in a heavil fortified pillow fort on the banks of the Charles River under the BU Bridge, and for the sake of identity protection, let’s call him “John Phish.” John Phish is well known for his ability to embrace the joy of cannabis cooking, and lucky for us he’s got a tried-and-true method that’s quick and easy, requiring minimal ingredients and nothing beyond general baking abilities and the mental capacity needed to operate a standard stove. So we had John Phish take us through his steps, and recreated them here for your use. Just cut on the dotted line, hang on the fridge, and the next time the mood strikes (or you just want to make grandma’s 89th birthday all that it really could be), carve out about an hour and a half from your next Netflix binge-watching session. Grandma will be glad you did. If she asks where you learned how, tell her John Phish taught you.
Take an eighth of your chosen strain, and destem the nuggets. Best to use weed that’s not too sticky or moist, something that’s dried yet still fresh. Break up. You can use a flour miller or a little strainer, and hand-mash it.
4 Mix the ground-up activated cannabis into the dry mix, follow mixing directions for the brownies on the box, and adjust for the directions of the brownie mix considering you are cooking less than the outlined directions. Mix your wet ingredients (veg oil, one egg) together, adding just two to three extra drops of veg oil to compensate for the added product (weed) in the powder mix. Stir oil, egg, and a touch of water—but only loosely, no need to emulsify it. Should look like oil and water with yellow.
DIGBOSTON.C0M
04 15 15 – 04 22 15
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2
3
When you’re putting the cannabis directly into a baked good, you want to get it as close as you can to a flour consistency. Not for any direct baking science-related issues, but for the simple fact that you don’t want to detect that you’re biting into dried leaf blossoms. You want it to just dissipate into the batter, making for a better eating experience from a pure taste and texture perspective. As John Phish says: “Nothing worse than biting into a nugget.”
5
6
Take a little veg oil on a paper towel and grease down the muffin pan that will make the cupcakes. Dollop a quarter cup (depending on baking pan), and drop batter in with a slight twist at the end to ensure all batter is getting in there.
Try to use Ghirardelli Triple Fudge. John Phish says: “Reason I like this one is instead of mixing in the included fudge with a swirl, you put the batter in the muffin tin, then wet your finger and dip in to create a dimple in center, where you’ll squeeze a small dollop of the fudge. It works out good this way because it means the center isn’t raw, and the rest of the batter cooks up around it.”
Spread the weed across a tin-foiled pan as loose and thin as possible so there’s a lot of air in between it all. Wastes less product this way. Cook the straight weed at 275 degrees for 30 minutes for decarboxylation, and for activating the psychoactive effects for more consistent edibles. One eighth per batch. Yields a dozen cookies or brownies.
7 Set the oven at a lower temp. If it’s a newer oven that keeps track of temp well, 300 is safe. If older, 275, for 30-40mins (you’re baking at a lower temp in order to not bake off the THC), give or take five minutes depending on the size of the cupcakes. Remove and enjoy.
BUTTER YOU UP: Check out DigBoston.com for an extended version that includes John Phish’s can’tmiss pot-butter method. Great for toast. Or anything where butter is involved, really. It’s butter.
BE SURE TO CUT THIS SUCKER OUT AND STASH WITH ALL YOUR OTHER FAVORITE RECIPES!
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ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT
DEPT. OF COMMERCE
FEATURE
NEWS TO US
PLEASURE
HONEST PINT SPONSORED BY SUNSET GRILL & TAP
ALL IN THE FAMILY
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PAIN
Pack your bowl and fill your pint glass on 420 BY JEFF LAWRENCE @29THOUSAND
Wednesdays April 1ST - 29th 5-11pm PLATES SZECHUAN VEGETABLE STir-FRY 9 crispy vegetables/ginger/garlic/soy/ chili peppers
EL DIABLO SHRIMP COCKTAIL 12 6 jumbo grilled & chilled shrimp with salsa verde sauce
JAMAICAN ME CRAZY GOAT STEW 15 West Indian curried goat/scotch bonnet/habanero/onion/potato/plantain
WICKED THAI WINGS 10
grilled wings Thai hot chili peppers/fried garlic/ginger/cilantro/Asian slaw
RING OF FIRE SHRIMP & GRITS 14 grilled shrimp & andouille in a cayenne sauce with cheese grits
SMOKIN’ DEATH BONES 10
smoked pork ribs slathered with house made GHOST PEPPER bbq sauce
GREAT BALLS OF FIRE 10 Moroccan lamb meatballs in harissa sauce
VOODOO JAMBALAYA 12
Creole style with tender chicken/sausage/ tabasco peppers/onion & celery/rice
LOCO BEEF BARBACOA TACO 10 habenero/jalapeno/chipotle sauce/salsa guacamole/cojita cheese
DESSERT
“The wonderful quenching sensation of a cold malty offering after the mouth cottons up due to a bong hit or a slow pull off a vape pen is one to be cherished. And why disrupt that perfect marriage?”
POT AU CRÈME 8
chocolate & chipotle pudding with ginger wafers
10 ROTATING IPA’S TO COOL THE PAIN *Before placing order, please inform your food server if anyone I n your party has a food allergy. Consuming raw or undercooked meat poultry seafood shellfish eggs my increase risk of food borne illness.
@MAGOUNSSALOON OLDEMAGOUNSSALOON
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04 15 15 – 04 22 15
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518 Medford St. Somerville magounssaloon.com | 617-776-2600
Given the intoxicating nature of both hops and cannabis, it should come as no surprise that they are closely related. Both of these species of Cannabaceae flowering plants are part of a larger group of multiple genera that collectively include over 150 species in total. While most in the family are actually trees, and quite distinct in their many characteristics from hops or weed, others are herbaceous plants. Cannabis and hops in particular have a kinship often overlooked, and almost always misunderstood. Cannabaceae male plants tending to be taller and more vine-like, while the female plants tend to be smaller and produce less flowers. But, specifically in the case of cannabis, it’s the female plants that produce the necessary concentration of the “high”-inducing component THC. Through extensive cross-breeding and cloning of cannabis sativa and indica strains, the differences in intensity and high are marked and substantial. The same can be said about hops, although not quite in the same way. Female hops contain the necessary materials used in brewing, but how they are used in the brewing process makes all the difference to the outcome. Hops continue to break down through oxidation, so the fresher the hops, the greater the resulting bitterness in the final product (see: IPAs), whereas cannabis can be preserved for years and retain it’s potency. Although cross-breeding the two for purposes of brewing does not necessarily result in a THC-filled hops monster, the reality is many brewers have tried and even succeeded in infusing beer with dry cannabis leaves. Home brewers in Colorado and Washington state (where recreational cannabis has been legalized) have stepped up experimenting with crossbreeding, dry-hopping, and even straight up brewing with massive amounts of both hops and cannabis flowers to create a pothead and craft beer enthusiast’s wet dream. To date, nothing has ever hit the market. And probably won’t. In my opinion that’s a good thing; the wonderful quenching sensation of a cold malty offering after the mouth cottons up due to a bong hit or a slow pull off a vape pen is one to be cherished. And why disrupt that perfect marriage? Some think it’s worth the disruption, or at least worth marketing in a very crafty ways (any co-branding of hops and cannabis would never pass the regulation muster needed to get to market). Among them, Lagunitas Brewing Censored Rich Copper Ale, which was originally called “Kronik” before the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATF) censored the name, the aptly named Sweetwater 420 Extra Pale Ale, and Oskar Blue’s Pinner Throwback IPA. What these beers and brewers all have in common—beyond cheeky marketing— is a shared respect for the history and connection of these two amazing plants, which most have no idea are sisters in the same family. So the next time the clock strikes 4:20, or you sit down to read the annual cannabis issue of your favorite local alt-weekly, light a joint—but also pour a cold beer.
130 Brighton Avenue Allston, MA
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every night TILL ' CLOSE 9 2 H A MP S HIR E S T, CA M B R ID G E , M A | 6 1 7-2 5 0 - 8 4 5 4 | L O R D H O B O.C O M
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DIGBOSTON.C0M
04 15 15 – 04 22 15
20
THURS 4.16
THURS 4.16
FRI 4.17
SAT 4.18
SUN 4.19
WED 4.22
Crypto Party
Ulysses on Bottles
Memory|Witness of the Unimaginable
Trill Presents: Downeast Cider House Music Fest
Poetry Grudge Match: House Slam vs. Boston Poetry Slam
CHEAP SEATS 27 & 28
Privacy is a basic human right—and that extends to online privacy, too. Unfortunately, many of us are blissfully unaware of just how vulnerable our online lives are, especially to nonconsensual surveillance from the government (and even other people). Even if you don’t know that much about computers, Somervillebased tech group Parts and Crafts promises that at their potluck/BYOB-style Crypto Party you’ll find a welcoming space to learn more about some useful digital security tips and tricks.
In this North American premiere of an awardwinning Israeli play by Gilad Evron, the lives of two unlikely companions are poetically rendered within the framework of the turmoil in Gaza. Evron tackles contemporary issues of privilege, freedom, and wartime morality in a tight 75 minutes. If your idea of powerful theater involves humor and heartbreak in equal parts, then Ulysses delivers.
The Gallery at Le Laboratoire Cambridge will reopen for the first time since 2014 with a brand-new exhibition that explores the sensorial relationship between memory, scent, and sound. This isn’t your typical exhibit, however: Music composer Dániel Péter Biró and master perfumer Christophe Laudamiel teamed up with the gallery’s designers and founders to create an immersive sensory experience in which visitors will be invited to expose themselves to varying combinations of scent and music.
Downeast Cider House (aka the folks behind Boston’s unofficial apple juice) and live music curators Trill are teaming up to produce a music festival that’ll showcase local bands and provide beer, cider, games, and all of the questionable decision-making that comes with participating in a #dayger. The lineup includes The Western Den and Grey Season, with more TBA. And you can say you went to the first local festival held under the Tobin Bridge.
Take a break from the massacre that is the Bruins’ season with a sport that’s just as exciting and competitive: slam poetry. Boston’s top slammers will go pen to pen to celebrate National Poetry Month, crafting wordplay that combines humor, wit, and raw emotion. Each team will be judged American Idolstyle by a panel of judges, and the action will be cut up with musical and comedy guests. Local faves Janae Johnson, Porsha Olayiwola, Jade Sylvan, and Simone Beaubien will present.
Boston’s only omni-genre variety show returns, showcasing the most diverse assortment of comedians, thespians, dancers, poets, and visual and conceptual artists the city has to offer. The word “artist” is used loosely here—sit down at a show, and you never quite can tell what you’ll see. As always, the heart of CHEAP SEATS is a spirit of freedom and reckless originality, so if anything else, you’ll leave with a radically altered notion of what constitutes performance.
Parts and Crafts. 577 Somerville Ave., Somerville. 6pm/all ages/FREE. partsandcrafts.org
The Jackie Liebergott Black Box at the Paramount Center. 559 Washington St., Boston. 13+/$25-49. For more information, visit artsemerson.org
Le Laboratoire Cambridge. 650 East Kendall St., Cambridge. All ages/FREE. For more information, visit lelaboratoirecambridge.com
Downeast Cider House. 200 Terminal St., Charlestown. 12pm/21+/$10. For more information, visit downeasttrillmusic. eventbrite.com
OBERON. 2 Arrow St., Cambridge. 7pm/ all ages/$10. For more information, visit americanrepertorytheater.org
Cambridge YMCA Theater. 820 Mass Ave., Cambridge. 7pm/all ages/$5-10. For more information, visit facebook. com/cheapseatsshow
PHOTO BY DEREK KOUYOUMJIAN
THE NEW ENGLAND CANNABIS CONVENTION MAKES IT’S WAY TO RHODE ISLAND, MAY 16 + 17. TICKETS ARE NOW ON SALE AT NEWENGLANDCANNABISCONVENTIONS.COM
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ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT
DEPT. OF COMMERCE
FEATURE
NEWS TO US
MUSIC
MUSIC
ON THE RUN
NICK @ NITE
BY MARTÍN CABALLERO @_EL_CABALLERO
BY NINA CORCORAN @NINA_CORCORAN
Polaris brings your favorite TV show back to life
Speedy Ortiz gets a move on
Everyone loves the ’90s. And when you’re the featured band on an offbeat Nickelodeon comedy, you love the ’90s even more. Then, when two decades pass and the TV show’s cult following is rooting for you to get back on your feet, you realize the ’90s love you back. For alt-rock trio Polaris of The Adventures of Pete & Pete fame, that’s exactly what happened. “Everything on TV gets magnified. When you see the weatherman at Starbucks, you freak out. You don’t know what to say to him,” singer Mark Mulcahy explains. “We didn’t drive around the country, playing gigs to small crowds and working our way up. The TV kept us alive for all these years, and, for some reason, now is the time for us to play. It’s nostalgia for a band you’ve never seen.” If you’re wondering what brought them back, Mulcahy isn’t one to lie. “To be honest, a guy offered us a lot of money to play one gig at Comic Con,” he admits, but it didn’t take long for Polaris to be surprised by the reaction. It sold out immediately. “They knew all the words,” he says, a bit baffled. “You wish the rest of the world was this way, like this world [the show’s creators] invented, because it draws out these beautiful, inventive, positive fans.” The fictional band may be real now, but don’t expect any acting soon. “I would get so nervous [on camera]. Then Pete, who was a little kid at the time, would come over and say ‘Hey, man! Relax, man!’ It was so strange to be coached by a child,” he laughs, “but it was also really nice.” Instead, their one-and-only record comes out on vinyl this Record Store Day, because Polaris is far better at playing music from your youth than acting. We wouldn’t have it any other way.
IT’S AMAZING WHAT YOU CAN FIND IN GOOGLE STREET VIEW When Sadie Dupuis quit her teaching job at UMass Amherst to focus on her band Speedy Ortiz, it wasn’t so she could rub elbows with celebrities. But even she would admit, it’s nice to be noticed. “Guess who I just texted before I got on the phone?” asks Dupuis on the phone from LA (that’s Los Angeles, not Lower Allston), in response to a question about how comedian Hannibal Burress ended up joining the band onstage as an impromptu drummer at SXSW this year. After he tweeted an offer for his musical services, the band took him up on it, and he delivered as advertised. “True to his word, he really can’t play drums, but we didn’t care. We were just stoked to hang out with him.” Celebrity endorsements aside, Dupuis and the band seem poised for a big summer. The Northampton-born foursome is set to release its highly anticipated sophomore LP Foil Deer, the first record since Grass in Green guitarist Devin McKnight replaced Matt Robidoux last year, on Tuesday, followed by a two-month tour that kicks off next Wednesday at The Sinclair alongside Krill and Mitski. The new album reflects the progression from the unapologetic veneration of ’90s indie rock that typifies their first album, Major Arcana, and that progression is less an aesthetic choice than simply a new reality. “I think because I was really only expecting those songs to be heard by my bandmates and my friends, the content is really different,” she says. “We still play a lot of those
songs, but there are some that don’t make sense for me personally to play anymore. Some songs I just don’t want to play anymore because I’m at a different part of my life and I don’t want to revisit that stuff necessarily. I think with that in mind, the way that I write songs and the things that I write about has certainly had a bit of a shift. The songs aren’t just for me to write just as a release anymore. Other people are latching onto these things and it’s their release too.” The conditions that allowed for that shift seemed to fall into place over the last year. Taking a break from their relentless touring schedule, the revamped roster of performers—Dupuis, McKnight, drummer Mike Falcone and bassist Darl Ferm—took over a month (as opposed to four days on Arcana) to craft Foil Deer at Rare Book Room studios in Brooklyn. For a band used to writing for live performance, the ability to experiment and refine songs in the studio was a welcome opportunity. The tracks released thus far—the fuzzy grit of “Raising the Skate,” the brooding subterranean melodies on “Puffer” —give glimpses of a sleeker, tighter version of Speedy Ortiz the band, but a broader example of Dupuis the singer and songwriter. While retaining the sharp, engaging voice that shone through on Arcana, the songs find inspiration beyond Dupuis’ personal life. “Even though the personal experience is still rooted to something I might have gone through, I’m trying to write about things that I think are worth talking about on a larger level,” says Dupuis. “I think this is the first time we’ve had a recording that fits what I hear in my head.”
>> SPEEDY ORTIZ W/ KRILL AND MITSKI. WED 4.22 THE SINCLAIR, 52 CHURCH ST., CAMBRIDGE 617-547-5200. 8PM/18+/$13. SPEEDYORTIZ.BANDCAMP.COM. VISIT DIGBOSTON.COM FOR THE EXTENDED INTERVIEW.
MUSIC EVENTS
DIGBOSTON.C0M
04 15 15 – 04 22 15
22
THU 4.16
ALT RAP EARL SWEATSHIRT + VINCE STAPLES + REMY BANKS
[Paradise Rock Club, 967 Comm Ave., Boston. 7pm/all ages/$36. crossroadspresents.com]
SWEET SKA THE CAT EMPIRE + CURRENT SWELL
[Royale, 279 Tremont St., Boston. 7pm/18+/$25. boweryboston.com]
FRI 4.17
ROCK ’N’ FOLK RIVER CITY EXTENSION + AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER + THE GROWNUP NOISE
[Brighton Music Hall, 158 Brighton Ave., Allston. 6pm/18+/$15. crossroadspresents.com]
SAT 4.18
OLD SCHOOL POP PUNK CARTEL + HIT THE LIGHTS + TEAM + DRIVER FRIENDLY
[Middle East Downstairs, 480 Mass Ave., Cambridge. 5pm/ all ages/$16. mideastclub. com]
>> POLARIS W/ HALLELUJAH THE HILLS. THU 4.16. BRIGHTON MUSIC HALL, 158 BRIGHTON AVE., ALLSTON. 617.779.0140. 8PM/18+/$16. FACEBOOK.COM/THEBANDPOLARIS
SUN 4.19
ELECTRO FUNK JAZZ DOPAPOD
[The Sinclair, 52 Church St., Cambridge. 7pm/18+/$18. sinclaircambridge.com]
MON 4.20
FOLK/AMERICANA MIXED BAG THE WESTERN DEN + CHARLES JOHNSON + ZACH TORRES + THE HUDSON BRANCH
[T.T. The Bear’s, 10 Brookline St., Cambridge. 8:30pm/18+/$8. ttthebears.com]
NEWS TO US FEATURE
FILM NIGHT
Emerson Film Immersion Genres: Independent Films Downstairs 18 + Thurs APRIL 16 9:30 pm
STRANGE BREW 5 RELEASE
Knife, 7L, Bianca Oblivion & Leah V Genres: Hip Hop, Trap, French Touch, Jersey Club, Bounce, BMore |$5 Downstairs 21+ Friday APRIL 17 9:30 pm
PICO PICANTE
VS. UNITY
MPEACH [Dutty Artz] Genres: Upstairs = Classic, Soulful, Afro and Latin House / Downstairs = Global Bass, Tropical, Digital Cumbia $5 before11 pm, $10 after 21+ Saturday APRIL 18 9:30 pm
SWEET SHOP
Vin Sol Genres: Techno, House + Hip Hop & Reggae Upstairs $10 Downstairs 21+
CENTRAL SQ. CAMBRIDGE, MA mideastclub.com | zuzubar.com (617) 864-EAST | ticketweb.com
- DOWNSTAIRS WED 4/15 NV CONCEPTS PRESENTS: THURS 4/16 - LEEDZ PRESENTS:
SWIZZYMACK (DJ SET) FRI 4/17
DOST
(ALBUM RELEASE)
KOOKED OUT, RHETORIC
SAT 4/18 - BOWERY PRESENTS:
CARTEL (SOLD OUT) SAT 4/18 - 10:30PM - UPSTAIRS WED 4/15 - RTT PRESENTS: WEAK TEETH, CHOKE UP THURS 4/16 MAX JURY - 7PM SKRUX - 10:30PM FRI 4/17 - CRUSH PRESENTS:
RANDOM RAB SAQI
SAT 4/18 -1PM
Tuesday April 21 6:00 pm
GAME NIGHT
All Ages with valid ID
PANZER BASTARD SUN 4/19 MON 4/20 - BOWERY PRESENTS:
MADI DIAZ TUES 4/21 JOEY FATTS
/mideastclub /zuzubar @mideastclub @zuzubar
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Weds APRIL 15 8:30 pm
512 Mass. Ave. Central Sq. Cambridge, MA 617-576-6260 phoenixlandingbar.com
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80’s Old School & Top 40 Dance hits
80’s, 90’s, 00’s One Hit Wonders
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1/2 PRICED APPS DAILY 5 - 7PM SHOWING THE 6 NATIONS RUGBY TOURNAMENT LIVE STARTING FEB 6
WATCH EVERY SOCCER GAME! LIVE OPENING 7:30am
ENGLISH PREMIER LEAGUE Saturdays & Sundays Every Game shown live in HD on 12 Massive TV’s. We Show All European Soccer including Champions League, Europa League, German, French, Italian & Spanish Leagues. NFL SUNDAY SPECIAL $4 Drafts, Wing Specials, Happy Hour Priced menu!
FILM
FAST TIMES
Olivier Assayas’ latest eulogizes the pop culture of past eras BY JAKE MULLIGAN @_JAKEMULLIGAN
I DIDN’T KNOW JENNA BUSH WAS AN ACTRESS The commercial film industry knows who it wants for lead roles: blond-haired blueeyed white men who fit snugly into superhero suits. That leaves scraps for actresses like Maria Enders—who, in Clouds of Sils Maria, is both played by and modeled after French film legend Juliette Binoche—as she leaves her ingénue days behind for middle age. Now she gets offers to play witches, werewolves, and X-Men villainesses. “I’m sick of acting hanging from wires in front of green screens,” she protests. But anyone who goes to the multiplexes knows there’s not much else left. She retreats to rarified circles—the stage, high society—for the respect she’s earned. We meet her holding court on a train, as her assistant Val (Kristen Stewart) rattles off the day’s messages. Maria’s accepting an award on behalf of the artist who made her career, Wilhelm Melchior—a playwright who pulled a Pynchon and turned his back on public life. While she’s en route, he passes away. Her acceptance speech becomes a eulogy. So does the film. Maria gets roped into a revival of the Melchior play that made her name, now playing the older of the two lead roles. Jo-Ann Ellis (Chloë Grace Moretz,) a Lohan analog with a rap sheet stretching further than her IMDb page, fills Enders’ old shoes. Both Melchior and Ellis are abstracted: He’s seen on the back flaps of novels and published plays, while Ellis appears on the screens of freshly designed tech (Googling provides Enders with TMZ videos, leaked nudes, a 3D YA picture). They serve as opposing specters: the intimidating traditions of eras past, and the seemingly inevitable frivolity of pop culture’s future. Clouds is directed by Olivier Assayas, who’s recently marked himself as a chronicler of cultural shifts. His Something in the Air considered the breakdown of leftist collectives in the post-’68 France, and before that his Carlos used the life story of a terrorist to try and pinpoint the intersection between pop celebrity and radical politics. Here he’s playing around with pop culture, using the public personas of Stewart (who shares many biographical details with Ellis) and Binoche (representing a class of performers better known for art than for exploits) to cultivate a dense intergenerational dialectic. These two are emblems of their eras: The youth star argues for genre filmmaking and public transparency, while the seasoned vet complains about insufficient privacy, or about the high value today’s artists place on PR. Assayas takes no sides, employing a critical distance that lets him process the gaps between generations without bias. His frames often position the women as mirror images, leaving us to project our own prejudices onto their friendly feud. But a lament rings out regardless. The bravura finale walks us through an elaborately designed stage, all glass walls and tinted mirrors—most are in iPhone white, reeking of the modern world—before we find Maria resting behind it all, with a look that suggests an exasperated acceptance. We may not like the overload of wires and screens, nor the shift in cultural priorities that they brought with them—but we’d best get used to it. >> CLOUDS OF SILS MARIA. OPENS 4.17. KENDALL SQUARE CINEMA. 1 KENDALL SQ., CAMBRIDGE. FOR MORE INFORMATION VISIT LANDMARKTHEATRES.COM
FILM EVENTS APRIL 15
APRIL 4/17
APRIL 4/20
[Harvard Film Archive. 24 Quincy St., Harvard Sq., Cambridge. 7:30pm/NR/$79. hcl.harvard.edu/hfa]
[Brattle Theatre. 40 Brattle St., Harvard Sq., Cambridge. 7pm/G/$9-11. brattlefilm.org]
[Brattle Theatre. 40 Brattle St., Harvard Sq., Cambridge. 7pm/NR/$9-11. b rattlefilm.org]
APRIL 4/16
PRESENTED BY HOLLYWOOD SCRIPTURES PUNCH-DRUNK LOVE
BIG SCREEN CLASSICS SERIES OUT OF THE PAST
JOHN CARPENTER’S FIRST FILM DARK STAR
DIGBOSTON.C0M
04 15 15 – 04 22 15
24
BOSTON INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL OPENING NIGHT FRIENDS AND ROMANS
[AMC Loews Boston Commons. 175 Tremont St., Boston. 7pm/NR/$10-45. iffboston.org]
SINGALONG SCREENING THE MUPPET MOVIE
[Museum of Fine Arts. 465 Huntington Ave., Boston. 6pm/R/$9-11. mfa.org]
PRESENTED BY THE DOCYARD DIVIDE IN CONCORD
[Coolidge Corner Theatre. 290 Harvard St., Brookline. 7pm/NR/$11.25. coolidge.org]
NEWS TO US FEATURE DEPT. OF COMMERCE ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT
SHOW
25
AT 425 Summer Street Boston, MA 02210
4.29.15 Vip session 5:30-7:30PM OPEN TO Public at 7:30PM
BRING YOUR
A GAME
digboston.com/2015-digthis-awards/ /WEEKLYDIG
@DIGBOSTON
FILM SHORTS BY JAKE MULLIGAN @_JAKEMULLIGAN WHILE WE’RE YOUNG
EX MACHINA
[Now playing everywhere.] You recall the bitterness beating below Greenberg, or the unforgiving narrative machinations that create carnage in Margot at the Wedding, and you realize nobody makes comedies as cruel as Noah Baumbach. So when his latest starts as a gentle generational farce— Jamie (Adam Driver) and Darby (Amanda Seyfried) teach Josh (Ben Stiller) and Cornelia (Naomi Watts) about fedoras and artisanal ice cream—you worry he’s gone soft. Also lamentably lost is the kinetic playfulness of his Frances Ha, replaced by photography as functional as your dad’s wardrobe. But an Allenesque morality play emerges from the laid-back longueurs, about friends manipulating each other for the sake of success—another Baumbach “comedy” about people who’d rather use each other than relate. He’s getting older, but this dog still bites.
[Opens Fri 4.17 at local theaters] Frankenstein, refashioned as a technothriller. Oscar Isaac plays the mad doctor’s modern equivalent, a tech developer illegally mining search engines and cell phones for the nuts and bolts needed to create AVA, an anthropomorphic AI. Domhall Gleeson fills the role of the trusting naïf tragically in thrall to the unnatural beast’s affections—he’s a lowly coder called in to decide if AVA’s “brain” passes human muster. They match while the film plays out a slow burn: Reflective surfaces surround each shot, setting up AVA and her creator-slash-captor as both mirror images and opposing forces. We know how this story goes—we’re headed inexorably toward a showdown between man and the monster he’s created. Modern concerns may dominate the text, but this one’s running off an antique framework.
THE SARAGOSSA MANUSCRIPT [Harvard Film Archive. Fri. 4.17, 7pm.] A Spanish officer wanders about a desolate landscape marked by discarded skulls and hanging bodies. Someone tells him a story; inside that story, someone else tells one; and then again, and again. The tales crisscross, gaining in intricacy until you can’t even remember how deep the rabbit hole goes—a sustained structural joke of epic proportions. We meet drunks, monks, soldiers, sinners, and ghosts as we travel through the class system, with director Wojciech Has gleefully alternating between the ghoulish and the goofball. He maintains an eye for Brueghelian long shots though—they let him look at society’s contrasting elements simultaneously. His structuralism was no mere flourish: Whether tracking through aristocratic parties or floating over surrealist wastelands, he saw social configurations holding everyone in rigidly mandated positions.
DIGBOSTON.C0M
04 15 15 – 04 22 15
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THE PRINCESS OF FRANCE [Harvard Film Archive. Sun 4.19. 7pm] The latest in a series of Shakespeare riffs from filmmaker Matías Piñeiro, Princess doubles down on Love’s Labour’s Lost. A cast of actors polish their take on the play, while their private lives carry them through a mirror image of the Bard’s partner-swapping plot (they’re stage players, literally and figuratively). The young filmmaker lets his camera rest on artworks (painted nudes, printed postcards) while his cast walks through their preliminary flirtations, but when they perform the play for radio in a climactic scene, his focus is trained on their faces, as the prior entanglements complicate their current performances. If the metatextual layering creates a distancing effect, it’s one that Piñeiro’s subtext effectively dismisses. He’s creating a canon in which private lives and the cultures they inhabit are entirely inextricable.
THE EVICTORS
LOST RIVER
[Coolidge After Midnight. Fri 4.17 and Sat 4.18, 11:59pm..] Stealth class warfare by way of a slasher movie. We open with sepia-toned flashbacks to the early 20th century, as a debt-holding backwoods couple is shot out of their home by policemen who prefer the rights of banks to those of citizens. Flash-forward to the vibrantly realized ’40s, when a new couple (Michael Parks and Jessica Harper) is moving into the now-haunted house. The bodies pile high as the upscale tenants pore through neighborhood myths, slowly realizing every upwardly mobile resident since the initial eviction has met a gory end. The palette of the flashbacks expands as we advance through the ages, establishing an aesthetic link between the sins of past generations and the ills of the present. A distinctly American horror movie—it’s haunted by shameful history.
[Now available on all VOD outlets] How to describe Ryan Gosling’s astoundingly incompetent directorial debut? Christina Hendricks stars as a single mom forced into degrading work so that she can save her mortgage, so it’s ostensibly a housing crisis parable. (Gosling’s made-up setting is nakedly modeled after Detroit.) With the help of maverick cinematographer and neon enthusiast Benoit Debie (Enter the Void, Spring Breakers), Gosling expends most of his energy pilfering shots from better filmmakers: a burning house borrowed from Badlands, long tracking shots hand-stamped by Kubrick, and a purposefully garish color palette lifted from the ranks of cult Italian horror. The aesthetic slickness saps the last bits of sincerity out of this movie star’s paean to poor people. He’s made a perfume ad for poverty.
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ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT
DEPT. OF COMMERCE
FEATURE
NEWS TO US
THEATER
COME BACK, LITTLE SHEBA Krsantsky stuns in new production of American masterpiece BY SPENCER SHANNON @SUSPENCEY
Friday April 24th 10PM
AMERICAN SYMPHONY OF SOUL + KUF KNOTZ Soul / Funk / Hip-Hop
WHISKEY KILL + RED PENNYS Rockabilly
Friday May 22nd 10PM
THE JAUNTEE + SPROCKET Jam Band / Improv
17 Holland St., Davis Sq. Somerville (617) 776-2004 Directly on T Red Line at Davis
Thursday, April 16th
JOHNETTE NAPOLITANO (of Concrete Blonde) + LAURIE SARGENT Singer-Songwriter
Friday, April 17th 7:30PM
ROBERT LEONARD’S SLIPPERY SNEAKERS Zydeco & Blues Band
Friday, April 17th 10PM Afropop Night
M’BOLO + KALIFA & KALOBA + DJ AFRO-MARC Saturday, April 18th 7PM
SUGAR RAY & THE BLUETONES Chicago Style Blues
Saturday, April 18th 10PM
GANGSTAGRASS CD RELEASE Hip-Hop / Bluegrass
Tuesday, April 22nd 8PM Free Bar side show
DOCTOR GRANT’S OPEN MIC $10 Pizza & Pint Special!
DIGBOSTON.C0M
04 15 15 – 04 22 15
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UPCOMING 4/24 NICK MOSS (Blues Rock)
4/30 NRBQ + SARAH BORGES + MUCK &
THE MIRES
5/2 ENGLISH BEAT + THE ALLSTONIANS
17 HOLLAND ST., DAVIS SQ. SOMERVILLE (617) 776-2004 DIRECTLY ON T RED LINE AT DAVIS
IS THIS ONE MINE? OR THIS ONE? I’LL JUST DRINK BOTH. The true impact of director David Cromer’s haunting new production of William Inge’s classic play Come Back, Little Sheba isn’t felt in the theater itself, or even when the curtain comes down, deeply affecting though that moment may be. It hits you much later, when you’re alone, getting ready for sleep, perhaps—and the crushing weight of time lost, opportunities wasted, and relationships let go comes at you full force in the darkness. Don’t be fooled by the disarming title: Come Back, Little Sheba is a work that demands a steep emotional toll from its audiences, and reaches down deep into the depths of human experience and tragedy. It’s what Cromer calls “a tiny play,” in that it zeroes in on the quiet lives of small people. That’s what makes it so powerful, however—though written in 1950, the play could be about any one of us. Produced true to the time of its publication, Little Sheba comes to life within a single-family home, beautifully rendered by scenic designer Stephen Dobay. Every detail, from the retro radio set to the chrome coffee percolator, transports the audience to the production’s mid-century setting. The unique corner setup allows a slightly different view depending on where the spectator is seated: one person may see the kitchen best, while another is afforded a peek up the stairs to the second floor. Featured prominently from any direction, however, high up on a kitchen shelf, is the play’s silent antagonist: a full, shining bottle of whiskey. The production tells the story of Doc and Lola, a childless couple in a sexless marriage approaching middle age, people with no friends, family, or success to speak of. Doc is a recovering alcoholic; the effects of long-term substance abuse are chillingly referred to as his “sickness.” When the couple takes in the college-aged Marie as a tenant, her easy charm and vibrant sensuality remind them of old regrets and unearth repressed tensions that explode in a violent climax. The play focuses with merciless, reflective clarity on how quickly life passes by— on just how inescapable the rush of time is that overtakes us like a tide, leaving us in the dust. Furthermore, it encapsulates the shattered promises of the middle-class American dream. Little Sheba is a masterpiece of the everyday tragedy of being alive, of careless youth juxtaposed with jaded age, of the tumultuous realities of long-term marriage, and of the price of trading safety for experience. And its power is magnified by its several long, quiet scenes. While some may find that these considerably slow down the pacing of the play, the result is felt in the shifting tone and emotional weight that is produced by these portraits of solitude. There is something painfully human in watching Lola putter around her empty house as the day drags by without her, in watching Doc get up alone and make coffee for himself as the sun comes up. Nothing needs to be said, not even music is needed to carry across the message of these scenes: The loneliness of daily monotony is something universally felt. Adrianne Krstansky is utterly astounding as Lola. She drives the play, each scene providing solid proof of her complete mastery of the role. Krstansky’s Lola is a woman robbed of her youth, her vitality, and her ability to bear children, but who, despite her losses, bears a courageously big heart. She maintains an innocence and a depth of emotion that lurks beneath a facade of pathetic loneliness and quailing desperation for human contact. With each consecutive interaction with the rest of the cast, the audience is slowly clued in: There is more to Lola than what her vapid, childish earnestness suggests. She is a person who has survived. She has endured—and she will continue on, in spite of a world that continues to abuse her tender spirit. “It’s all forgotten now,” Doc sighs when Lola tries to reconnect with him over memories of the early days, when they were young, beautiful, and in love. Little Sheba reminds us all of what’s at stake when we forget to slow down for a while in our dayto-day lives—and let ourselves go in the process of living. >> HUNTINGTON THEATRE COMPANY PRESENTS: COME BACK, LITTLE SHEBA. CALDERWOOD PAVILION AT THE BCA. 527 TREMONT ST., BOSTON. ALL AGES/$25-78. HUNTINGTONTHEATRE.ORG
PHOTO BY T. CHARLE SERICKSON
Friday May 1st 10PM We Dig Free Fridays presents
NEWS TO US
ARTS
FEATURE
RAPPY ANNIVERSARY
DEPT. OF COMMERCE
Mind Spray celebrates a year of collaborative residency
ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT
BY CHRIS FARAONE @FARA1
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As a man about the Boston music scene since his days as a BU dorm rat in the aughts, Conor Loughman has a rep for having eclectic yet palatable taste and the balls to take risks. As a full-time event production and marketing dude, a sometime booking agent, the talent buyer at Wonder Bar in Allston, and the former force behind Base Trip Records, he’s difficult to pigeonhole. To glimpse into the many facets of his grind, it helps to look into Mind Spray, Loughman’s monthly open mic competition and hip-hop powwow, which celebrates its one-year anniversary this week at Brighton Music Hall. “Mind Spray works in Boston because there’s a huge amount of talent, but there’s also a huge lack of cohesion or community among the talented artists in the city,” Loughman tells DigBoston. Since its first show, Mind Spray’s offered prizes and incentives for prevailing MCs, with headline spots given to winners from prior months. “The attitude is prevalent [in Boston] that if someone else is doing well, that’s bad for me. At the same time, people who do well, here and in other places, they’re always crews and collectives—Rhymesayers [out of Minnesota] being the best example.” Loughman has developed his business around friendships and collaborations since the beginning. Lured by a Google ad offering help to “Start Your Own Record Label,” he spent his sophomore year building Base Trip with a roster of friends including psychedelic electronic artist Supersillyus and producer InfinitiRock, the latter of whom is now signed to the Michigan-based Ghostly International as Lord RAJA. “I knew all of them, so I thought that I could book their shows and do their music,” Loughman recalls. “Nobody else was fucking with them so I started doing everything, from being the booking agent to the guy navigating Boston’s music community.” He continues: “I was in college, so people’s expectations were low. I made so many mistakes, like calling venues that make all their money off alcohol with my squeaky high-pitched voice. I learned how to use email after that.” Among the other lessons Loughman learned along the way: Though he himself may have varying arcane instincts, eclecticism doesn’t always pack the house. He says about his umbrella company, The Brain Trust, “We’ve always done hip-hop and electronic shows, but we’ve realized that in order for us to really be able to do them the way people want, they have to be separate to an extent. For those who come though, they’re encouraged to build and collaborate. It’s the atmosphere of a community.” On that familial note, for Mind Spray’s one-year bash heads can expect headliners DJ Real P and Latrell James, who have hosted the event since day one, as well as STL GLD, the project from Hub rap honcho Moe Pope and producer Arcitype, both of whose careers Loughman has played some role in managing. There will also be short consecutive sets from all 12 Mind Spray champs so far—a budding crop including Mr. Fritz and Casso—as well as the debut of the Beantown Bullies Cypher, which Loughman promises will overwhelmingly embody the collaborative spirit of Mind Spray. “It will be a revolving door, because they all have tracks together now,” he says of the lineup. “I’ve done a lot of different things, but the thing that’s been consistent is that I want to expose people to music I think is great.” Here’s to another year. >> MIND SPRAY 1-YEAR ANNIVERSARY W/ STL GLD, LATRELL JAMES + MORE. SUN 4.19. BRIGHTON MUSIC HALL, 158 BRIGHTON AVE., ALLSTON. 7PM/18+/$15. FOR MORE INFO VISIT CROSSROADSPRESENTS. COM/BRIGHTON-MUSIC-HALL
PHOTO BY LEE DELULIO
I THINK I JUST GOT AN IDEA FOR A NEW ENERGY DRINK IN A MIC-SHAPED BOTTLE
SECRET ASIAN MAN BY TAK TOYOSHIMA @TAKTOYOSHIMA
THE STRANGERER BY PAT FALCO ILLFALCO.COM
WHAT'S FOR BREAKFAST BY PATT KELLEY WHATS4BREAKFAST.COM
OUR VALUED CUSTOMERS BY TIM CHAMBERLAIN OURVC.NET
SAVAGE LOVE
DIAPER PALS BY DAN SAVAGE @FAKEDANSAVAGE
DIGBOSTON.C0M
04 15 15 – 04 22 15
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I’m 26 years old and have been dating my boyfriend for a year. In the first week of dating, he disclosed his adult-baby side. Trying to be a GGG partner, I told him I supported him and dove right in, even though I felt uncomfortable. He likes me to dress him up and let him pee while wearing diapers, and he likes to dress me up. I feel “icky” and even violated afterward—though everything has always been consensual. I want to be comfortable with it, but I’m just not there. When I’ve expressed my discomfort, it’s made him upset and embarrassed. Another confusing thing: My vagina always gets way wetter than usual when he puts a diaper on me. But I can’t seem to get to a place where I actually feel like I’m enjoying it. Is it fair that I feel resentful for not being given more understanding for my mixed feelings? Is there a way I can break through and enjoy this? (We have plenty of vanilla sex, which he is totally into as well.) Adult Diapers Under Lover’s Terms Something about being put in a diaper turns you on. (The particular sensations it creates in your swimsuit area? The tabooness of being a non-incontinent adult in a diaper?) But that turn-on is short-circuited by your discomfort. And if your turn-on is grounded in the sensations and/or the taboo, ADULT, you may
never become comfortable with your boyfriend’s kink. Quite the opposite: The more you do it, the less surprising the sensations will come to feel, the less naughty it will feel, the less of an accidental/ bank-shot turn-on diapers will become. Being GGG doesn’t require a person to do whatever the hell their partner wants. Remember what GGG stands for: “Good in bed (wok on those skills), giving of pleasure (without always expecting immediate reciprocation), and game for anything—within reason.” It’s unreasonable of your partner to ask you to continue engaging in diaper play when it leaves you feeling violated. You gave it a shot, it’s not working for you, and you have to be able to discuss your feelings—and your limits—without him playing mad and/or hurt. Right now, you’re engaging in diaper play not out of a GGG desire to meet his needs, ADULT, but because you’re afraid of upsetting him. So you’re not consenting from a place of honest desire (a desire to do a particular thing, a desire to please your partner) but from a place of fear—you don’t fear him, but you fear hurting him. No wonder it leaves you feeling like shit. Here’s what you should say: “Hey, honey, it’s great that you have a fetish, and I’m glad you felt comfortable sharing it with me. But I don’t enjoy it and I don’t think I ever will. So this is something you should explore with other people. Get yourself a diaper pal, play to your heart’s content, and then come home and have awesome vanilla sex with me.” ON THE LOVECAST, SLATE WRITER L.V. ANDERSON ON WHY WE DON’T HAVE BETTER CONDOMS: SAVAGELOVECAST.COM.
NEWS TO US FEATURE ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT
RHODE ISLAND CONVENTION CENTER, MAY 16TH & 17TH
DEPT. OF COMMERCE
NEW ENGLAND’S LARGEST CANNABIS INDUSTRY CONVENTION
TICKETS ON SALE NOW
31
THIS EVENT will bring together dozens of vendors from every aspect of the Cannabis industry, 2 full days of educational workshops & panels, and thousands of patients, advocates, supporters, educators, and entrepreneurs. There will also be a wide assortment of the best smoking, vaping, storage, and growing accessories available for purchase at the show! 2 FULL DAYS OF PROGRAMMING Featuring:
· Bob Lobel, New England Sports Broadcast legend & MMJ patient · Education: Cultivation for Patients and Caregivers · Politics/Activism Panel · Medical Marijuana as Medicine Education: Cooking with Cannabis · MA Medical Marijuana Law
SATURDAY: $25 SUNDAY: $25 2 DAY PASS: $40
Buy your tickets NOW:
WWW.CANNATICKET.COM Presented by
Saturday: noon - 6pm Sunday: 11am-5pm At the Rhode Island Convention Center, in Downtown Providence