DIGBOSTON.COM 11.22.18 - 11.29.18
NEWS
ROXBURY RESISTS
PLUS A GUN INVESTIGATION UPDATE
KURT VILE MUSIC
GUITAR JAM
TALKING JOINTS MEMO: LEGAL WEED IS HERE–THE MAINSTREAM REJOICES
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w/ Future Generations
REVEREND JUNIOR HORTON &BROWN, & HEAT THE BLASTERS BIG SANDY
TUE. DECEMBER 4
WED. DECEMBER 5
Wild Child
RIP ON&ON
It was the weekend of my 30th birthday, nearly a decade ago. Despite having to go to a wedding more than five hours away from the Hub on Saturday night, I convinced my date to leave the next morning before breakfast so that I could get home in time for Hip-Hop Jeopardy at the Good Life. And it was worth the hustle. There are some pictures from that Sunday, and from about a half a dozen hip-hop trivia events that went down after that. When I return to them all these years later, I see a jovial kid fully wrapped in what were some of the most memorable moments of my young adult life. At the same time, I hear the voice of DJ On&On, a rap scene stalwart in these parts for nearly two decades whose hilarity marked the soundtrack to innumerable legendary mixtapes and club nights. Flipping through CD books of old local hip-hop in the wake of learning that he passed away from cancer last week, it’s been remarkable to recall just how many projects On&On touched and hosted, from his squawk as one half of the Masters next to JayCeeOh, to V.I.P. Love Lounge with DJ Knife, to his standout Golden Brown album with NoDoz, he exemplified what hip-hop heads refer to as a party rocker. By true school standards, there has never been a higher calling, and on the strength of both his laying down roots in the Bronx before coming to Boston as well as his deep appreciation for the genre, On&On was endlessly determined to move people on the dance floor. He also packed a personable punch and was incomparably funny, the butt of many of his jokes being the small potatoes hip-hop cats who act as if they’re platinum icons. Nevertheless, while On&On tended to roll his eyes into the back of his shaved head whenever anyone declared themselves to be “King of the Bean,” he was often among the first on hand to help those local artists get exposure beyond Boston. His years-long run behind the boards on JAM’N 94.5 FM’s The Launchpad was a case in point, with On&On taking much pride in the task of identifying up-and-coming talent that jocks who are in it for the fame and cash pass up for junk artists du jour. I have far too many memories of On&On to mention; they have been coming back to me all week. From the countless hours we spent interviewing MCs at the UndergroundHipHop.com store in Back Bay, to blogging with him on our old site JumpTheTurnStyle, to covering him volunteering for several fundraisers and, in one case, organizing a basketball tournament in Roxbury during an especially bloody summer. On a fractured scene for which the go-to metaphor has always been a crab bucket, On&On was a uniter with friends on all sides. I can’t even begin to say how many people he saved from getting their asses kicked over the years, like the time he brokered peace with a New York rapper who his UndergroundHipHop.com colleague Van Stylez insulted. This is a brutal one to write; despite all of the laughs we had, the only time I’ve smiled about the loss this past week was when I was reminded by our mutual friend Aronious that GZA from Wu-Tang Clan once called him DJ Onion. Funny as that was, Onion’s actually a fitting moniker, since On&On could make you laugh until you cried, and because even the hardest among us has shed tears about the unimaginable loss of a real Boston classic. Rest in beats.
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≠ 11/23 ASHLEY JORDAN ≠ 11/26 MONOBODY ≠ 11/30 HOUSE OF HARM ≠ 12/5 MUTUAL BENEFIT ≠ 12/6 HAERTS ≠ 12/7 CULT LEADER ≠ 12/8 MARISSA NADLER | ≠ 12/9 JUSTUS PROFFIT & JAY SOM ≠ 12/10 PRIESTS ≠ 12/11 RYLEY WALKER ≠ 12/12 DRAMA ≠ 12/13 OOMPA
Tickets for Royale, The Sinclair, and Great Scott can be purchased online at AXS.COM. No fee tickets available at The Sinclair box office Wednesdays - Saturdays 12:00 - 7:00PM FOR MORE INFORMATION AND A COMPLETE LIST OF SHOWS, VISIT BOWERYBOSTON.COM NEWS TO US
FEATURE
DEPT. OF COMMERCE
ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT
3
NEWS+OPINION FIRE SALE PT. 1 1/2 NEWS ANALYSIS
Digging deeper into the abyss of reckless unchecked state spending on guns and ammo BY CHRIS FARAONE AND CURTIS WALTMAN
In the last week of September, we published the first installment of what will eventually be a multipart, expansive look at militarized muscle in Mass. Subtitled, “Even for weapons dealers who have flouted state laws, there is major money to be made by selling munitions to police in Massachusetts,” the feature outlined a demonstrably opaque police purchasing process that has scant internal oversight and specifically impugned a massive umbrella contract, abbreviated as AMMO, that enables law enforcement agencies to secure everything from “handguns,” to “silencers, tasers, tear gas, chemical munitions, pepperball launchers, dart guns, gas masks, and ballistic blankets.” Among other highlights, our report noted the following: • Mass spends millions every year replenishing and bolstering its arsenals, plus adding advanced equipment and technology. As do municipal police and other taxpayer-funded public safety outfits. These purchases often have little to no oversight beyond the procuring departments, and have as a result spurred certain impropriety. • One dealer of military gear who has been entangled in two separate controversies involving giving questionable gifts—guns, as well as other favors— to state purchasing agents has sold hundreds of thousands of dollars in goods to Mass in the last three years. Other active sellers include a shop that the AG recently caught selling guns that are banned in this state. • The state is spending more than it’s supposed to on these weapons. In regards to AMMO, the open contract was slated to total $1.5 million over its initial three-year term (2015-2018), or double that ($3 million) if it’s extended three more years through 2021, as is possible through optional oneyear extensions. In practice, the state police, with some help from the Department of Correction and Environmental Police, spent more than $3 million— twice the initial allotment—in just the first three years, from 2015 to mid-2018. This is a theme that has continually come up in our research, and that we are investigating as it pertains to numerous contracts. Since the beginning of this year, our team at the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism has examined hundreds of state purchasing agreements for everything from body armor and silencers to stun guns and tasers, the latter of which is the subject of an upcoming feature in this series. For the investigation into the multifaceted AMMO contract, we filed a flurry of Freedom of Information Act requests to the offices of AG Maura Healey, the Massachusetts State Police, and the state’s Operational Services Division, which oversees purchasing (to varying degrees depending on the situation, as we are learning, but more on that in a moment). As was acknowledged in our late-September expose, of the public entities that we sent inquiries to, only AG Healey’s office replied by our deadline, and even it failed to produce all of the documents requested. In the time since, however, with assistance from the Cambridgebased FOIA site MuckRock, we have successfully secured several responses—some of which are of particular interest and will be used in subsequent stories, and others of which confirm problems first identified by our 4
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deep dive—notably, that police solicitation of guns and other combat gear is done solely by departments that weigh options and decide on agreements, without any scrutiny from other agencies. Responding nearly a month after we filed our request for information, OSD, the department of the Executive Office for Administration and Finance that manages thousands of state contracts for various departments every year, answered that it plays no role at all in the relevant munitions buys. A spokesperson confirmed that three disgraced troopers, who we found listed on state web sites as if they were still playing a role in making procurement decisions despite having been caught scamming the process, have since had their names removed from materials. Otherwise, OSD directed us back to the state police, who were even less forthcoming. Responding more than a month after we filed our request, MSP attorneys claimed that releasing “information relative to the model, make, and quantity of weapons purchased or to be purchased” would “jeopardize public safety.” “Protecting information and techniques necessary to its [law enforcement’s] performance of effective police work,” they argue, takes precedence “over the interests of the general public in its access to this information.” To justify their claims, MSP attorneys cited a Supreme Judicial Court case from 1976, Bougas v. Chief of Police of Lexington. Often referenced by police departments as a rationale for keeping records private, the landmark case addressed agency discretion in producing public documents, but makes no mention at all of munitions or procurement and purchasing. In one moment of clarity, a state police spokesperson did confirm that there is zero outside oversight of millions of dollars in purchasing done by the department. According to MSP Media Communications Director David Procopio: “The Colonel of the State Police and her Command Staff make weapon procurement decisions after consultation with the Department’s Armorer and Firearms Training Unit, in consideration of input from the ranks and industry standards, and in accordance with state purchasing laws.” We also received access to hundreds of emails between
PHOTO OF AG MAURA HEALEY BY BRYNNE QUINLAN
gun sellers and state police buyers. Though mostly mundane and procedural, some threads do shine light on how relationships in this realm are still flourishing in cases where the former has run afoul of the Mass attorney general. In one email exchange from November 2016, an MSP lieutenant requested a specific item (the exact name of which the department redacted in its response to our records request) but was told by the dealer that while it was in stock, “according to the attorney general’s office we won’t be able to sell them until they are on the approved weapons roster.” Two months prior, the Boston Globe revealed that Healey’s office found that the same vendor reportedly gave free guns to troopers who were responsible for firearm purchasing; nevertheless, the lieutenant’s sympathies lie with the dealer, as he replied, “Unbelievable—obviously them not you folks.” Meanwhile, AMMO was extended for another 12 months on Oct 31. That despite participating agencies already having spent approximately double their allotted $1.5 million budget over the first three years. And that isn’t the only money pumping through the Bay State gun market. In the first Fire Sale feature, we also noted several campaign contributions that have been made in this state on behalf of gun dealers. Members of the family of one such contributor, a major investor behind the Westfield-based gun supplier Camfour, wrote more than $20,000 in checks to Baker and Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito from 2015 to mid-2018. From Sept 28, the day after our article published, through this most recent Election Day in which Baker easily rocked his opponent, that same family gave another $3,750 to the governor’s campaign. This article was produced in collaboration with the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism as part of an ongoing series on procurement and purchasing in Massachusetts. Our reporting is done in part with MuckRock and the Emerson College Engagement Lab, and has been made possible by a grant from the Online News Association. To see more reporting like this, you can contribute at givetobinj.org.
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FEATURE
DEPT. OF COMMERCE
ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT
5
A GOOD SEASON TO BE A GOOD HUMAN BEING APPARENT HORIZON
And keep it up through the hard times to come BY JASON PRAMAS @JASONPRAMAS It’s Thanksgiving this week. More correctly the National Day of Mourning. A holiday fraught with contradiction, as I’ve written repeatedly in the past. And what is one to make of it? Originally an opportunity for the descendants of the European colonists who seized Massachusetts—the country it eventually sat within, and the continent that surrounds it—from Native American nations through a combination of deadly diseases, grand theft, and genocidal violence to celebrate their good fortune. Now one of a number of nearly indistinguishable chances throughout the calendar year for (most, not all) people to take a day off from work, eat too much food (often prepared courtesy of women’s unpaid labor), drink too much alcohol, watch sports on TV, and maybe catch up with friends and extended family in the margins somewhere. Once a harvest festival inaugurated by a Christian theocracy, it has morphed into a secular affair. Though its nationalist overtones remain strong. Nevertheless, it kicks off a period of the year—however commercialized—where people are encouraged to think about other people. To talk to each other, and to give each other gifts. So, Turkey Day is as messed up as the warmongering capitalist republic it celebrates. But it does bring out some good behavior in Americans that I believe should be encouraged. An attitude that continues through to another secularized Christian holiday, Christmas, and beyond to a hopeful and libidinous New Year’s Eve. Which is why it’s a fine time of year to make a few suggestions of things readers can do to make the world a better place. Whether you’re religious or not, and regardless of your politics… or lack thereof. Help Someone Less Fortunate Than Yourself I’m talking on an individual level here. One on one. You’re walking down the street. You see a homeless person. You see a hand being held out in supplication. So, give that person some money. Some food. Some coffee. 6
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Whatever they need in the moment. Look that person in the eye. Talk to that person. That fellow human being in need in front of you. A person you may have passed by a dozen times without raising your gaze from the sidewalk. Maybe ask a question or two. Think about the circumstances that resulted in that person ending up on the street. Then reflect upon how you might help build a society that will not allow anyone to lose their home to begin with. Volunteer Now help a bunch of people. For a couple hours a week or a couple hours a month. Donate your time, labor, and experience. Give a workshop at a local school on something you’re passionate about. Work in a homeless shelter. Build a community garden. Visit with folks in a nursing home. After a fashion, mull over how much can be done outside a system of market transactions. Look for ways to network volunteer efforts together into a front for social betterment. Donate to Charity Finding a nonprofit organization that really does the good work it says it does can be tricky. So, ask around. Check the news media for background. Go to the website of any organization that looks decent and read some of the group’s materials. Your basic litmus test should be whether the charity in question spends most of the money it raises in the service of its chosen community of interest. Groups that do that are generally worthy of your support. Donate annually… or, and I say this as someone who runs a nonprofit alongside a commercial newspaper, donate monthly. Keep it up as long as you can. And if you can afford it, give to many solid organizations. Set a percentage of your income to devote to good works and give that sum consistently. Note the power of giving, and think about how to expand the gift economy to become the dominant mode of exchange.
Day of Service Too late a plan for this year, but in the years to come try converting your Thanksgiving from just party time into a time to both party and help others. Tell your friends and family that you’re going to spend part of the day helping people in need in your community, and invite them to come along. Over time, this could become a tradition. And the more personal networks that do it, the more the idea will catch on. Not that such a service day is a new notion. But it is something that could stand to be spread nationwide. Perhaps supplanting the current majority view of the holiday at some point. Inspiring many people to make such activities part of daily life—and ultimately baking them into our culture. In closing, I make these suggestions for what I consider to be obvious moral reasons. But also for reasons as political as anything I’ve ever written. Because we’re entering what may well be the most difficult period that the human race has ever faced. And if our species is going to survive and thrive in the decades to come, it will be thanks to simple human solidarity. Based on the kind of actions I suggest above at base. And if humanity is going to stop genocides like the one that was committed against Native Americans—and far too many other groups of people since—from ever happening again, such solidarity is not optional. It is essential. Apparent Horizon—winner of the Association of Alternative Newsmedia’s 2018 Best Political Column award—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.
MINORITY MASSACRE OPINION
A queer look at Jonestown at 40 BY REV. IRENE MONROE
This November marks the 40th anniversary of the Jonestown massacre. The mass murder-suicide was the largest casualty of American citizens before 9/11. With 40 years since the Jonestown massacre, a more disturbing image of the Reverend Jim Jones’s treatment toward his LGBTQ parishioners emerges. Jones was the charismatic white founder and cult leader of the Peoples Temple, a San Francisco-based evangelical church, as well of the “Peoples Temple Agricultural Project,” a utopian socialist commune in a remote jungle outpost in Guyana, South America. Also, Jones was a megalomaniacal bisexual and sexual molester. As a superficial sympathizer with the oppressed and social outcasts, it is not surprising that Jones developed a large and loyal following of African-Americans. He also developed a large following of LGBTQs. Of the 900-plus members of the Peoples Temple who died in the Jonestown massacre in 1978, approximately 75 percent were African-American, 20 percent were white, and 5 percent were Asian, Latinx, and Native American. The majority of its black congregants were women, while its core leadership was predominantly white, as too are the historical records and visual optics of the event. In reality, like in black church communities, black women were the backbone of the Peoples Temple. Sadly, they also made up a majority of Jonestown’s victims. Jones and the Peoples Temple were a ubiquitous presence in the Bay area. As an influential church body in city politics, it even had a public pro-civil rights image in San Francisco in the 1970s. As an “open and affirming” church that welcomed LGBTQs in the era of the Florida homophobe poster girl Anita Bryant and her “Save the Children” campaign, the Peoples Temple was a safe and sacred sanctuary. Members even marched in gay pride parades and embraced a social gospel of radical inclusion. Throughout his reign, Jones had a sizeable LGBTQ following that kept growing along with his African-American audience. Both subgroups expanded in numbers at each church he founded—Indiana, Ukiah, Guyana. LGBTQ parishioners were involved in every aspect of church life, governance, and activities. So accepting was the Peoples Temple that its lead soloist had an open relationship with the church organist. While the exacy number of LGBTQ deaths in the Jonestown massacre is not presently known, stories from former parishioners and Jonestown survivors are emerging. And it appears that Jones kept a publicly pro-gay persona for strictly strategic and self-serving reasons. Politically, Jones and his church were pivotal in the 1975 mayoral election of George Moscone, who subsequently appointed Jones as chairman of the San Francisco Housing Authority Commission. Before that, Jones’s activism intersected with that of Harvey Milk, who became the city’s first openly gay politician to be elected when he won a spot on its Board of Supervisors in November 1977. Milk was a frequent speaker at rallies at the Peoples Temple and wrote to Jones frequently afterward expressing his thoughts. Exhilarated from one of the rallies he spoke at the Peoples Temple, Milk wrote Jones the following: Rev Jim, It may take me many a day to come back down from the high that I reach today. I found something dear today. I found a sense of being that makes up for all the hours and energy placed in a fight. I found what you wanted me to find. I shall be back. For I can never leave. Oddly, Jones and Milk died nine days apart in November 1978. Paul VanDeCarr wrote a somber piece about their deaths in the Advocate; titled “Death of Dreams,” it suggested that the spirit of San Franciscans was shattered when the icons, who both preached radical equality in an era of little hope, were gone. Of course, while Jones became something of a beloved warrior for the downtrodden, he also had a Mr. Hyde persona that skillfully fooled and manipulated the people who trusted him the most. In his book The Road to Jonestown, former parishioner Jeff Guinn asks, “Was Jones a closeted gay? Were the many heterosexual dalliances with women and the family man image with dozens of children around him merely his gay cover up?” “Jim said that all of us were homosexuals,” Joyce Houston, an ex-Temple follower, said in a documentary about Jonestown. “Everyone except [him]. He was the only heterosexual on the planet. … The women were all lesbians; the guys were all gay. And so anyone who showed an interest in sex was just compensating.” His sexual ambiguity and animus toward homoeroticism were impulses he could neither closet nor control. Instead, Jones used sexual assault on men as one of his weapons. For example, he openly and publicly molested a male congregant in front of followers to “prove the man’s own homosexual tendencies.” Other times, when Jones engaged in gay sex, he said was doing it as a symbolic act to have men connect with him. Jones was a man of many contradictions, but that’s especially true if you’re trying to assess his relationship with the LGBTQ community. A new book by Michael Bellefountaine, A Lavender Look at the Temple, attempts to tackle the issue. But until now, there’s been very little disclosed about former Jones followers who were LGBTQ. It’s time for their stories to come out.
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FEATURE
DEPT. OF COMMERCE
ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT
7
CERTAIN FAILURE? NEWS ANALYSIS
A look at the Mass pols who could be next to lose a presidential bid BY PATRICK COCHRAN
PHOTO BY BRYNNE QUINLAN
With the conclusion, regardless of the end result, of the 2018 midterm election, the race to unseat the president is all but officially underway. Trump never really halted his 2016 campaign and has been continuing his wild rallies around the country for months. A potentially enormous field is materializing, with a solid chunk of that field coming from Mass—politicians who have cultivated long, impressive resumes, undoubtedly with at least a small, lingering notion that they could be president of the United States. Here’s a quick look at some Bay State characters who could become key players in this sad saga unfolding before us. Sen. Elizabeth Warren Let’s get the obvious one right out of the way. For the last year or so, US Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s political presence has almost exclusively been viewed with the context of her being a White House hopeful. The Commonwealth’s senior senator even said last month that she’d consider a potential run after her reelection campaign against state Rep. Geoff Diehl wrapped up. “It’s time for women to go to Washington and fix our broken government, and that includes a woman at the top,” Warren said at a town hall-style event in Holyoke. “So here’s what I promise: After Nov 6, I will take a hard look at running for president.” A Warren campaign would make sense on several levels. Her progressive streak broadly aligns with the direction of the Democratic Party’s base following the 2016 primary, and her proximity to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and the Occupy movement could stand out in a field likely filled with centrists. It should be noted that while Warren is coming off a convincing re-election effort, the results of her 2018 Senate race in Mass show some potential fault lines. She very narrowly ran behind Hillary Clinton’s 2016 numbers, but perhaps more significantly, GOP nominee Rep. Geoff Diehl ran ahead of Trump. Warren was one of a very small group of Democrats in Senate races who actually saw their electorate lose ground since the 2016 shocker. Regardless, she won the race in a landslide. Some bitterness awaits a Warren campaign, too. Her decision not to endorse in the 2016 primary had many on the left feeling betrayed, and it’s yet to be seen if time can mend that divide. “[Warren] is someone who people who were/are Bernie devotees feel defensive about because she did not back him in the primaries,” said Juliann Rubijono, a founding member of Boston For Bernie during the 2016 campaign. “I feel that was unfortunate and possibly even a critical error.” 8
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In a general election, she’ll naturally be at a disadvantage given the inherent sexism of our political system, but Warren’s history and political positions make her a far more viable challenger to Trump than Hillary Clinton. The other areas where she promotes her progressive positions, like health care and the student debt crisis, are broadly popular across the political spectrum. Primaries are fluky, biased, and extremely difficult to predict, but it would seem that the only thing that could hold Warren back from being a top-tier contender for the nomination is a Sanders run. If the 2016 runner-up decides to give it another go in 2020, Warren can kiss the votes on the left goodbye, and she’ll be forced to win with a constituency of voters picked off from both lanes. A strategy that is frequently attempted and almost always fails. Deval Patrick This one is a bit weird. Is there any possible way that this country, pathetically limping into the 2020s, is yearning for a former governor from Massachusetts whose claim to fame is implementing (not passing or signing) the prototype of “Obamacare”? And whose legacy is botching said implementation? But apparently it’s serious. A longtime ally of Barack Obama (you know, the guy who oversaw the loss of 1,000 legislative seats over his two terms), Patrick has the strong backing of the former president’s inner circle. And he’s been open about his considering a run, coinciding with campaigning in key 2020 spots. “I’ll make a decision when I feel like I have a decision to make,” Patrick told the Atlantic last month. It’s tough to envision a successful run for president from Patrick. His would-have-been successor Martha Coakley was beat in a year Democrats convincingly won every other major office in the Commonwealth, and now Republican Charlie Baker, who ran against the troubles of the Patrick administration, is the most popular governor in America. But things didn’t look good in his reelection fight in 2010, when he beat Baker, or in 2006, when he seemingly came out of nowhere to win his first term. Again, primaries can be tough to predict; maybe there’s something there. Rep. Joe Kennedy III It’s highly unlikely that Kennedy runs, but there’s a good chance he’s very involved in the upcoming election cycle. He’s too young to be painted as a long-time party loyalist, and too politically unoriginal to stand out on policy or vision. But he is a Kennedy, and you can’t underestimate how much that still means to a lot of people. Unless Sanders wins the nomination, look for Kennedy to be on the short list of potential vice president picks. If Warren wins the presidency, or is appointed to a cabinet position, don’t be shocked when Kennedy makes a run for her senate seat. Rep. Seth Moulton Moulton’s another one who almost certainly won’t run for president this time around, but that doesn’t mean that the Bay State’s youngest representative won’t play a big role in this election. I closely covered Moulton’s first race in 2014, when he
ran an extremely effective primary campaign to knock out incumbent Rep. John Tierney before going on to win in one of the Commonwealth’s most conservative districts. Moulton is well-liked and a very good campaigner, and he should not be underestimated as an inherently gifted politician. This just isn’t his year, for the same reasons as Kennedy, in all likelihood. But like Kennedy, he could end up on some lists for vice president. You get one nationally televised debate as the VP nominee. Watching firsthand how brutally a young Moulton was able to dismantle a seasoned pol like Tierney, it might do the Dems good to bring him in to wipe the floor with Mike Pence. Otherwise expect Moulton to raise his profile in the House, maybe pushing for a leadership position with the new Congress. John Kerry That would be pretty funny. In reality, Kerry’s window probably closed 20 years ago, but his pronounced role as Obama’s Secretary of State has put him in the spotlight. His connection to the Iran Deal and the Paris Climate Agreement—international affairs decimated by Trump—has placed Kerry in a natural position against the president. He probably won’t run, but he hasn’t ruled it out either. “I haven’t eliminated anything in my life, period, anything—except perhaps running a sub-four [minute] mile,” Kerry told Politico in October. Michael Bloomberg People tend to forget that the New York billionaire’s roots are in the Boston area. Most of that will be completely overshadowed by his problematic record as mayor of New York when he inevitably acts on his doomed presidential ambitions. Bill Weld The former Massachusetts governor traveled the country with Gary Johnson last time around as the Libertarian Party’s VP pick. As far as third party campaigns go, they were quite successful, picking up almost 4.5 million votes. As far as actual elections go, they were demolished, finishing well short of the 5 percent needed to gain public funding. Weld, who is little more than a decent-minded Massachusetts Republican, is probably hated by the Libertarians at this point for his support of things like public roads and drivers’ licenses. But Weld seems eager to stay in politics, and it’s been reported that he is laying the groundwork for another run under their umbrella. Jill Stein Stein is a great activist, and is very strong and well spoken on the issues, but one would think that if the Green Party had any interest in progressing as a political organization or movement, it would opt for a different candidate for president in 2020. The party barely got above 1 percent in a year where most Americans despised the major party candidates. “Three times is a lot. It’s a lot for any one person and it’s a lot for a party,” Stein said at the party’s annual meeting in August. “I would be kind of shocked if it came to that.” The Lexington resident has had better results in past years running for local office in the Bay State than in her bids for the presidency, so perhaps that’s the political path forward for Stein. But she has been campaigning around the country for the Greens, so you can’t rule out another go at the top of the ticket for Stein.
PHOTO COURTESY OF HSM MAGAZINE
LESS BUILDING, MORATORIUM NEWS+OPINION
Hundreds of Roxbury residents speak out against displacement at landmark hearing BY ZAKIYA ALAKE Last Tuesday, Roxbury residents filled the Bruce C. Bolling municipal building auditorium for the first Boston City Council hearing held in Roxbury in recent memory. Organizers, activists, and policy wonks joined them to raise their voices about some of the most critical challenges for long-term residents: gentrification and displacement. Roxbury Councilor Kim Janey put in an order for the hearing in September. Several resident-led neighborhood associations and other organizations had approached Janey since the beginning of her term last year, and as she made the rounds at subsequent community meetings, the councilor learned that residents need relief. Janey agreed that a Council hearing was necessary and scheduled it to be held right in Roxbury, which has been hit hard by housing inequality. By 5:30 pm, as the hearing was gaveled to order, the 200-person capacity room was already filled, with latecomers having to stand. People were still getting off buses at the Dudley MBTA station next door, looking to get in. Inside, City Councilor Lydia Edwards, chair of the body’s Committee on Housing and Community Development, joined Janey, Councilor-at-Large Michelle Wu, and South Boston Councilor Michael Flaherty, who opened by speaking about friends and family members who have been priced out of the Hub’s housing market. Roxbury state Rep. Chynah Tyler testified about the importance of community development standards and said that she sends all potential developers to the appropriate neighborhood associations and to the Roxbury Neighborhood Council’s Land Disposition Committee for vetting. After background on the situation was given, a panel of direct stakeholders stepped up to give their opening statements. A campaign has been gaining momentum in Roxbury for about two years, with resident associations and activists seeking to get city planners to stop giving public land to private builders before getting broad consensus from abutters and the neighborhood. Reclaim Roxbury organizer Armani White joined Robert Terrell of the Roxbury Neighborhood Council in setting the stage with a simple message: They want a moratorium on new development until the situation is settled, and they want it now.
Next up, a panel of city officials—Chief Economic Development Officer John Barros, Chief of Housing and Director of Neighborhood Development Sheila Dillon, among others—spoke to a thunderous silence. Their testimonies fell flat, with none of the appointed delegates answering specific complaints and accusations about displacement and the sale of city land. On the other side, a testimony from Roxbury resident Louis Elisa touched a note heard all throughout the hearing: Various agencies that deal with land development, planning, and disposition are unhelpful at best and at worst part of the problem. “As president of one of the oldest neighborhood associations in the city, the Garrison Trotter Neighborhood Association, I am here tonight to ask whether or not the elected representatives of our city are willing to work with us as a community to assure that the seniors, workingclass residents, and poor people in our community can count on you for support and assistance against the direct attacks on our quality of life by unscrupulous developers, lending agents, and large scale institutions. Elisa continued: “Unprecedented loss of public access to playgrounds and recreation for our children and seniors has occurred in our community without a word of protest or information from anyone. The wholesale turnover of the Carter Playground deprives hundreds of residents in lower Roxbury, and we have yet to know the reason why.” Roxbury resident Kimberly Lyle brought up the moratorium. We spoke after the event. “I wonder if the people of Roxbury were heard,” Lyle said, noting “the body language of some of the officials coupled with their unwillingness to explore a moratorium as a anti-displacement strategy.” “A moratorium is by definition a temporary prohibition of an activity. We aren’t saying, Have a permanent ban of disposition of public land. We’ve elaborated and explained that we need an opportunity to come together as a community to discuss how to create a more equitable and less oppressive disposition of public land.” Laura Younger of the Holborn, Gannett, Gaston, Otisfield Betterment Association (HGGOBA) addressed “the negative aspects of gentrification,” and the “displacement of black and Latino people and lower-income people in [the] Grove Hall neighborhood.” “What we need,” said NEWS TO US
Younger, “is the best of gentrification that includes us all, especially enabling our children to come home to or stay in the community when they have finished school or job training and are doing well.” She also offered a real-life example. “This is why we fight for affordable homeownership and affordable rental housing available for local people ineligible for renting in the city/CDC projects being developed. At our October HGGOBA meeting, two young black men came to make a presentation because they want support to build a house for themselves on a small lot. They already are priced out of buying and created a good plan to be homeowners here by building. They now live nearby with their mother, and I’m sure it would be easier for them to relocate to the suburbs. These brothers will need some zoning variances to succeed. We want to encourage them to keep going and we expect the city to be helpful.” By the end of the hearing, 60 people had signed up to testify, most of them residents of Roxbury or bordering neighborhoods. Councilors and many in the crowd stayed until 10 pm. Neighborhood associations put a lot of work and hope into this hearing, all of them—the group includes Reclaim Roxbury, Tommy’s Rock Neighborhood Association, Roxbury Path Forward, and the others noted herein— unifying behind the theme of a moratorium, as well as a want to develop standards that could guide responsible development in the area. “Tuesday’s hearing was very powerful. … We had two community panels and only one panel from the city,” Councilor Janey said. “And we began the hearing with a community panel, instead of the panel from the city, which usually goes first. We also weaved in public testimony throughout the hearing, instead of just leaving it until the end. … Everyone who wanted to speak [had] the opportunity to do so. “I purposely designed the hearing to maximize community voice.” Zakiya Alake is a member of the Roxbury Neighborhood Council and reported this article for the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism’s community journalism training program. FEATURE
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S S E N D A GL
HOW TO COVER THE FIRST DAY OF RECREATIONAL WEED TALKING JOINTS MEMO
Your guide to cannabis reporting on the Commonwealth’s Super Bowl Fun Day BY CHRIS FARAONE + DIG STAFF
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As you may have seen on every news site in the Commonwealth all day and night for several weeks now, plus on innumerable Facebook pages as well as on television newscasts, Cultivate in Leicester and New England Treatment Access (NETA) in Northampton start selling recreational weed—plus edibles, concentrates, and so forth—this Tuesday. It’s a topic of significant importance that we have been anticipating at DigBoston for two decades, and especially the last two years. So it’s entertaining to watch a wide range of others in the media not simply dip their toes in but instead cover these new shops from the dab to the test lab, producing a shocking amount of grand opening cannabis coverage. As a publication that was photographing and sampling buds in warehouses and basements when our cornball peers at other papers were opining against ballot questions that delivered decrim, medical, and ultimately rec weed, we remember when the dorks at Boston City Hall would give us hell over a cover with a pot leaf on it. Things have evolved, though, and now that you can buy green in a store, coverage is ubiquitous— with a lot of it decent, and a lot of it trash. We are also guilty of running the good and cheesy stuff, mostly the former, we hope, and we certainly produce and share a heap of all of the above through Talking Joints Memo, our free cannabis newsletter. But while we may have a reporter and photographer on the scene buying weed at dispensaries this week, we couldn’t miss this unique chance to gloat in the light of a milestone we knew would come despite the lies and hubris of a media that now swarms around pot shops the way they formerly predicted violent gangs would gather if we let the devil’s lettuce within state borders.
acting like the Virgin Mary has landed in Leicester and Northampton. After all, this isn’t just the first place you can walk in and legally purchase a vape pen in Mass, but rather on the whole damn East Coast and thousands of miles inland as well. There’s a Mary Jane joke in there somewhere, but with so many people covering the weed game these days, we have to reserve our best pot puns for covers and headlines.
Make it national We may be mocking mainstream media for salivating over something its reporters found distasteful up until a couple years ago, but it’s nonetheless true that this is a major event. Which is why so many TV journalists are
Call the cops This category of coverage yields headlines like “Local police want recreational pot users to know the laws before buying marijuana,” and lines like “Northampton Police are not too worried about people driving high,
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Report on the menu like it’s Watergate Here’s one that you can do right from your computer, no travel required. For a prime example, look no further than this clickbait candy from MassLive: “Pre-rolls, chocolate bars and chews: 10 recreational marijuana products available at NETA Northampton.” Even we scrolled up and down and drooled for a few minutes. We never thought outlets of record would so shamelessly pimp weed porn, but we’ll take it. Prepare the uninitiated Perhaps the easiest way to attract eyeballs is with an explainer piece aimed at the aunts and uncles who allegedly smoked pounds of pot back in the day but can no longer recall how to break up weed and load a pipe. Have things changed a lot in the past half-century? Sure. Are things like rigs, oil, and sauce overly complicated? You bet, even for the pros around our newsroom. At the same time, we had to buy a coffee machine a few weeks ago for the Dig office, and while we’d never done that before, none of us were too intimidated walking into Sears. We just kind of figured it out. And unlike at Sears, these dispensaries will actually have enough employees working there to help you.
but they want consumers to know about the dangers.” We live in a state where a prohibitionist bullshit Picasso like Walpole Police Chief John Carmichael is handed commission appointments related to cannabis and frequently quoted by journalists; it’s no wonder that we’re seeing stories like “Northampton police make traffic change as 1st recreational marijuana shop opens in Massachusetts.” If police make an announcement and there’s cannabis within a couple of miles, then there must be a story there. Warn people about edibles One thing you will learn from reading most cannabis stories is that people get extremely wasted when they eat too many edibles. Ever since New York Times opinion writer Maureen Dowd detailed her experience in the famously humiliating column, “Don’t Harsh Our Mellow, Dude,” we’ve come to find that compared to the stiffs on Boston airwaves who slip into a subtle Spicoli mode after the scripted portion ends and onair small talk with colleagues begins, the columnist is something of a seasoned stoner. More than anything, these are essentially news pieces in which reporters ask dispensaries what people should ask if they’re buying weed, and publicists from those dispensaries in turn say that those people should come and ask questions themselves. Just like they would at any other store on earth. Warn people about their dogs eating edibles Do you remember that classic television commercial warning people against pouring vodka into bowls for their dogs to lick up instead of water? Since that would make them sick? We don’t either, probably because there is no such thing. You’re not a complete idiot, right? Then you didn’t need an article reminding you to not poison your pet. We bet you still read a bunch of them, though.
HIGHS (AND LOWS) TALKING JOINTS MEMO
The first day of recreational weed in Northampton BY WILL MEYER Braving a full eight hours in horrendous 34 degree rain and snow, Northampton resident Dequan Hamilton was first in line to purchase recreational weed in the “Paradise City.” Having arrived at NETA shortly after midnight, Hamilton got to stand in front of hundreds of people who together wrapped first around a parking lot and then around a city block. Hamilton waited not just for the chance to buy a vape pen and gummy edibles, but was instead eager to make history. “I’m excited because I’m going to be one of the first people to buy weed recreationally east of the Mississippi,” he told DigBoston. “It’s a big step for the state, and it’s a great big step for this country.” Next in line was Ben Smith, who succinctly summed up the situation, saying, “Recreational weed, it’s legal now. That’s kinda nice.” The actual first customer, however, didn’t have to wait in line at all. Northampton Mayor David Narkewicz, an Air Force veteran and a longtime proponent of first medical marijuana and now “adult use marijuana,” didn’t waste the opportunity. At a press conference he told reporters that given his history of advocacy, “it sends an important message that I make that purchase.” The Boston Globe reported that Narkewicz would buy “an edible of his own,” probably a THC-infused chocolate bar. That said, he wasn’t sure if he was going to eat the chocolate bar, and mused about other things he might do with it. He thought about putting it on display in his office. He pondered donating it to a local historic group as a keepsake to put “among other artifacts related to the city’s long association with other progressive movements, from the abolition of slavery to marriage equality.” It is worth noting that despite marijuana’s legalization, some are still being arrested for possession. On June 1, Eric Matlock, who is black and homeless and has a long history with the Northampton Police Department, was arrested on a possession charge for having hash oil on his person. If convicted, he could face jail time and a $1,000 fine. Matlock’s lawyer, Dana Goldblatt, told DigBoston that, “Under the circumstances, the mayor’s decision to publicly celebrate the continued freedom of rich white men to get high with impunity strikes me as kind of tacky.” With that said, Northampton is open for business. Narkewicz told the Globe, “I hope that the folks who come to visit NETA will also visit our downtown, shop at our businesses, and maybe stay for a few days and enjoy the beautiful Pioneer Valley.” Offering a dose of inadvertent government transparency, he continued, “Sorry—I slipped on my Chamber of Commerce hat there for a minute.” Narkewicz’s administration and the Northampton City Council has put no extra zoning restrictions on the marijuana industry and no caps on the amount of such businesses that are able to open in the retail or commercial sector of the city, which he hopes will bring new tourism and tax revenue. For his part in making that happen, Narkewicz has actively and controversially worked with the Chamber to “reduce the need for panhandling,” and tried but failed to install police surveillance cameras. Most recently, his health department announced a public smoking ban. With pre-rolled joints, topicals, edibles, vapes, and capsules all ready to purchase, prohibition is officially over for those who can afford it. As for the people who weed prohibition was designed to regulate, like Matlock, they’re still subject to the overreaches of our government.
BOSTON, MA MARCH 22-24
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NEWS TO US
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PHOTO OF THE DANCE COMPLEX FESTIVAL OF US, YOU, WE, & THEM BY KYLE KLEIN VIA THE CENTRAL SQUARE BUSINESS ASSOCIATION
BAILEMOS: BODIES WITHOUT BORDERS FEATURE
Movement and the immigrant experience at the region’s second home for countless cultures BY MICAELA KIMBALL Editor’s Note Two years ago, we commissioned Micaela Kimball to explore the role of dance in immigrant communities in Boston. A central focus of this coverage was the Dance Complex, an iconic Cambridge school and gathering place where a kaleidoscopic mix of students and teachers congregate daily. The resulting research, much of it immersive, has led to several features and interviews that cover a range of experiences, like the class led by dancer Jean Appolon, who explained that upon coming to Boston from Haiti 25 years ago, “Dance was the only therapy I had. … I felt that if I couldn’t dance I would have shut down.” As Kimball writes: “Conversations and contemporary big media discourse have largely been centered on critiquing the current administration’s politics on immigration that aim to discriminate and deport. And while there has been substantial coverage of people using art to confront these policies, the vital role of cultural spaces often gets lost in the discussion.” The Dance Complex, like other havens for the arts but on a regionally incomparable scale, supports immigrant populations of all kinds and resists discrimination and negative cultural stereotypes. In a time when institutions like this are especially important, we are excited to present this year-plus-inthe-making look at a Cambridge staple that celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2017 while Kimball was conducting interviews and sitting in on classes. -Chris Faraone, BINJ Editorial Director 12
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It’s a Monday night at the Dance Complex in Central Square, home of Greater Boston’s major go-to dance and cultural center, and the place is buzzing with activity. Dancers of all different backgrounds chat in the lobby while they stretch after classes. Kids run around chasing each other, hyper from the upbeat energy picked up from their parents and teachers. Volunteers from the studio’s work-study program struggle to multitask as they welcome incoming dancers, process payments from teachers, and schedule rehearsal space in a paper binder that could pass for a high school biology notebook (they recently upgraded to a computer-based system). Outside, a few drummers from a West African dance class linger in the entryway, smoking cigarettes and talking in Bambara. In a few minutes they’ll join a cohort of other musicians from West Africa—Mali, Senegal, Ghana, among other nations—upstairs to play live. The rhythms from their drums will be heard from blocks away, all as light from the class illuminates the building and Mass Ave below. More than just a top-notch multicultural hub for entertainment, the complex is a “safe space” for its large international and immigrant artist base. In these walls, many feel connected to their native cultures and are able to forge new homes and communities that provide opportunities and access for professional and personal development. Sidy Maiga, a master Malian percussionist who was the first musician from his country to attend Berklee
College of Music, played drums in a West African class at the Dance Complex for years. He says that drumming helped him connect when he first moved to the States and also helped him maintain ties to his home culture. “I still love and miss Mali [now],” Maiga says, “but I don’t miss it when I’m playing drums, because I get to share my music and culture with people.” Michel Degraff, a Dance Complex regular who frequents a Haitian dance class led by popular instructor Jean Appolon, says dance and music are his “bridge” between Haiti and the US. “Having this rainbow of dancers come together in motion in this space allows Boston and Haiti to become one in such beautiful harmony,” he says. Degraff, an MIT professor of linguistics and director of the MIT-Haiti Initiative, adds, “This is a space where you can be in Boston and, at the same time, feel so deeply rooted in the best of what Africa through Haiti means to you and to the rest of the world. “The music, the drumming, and the camaraderie— they all contribute to forging unity among both Haitians and non-Haitians, across time, space, languages, religions, ethnicities, genders, and so many other dimensions.” Global charm Dance Complex director Peter DiMuro likes to boast that “the world lives at the Dance Complex.” “Each studio could be a different country at a different time of day,” he says. “If I were to walk from the top floor down at
6:30 pm on a Monday, I could go from modern dance, to capoeira, to kids’ flamenco, to rueda, all the way to an African class.” A plethora of languages are spoken—Spanish, Portuguese, Bambara (the most widely spoken language in Mali), and others blend in harmony, creating a unique ring through the hallways, stairwells, and seven studios that make up the space. All the noise and vibrancy can make you forget you’re in the US. The place feels like a nightclub in Havana or Lagos. This is far from a typical weeknight in Mass. DiMuro notes that the complex’s global charm is also a byproduct of the area’s counter-culture at large: “I always say there are three places in the world that the Dance Complex could exist,” he says. “Berkeley, California; a town in Arizona called Sedona [a spiritual hub of sorts]; and Cambridge. In these three locations there’s a certain kind of rebel spirit that exists.” Leslie Salmon Jones, who teaches Afro Flow Yoga at the Dance Complex, says that when she first moved to Boston, “a lot of people of color were saying there’s so many racists here, and it has this reputation of being extremely segregated. One of the great things about Cambridge and the Dance Complex,” she adds, “is that it does unite people together from all over. I haven’t felt that division here.” The institution’s politics, a commitment to social justice and especially immigration issues, are somewhat unintentional, but rather reflect a consistently resilient and responsible history. “The Dance Complex is the result out of what a few people could make out of an impossible situation,” DiMuro says. Originally called Joy of Movement Center, it was almost forced to close its doors in the early ’90s due to hardship. Determined to see the studio survive, a group of local dancers led by Rozann Kraus rallied and garnered enough financial support to stay open. Dancers reclaimed the space just before it was seized. In the years since, the Dance Complex has become a top-notch studio, considered an essential stop for locals as well as professionals coming through Greater Boston. That overall recognition aside, the community is enduringly committed to self-expression. “We’re like this subterranean, bohemian, nonglitzy icon,” says DiMuro. “At the Dance Complex you’ll find lawyers and doctors dancing next to artists—that blows my mind. It’s a place where professional choreographers traveling all over world come and dance and train next to everyone else, which to me is diversity in a very unique way in the dance world.”
many dancers say the class offers support and stress relief. Once the room is warm, the teacher summons everyone’s attention: “There’s no room for shyness here,” Appolon instructs with his trademark serious smile. “Make sure you say hi to someone next to you.” Everyone pairs off in groups of four or five—some with friends, others with folks they’ve never met. Suddenly, we’re in synchronistic lines, dancing toward the drummers. The combination of the energetic rhythm and sophisticated yet accessible movements serve as solid fundamental training, but also help with healing. Through this place, they stay connected to the cultures they were raised in, whether during an initial move to the United States, or even a much longer migration. Appolon says that when he first moved to Boston as a boy, he remembers feeling deeply sad about leaving traditional Haitian dancing and music. Gone were the creative nuances of his beloved homeland—“the noisiness,” as he calls it, of Haiti, which he further describes as “this beautiful sound, the hustle and bustle of markets and people selling things in the street; roosters crowing … the smell of the land.” “I first came [to Boston] from a hot Caribbean country in the middle of June,” he adds, “but there was still some coldness. The weather was not the same; the culture was not the same; I didn’t see anyone in the streets; there was no big noise or activity [like in Haiti]. … I wanted to be in the heat of things. … I was also like, Where am I gonna find drums like in Haiti to dance to in Boston?” I started hearing drums from afar at the Dance Complex, and I was like, Wow, I can breathe again. Finding the Dance Complex was like having the sky open up to me; I really cherish this place.” One student of Appolon’s recalls a time she took a special class he offered at the Irish Immigration Center. The experience, they say, “gives you a bit of home in a country where you don’t find that too much,” adding that “a lot of people try to assimilate and they forget about back home. I was the opposite; I was seeking something that could show me what my culture was. In that search I came upon this class.” Music and dance can also help communities counter negative stereotypes in dominant culture and media. For DeGraff, the MIT linguist and regular Appolon student, the class values and makes visible the beauty of Haitian society and culture. As an example, DeGraff notes his own son. “Jean’s classes offer deep dives into Haitian culture and history, all the way back to our African roots,” DeGraff says. No room for shyness “Because Nuriel [my Just before Port-Au-Prince son] has been dancing native Jean Appolon’s in Jean’s class since age Haitian folkloric class every two (he’s now 14), he knows that Saturday, drummers hang much of the news about Haiti in out on the sidelines of the the mainstream media and even in children’s largest third-floor Dance picture books is part of a brutal neocolonial Complex studio, sitting propaganda machine. Now he understands with their instruments that what he knows to be true of Haiti is and chatting. Many radically different from the trumperies of are of Haitian descent the dominant culture, radically different and sport fun, flashy, and from what it says or doesn’t say about funky gear and footwear, all us. complemented by gold jewelry in confluence of “Jean’s classes, alongside our Caribbean-American style. Dancers waltz in decked out ongoing discussions about Haiti in tight duds or goddess garb and casually toss their and its unique place in world bags aside before greeting Appolon and their fellow history, have helped him dancers with a kiss on the cheek. For many, this has all become very self-aware become routine—like “going to church,” as one dancer with an acute sense of put it. Some of the people here have showed up every media literacy.” Photo of Mestre Chuvisco via Mestre Chuvisco week for more than five or, in some cases, even 10 years. After a rigorous half-hour warmup of loose, pulsating Dance revolution Afro and modern dance and fitness, the class bursts into Johnny Giraldo is a native of Medellin, Colombia, and a chorus of conversations about everything from weekly teaches salsa and Latin dance at the Dance Complex. work stressors, to Saturday night plans, to current events A cofounder of the successful dance company Salsa y like the appointment of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Control, he credits folkloric dance from his homeland, Court and President Donald Trump’s war on immigrants. which he says has allowed him to “stay connected to In getting to discuss such topics around friendly faces, my roots and represent my country,” with giving him “a
sense of pride.” Giraldo is familiar with the power of salsa in giving Latinx folks a sense of home. “For people that grew up listening to [salsa] music and being away from it [in their home countries], you’re able to transport yourself in time to wherever you came from,” he says. “That you get to experience that here [in the US], it’s a good way to come home.” Giraldo’s story connects to the roots of salsa in New York, which he notes started out not simply as a musical genre, but as a movement through which people found their identity and “connected to their roots.” It’s a theme identified by dance professor Juliet McMains in her 2015 book, Spinning Mambo Into Salsa: Carribean Dance in Global Commerce. “Many early salsa fans [in NYC] were second generation immigrants who, coming of age during or after the Civil Rights Movement, began to question their assimilation into American culture and turned to salsa as a means of reconnecting to their cultural heritage,” McMains writes. “Salsa music was more than just entertainment for … working class Latino adherents … Salsa was one of the central tools through which Latino identity and political consciousness were forged in the late 1960s and 1970s, a period I refer to as the salsa revolution.” In the United States, music and movement have additionally protested discrimination against immigrants by shining light on their accomplishments. In turn, some say such demonstrations have provoked a sense of cultural appreciation among nonimmigrant groups. Dancers note that diverse dance relationships are about more than merely entertainment—they can transform value systems. Maylena Chaviano, a native of Havana, Cuba, who has taken classes at the Dance Complex and taught with Masacote Entertainment, a Latin dance school in East Cambridge, says, “In Cuba, art in general is taken very seriously; if you say you are a dancer, it’s like saying you are a lawyer or a teacher. Here [in the US], I say I’m a dance instructor and people are like, Oh, that’s fun, and I’m like, Yes, but it’s a profession [too].” “What got me hooked on Masacote,” Chaviano adds, “is that they preach the same philosophy that is similar to Cuba, which is that it’s a serious social dance, not just a regular hobby. It can be applied to your life, awareness, to your sense of self.” Chaviano, who danced professionally in Havana before moving to the States (she now lives in Canada), also illustrates the power of the arts in keeping international dancers connected not only to countries and cultures, but to themselves. “To me, dance is such a global thing that even if you are dealing with so many uncertainties and emotional ups and downs, as an immigrant dancer, you know you have that one element that you can count on and where you can find like-minded individuals. To me, with dance you can be part of a community regardless of where in the world you are at.” As dancers and musicians from all genres have pointed out forever, music by nature allows people to communicate in ways that words can’t. For a community with a large international base and countless language barriers, the ability to connect nonverbally is particularly relevant. Dance, says Chaviano, is “a different type of communication.” “Being an artist,” she says, “dance is about being able to open up different things inside of you in regular life and transmit that through music and moves.” “What dance does is get words out of the way,” says DiMuro, the Dance Complex director, noting that nonverbal communication is especially prevalent in African classes, in part because of the explicit call and response portion. “You are communing on this human visceral level; there is no confusing the use of a word or translation or tone of something. What happens with dance in general, exemplified in African and in Haitian class, is there is communication through movement, which does so much more dimensionally to the way
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people communicate. “To me that’s very exciting. It’s not as prevalent in modern and other dance.” Daily nutrition Over the past several years in Cambridge, African dance has blossomed into one of the most popular and prominent subcommunities at the complex, with classes being offered by teachers hailing from Mali, Senegal, Ghana, and other West African countries seven nights a week. One frequent attendee, Mckerson Prevalius, who danced and taught various classes here for years, describes the African dance scene here as “the blood of the Dance Complex.” On this evening, like most others, dancers are decked out in bright and intricately patterned African wax cloth skirts, which move in unison with the percussion. Their bodily expressions are intricate, as vibrant and deep as the colors of their garments. When dancers get close to the drummers—a few are merely inches away—the energy around the room appears to rise, the bodies of participants vibrating like the instruments they’re channeling. Behind the more seasoned folks, newbies in their yoga pants or workout gear struggle along, some people mesmerized by the complexity of the movement afoot. Amazingly, there’s a call-and-response in play not only among dancers and drummers, but also between drummers and pedestrians out on the street. It’s been common for heads strolling down Mass Ave to follow the sound of the drums and peek into the studios. Heads have floated in on multiple occasions, happy to watch along in awe. Seeing this in motion, it’s easy to comprehend why African dance has attracted one of the biggest communities at the entire Complex—the drums, the deep creative movements, the representation. “We have more African-born teachers here under one roof than anywhere else in the country,” DiMuro says. “To me it’s amazing how everyone has found a home.” LaLa Roberts, a medical student from South Africa who has danced professionally and recreationally at the Dance Complex for years, says her experience with dance there has helped her form a connection with her native South Africa and expanded her identity and understanding of the entire continent. “I cannot recreate Africa anywhere else,” Roberts says,
PHOTO OF CLASS UNDERWAY AT THE DANCE COMPLEX BY JASON PRAMAS “but through African dance and drum [here in the US], this is the way to do it; it’s self-sustaining. Dance helps me keep connected to Africa. When I left South Africa I was a South African. When I came to America I realized I’m African, I’m not just South African.” Roberts also says that “African dance is a healer for all of us—not just for Africans or blacks, but everyone. … Drums,” she adds, “tap into an inner psyche that a lot of people who are non-African didn’t think they had, so they feel connected. This is why I think African dance is not just for Africans; it’s just that for Africans we need it more because we are removed from the continent. It’s like our daily nutrition.” Says one American-born woman who attends both West African classes and Appolon’s Haitian class: “I noticed how we were all from different backgrounds … and even though there was no talking, no conversation, the language we all speak is dancing. “That, for me, is connection to humanity.”
PHOTO OF ANA MASACOTE AND JOHNNY GIRALDO VIA SALSA Y CONTROL 14
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Local appeal Spaces like the Dance Complex that boast top-notch arts, community, and diversity are a rarity in the dance world at large—even in progressive Greater Boston. While there is a bustling contemporary culture in the Hub, artists also regularly criticize what many see as a lack of support and opportunity. The scene, they say, often forces serious artists to decamp for more artist-centric cities. For multicultural arts, said lack of support is even more stark; many with international or multicultural identities have problems accessing sufficient funding, especially compared to fine arts programs at legacy institutions. In the midst of all those difficulties, many artists view the Dance Complex as a particular “cultural
gem,” one that stands out as an exception to tired norms. “Without the Dance Complex,” says Leslie Salmon Jones, the Afro-Flow Yoga instructor, “Boston would be so uninteresting. When I first moved here from [New York City], I was terrified I would lose the cultural connection [there]. So I was so relieved when I found the Dance Complex; it’s … like one big family that expands.” There’s a practical support aspect as well. The Cambridge refuge offers both teachers and dancers affordable, accessible space at a time when longtime rehearsal spots like the EMF studios a few blocks away are replaced by luxury housing. In addition to parttime and full-time staff, the building is run by a bank of volunteers who clean and manage the front desk in exchange for free classes. Some Dance Complex artists credit the space with boosting their professional development. One student who studies capoeira with Brazilian instructor Mestre Chuvisco says, “the Dance Complex is our home; this is our roots. … It’s really important for the livelihood of our group. It’s also just a really good community and meeting space; before and after classes people socialize in the lobby.” To an outsider, Chuvisco’s capoeira class may seem somewhat overwhelming—capoeiristas dressed in all white, a kickass fitness warmup guaranteed to leave you so sore that you may not be able to walk for a week. But for many who come regularly and make it through the “roda,” which encompasses the last half-hour and is considered the heart of the engagement, this class and community (like other capoeira groups around the area) can become fully immersive, where students don’t just train in the physical movements and music, but also learn the language, eat Brazilian food, and are introduced to interconnected Afro Brazilian dances like samba and forro. They also often interact with members of the greater Brazilian community in New England and elsewhere through festivals and events. Those who play capoeira here value creative expression and preservation of the African (specifically Angolan) culture of slaves in Brazil. Chuvisco insists that his students learn how to speak and sing in Portuguese; serious practitioners often become fluent. “When I teach, I feel I’m always at home—whether I’m in the US or in Brazil. “Every time I go back, to be in touch with everyone who taught me capoeira there, it revives this energy.” Find more BINJ news and BINJ Arts features and help support independent media at binjonline.org.
VOL 10
Saturday • December 15 2:00 PM - 4:30 PM
Art by Barrington Edwards
Grove Hall Branch of the Boston Public Library 41 Geneva Ave • Dorchester 02121
Comics In Color is a safe space where you can come and nerd out about illustrated stories by and about people of color.
THIS MONTH! • Featured Guest: Michelle Abreu
Michelle is an Illustrator and comic book artist with two comic series, Novengard & The Lamb of the Altar, which can be found on AbreuIllustration.com.
• Discussion
Into the Spiderverse
• All-levels comics making activity • Samples of POC Comics • SNACKS! All are welcome but this is an event focused on comics by and about people of color.
COMICSINCOLOR.ORG
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15
KURT VILE MUSIC
Guitar jammer talks impersonations, ACLU, and New England winters BY NINA CORCORAN @NINA_CORCORAN had some simple alien mask but then I had my favorite stuffed T-rex puppet thing coming out of my stomach as if I had given birth to an alien. It was pretty minimal. It was my idea as a kid because I probably had seen Alien and was into it. The mask wasn’t an alien like those aliens [in the movie], though. It was just some weird-ass alien mask with pointy ears. I would say that this was in late elementary school, maybe when I was in fifth or sixth grade. 4. “Bassackwards” Is there a word you’ve been mispronouncing your whole life but only recently realized? Wow, these are tough questions. I definitely realize it when I am [mispronouncing words], especially when spelling. I’m terrible at spelling. But pronouncing wrong? There’s people in my family who say expresso instead of espresso. I’ll tell you what: The Philly accent, like when anybody who tries to hide their accent saying water as “wourder,” is what I do. People get made fun of that. I try to make sure I say it correctly. I usually say watermelon weirdly. That’s the closest I get to letting it slip out. That comedic accent comes through a lot. I’ve done that pretty good except when water is attached to a word, because then you’re not thinking about it and it just happens. By now, Kurt Vile is a household name in the world of freewheeling guitar. The Philly singer-songwriter has buried himself in neverending riffs and blazed tones, teaming up with artists like Courtney Barnett and toasting a ’70s psych-indebted past era as if he were there to live through it. Though he’s been profiled by everyone from the New York Times to NPR, Kurt Vile still keeps his head to the ground, eager to stay chill and let inspiration come to him when it will. On his seventh solo album, Bottle It In, Vile plays with 10-minute-long warped folk rock songs and comedic one-liners midchorus. It’s comfortable and familiar— longtime fans will feel right at home listening to it, ideally with a blunt in hand—while still being open enough to invite new listeners in. He’s drifting off, getting lost in thoughts, and it’s tempting to join him for the ride. “Fingerpicking is rhythmic and lets you space out, where you can go in and out of a feeling while not losing track,” says Vile. “You can play a chord a million different ways without losing the grooves. One thing I realized a bunch of years ago during a dry spell, back when I got worried or superstitious thinking the well was dry, was that I literally just shouldn’t sweat it. Things will come. Playing live every day, I’m forced to get to know my instrument well. I’ll go home and play a few songs to my kids or sing them songs to help them fall asleep. So I’m picking it up a lot. I can stockpile during that span with inspiration.” To get to know him better, we interviewed Kurt Vile for a round of Wheel of Tunes, a series where we ask musicians questions inspired by their song titles. With
Bottle It In as the prompt, his answers are freewheeling and open-ended—qualities that will dominate his headlining set at House of Blues this Saturday. 1. “Loading Zones” Do you have a preshow ritual for when you’re on tour? Nah, no set ones. I used to probably drink tequila and Modelo a few years ago. I’m taking a break from that right now, though. If I’m nervous, I pick up a guitar and zone out a bit or practice a song. I also take these herbs beforehand that calm me down. One time on this tour, I didn’t take them and I totally freaked out. They’re like naturally calming, brain-calming stuff. They’re herbal drops that I put in water. 2. “Hysteria” When was the last time you laughed so hard you cried? Um, definitely sometime on this tour. Oh man, I don’t have any set thing that happened, but there’s definitely moments on tour where you’re making fun of somebody in the crew with a great impersonation and everyone is crying at that person’s expense. It’s all in love. It happens a lot. It’s ideal that that should happen often, really. 3. “Yeah Bones” What’s the best Halloween costume you ever came up with? Man, I don’t know. Well, when I was really young, I
5. “One Trick Ponies” Which interest of yours are you not yet good at or have never tried but would like to someday master? I definitely like, in general, to be funny and impersonate people. I’m very into that. I can do it really good with my friends while hanging out. But a few times in my life when I have the chance to do something on TV or in a movie, then I freeze up. It becomes very unnatural and terrifying. It’s just nerves. It would be cool to pull it off sometime. 6. “Rollin with the Flow” What was the worst thing to happen to you this year and how did you get over it? There’s a lot of all kinds of things that mess with you in the news, not even just one set thing. It comes in waves. I’ll have meltdowns and then stop looking [at the news] for a while. It’s messed up. It’s good to know what’s going on in the world, but it’s also messed up to know what’s going on. I was told you can take Apple News off of your phone. But it’s hard to do because you want to know what’s going on. It’s a culmination of events going on this year. I come in and out of dealing with it, but thankfully I have music and family to get lost in and keep on keeping on. I do Facetime with them when I can, or call. Facetime is amazing, though, especially when I had my first daughter. Like in the old days, you just wouldn’t see your dad or something for long times. It must have been weird to see their face and have to remember how they talk, so
>> KURT VILE & THE VIOLATORS, JESSICA PRATT. SAT 11.24. HOUSE OF BLUES, 15 LANSDOWNE ST., BOSTON. 7PM/ALL AGES/$31. HOUSEOFBLUES.COM/BOSTON
MUSIC EVENTS FRI 11.23
SAT 11.24
[Paradise Rock Club, 967 Comm. Ave., Allston. 8pm/18+/$20. crossroadspresents.com]
[Wang Theatre, 270 Tremont St., Boston. 8pm/ all ages/$58.75. bochcenter. org]
WEST COAST BEST COAST HIP-HOP FREDDIE GIBBS + G. PERICO
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RADIOING HIS WAY OUT OF SUSPIRIA THOM YORKE + OLIVER COATES
DIGBOSTON.COM
SUN 11.25
I USED TO KNOW HER H.E.R. + BRI STEVES
[House of Blues, 15 Lansdowne St., Boston. 7pm/all ages/$35. houseofblues.com]
TUE 11.27
SPEAK TO ME IN TWERP VERSE SPEEDY ORTIZ + PALBERTA + HALFSOUR [The Sinclair, 52 Church St., Cambridge. 7pm/all ages/$15. sinclaircambridge.com]
TUE 11.27
THREE CHEERS FOR FAUX-SELLING OUT DRUG CHURCH + GOUGE AWAY + SEATTLE’S NEW GODS
[Great Scott, 1222 Comm. Ave., Allston. 8:30pm/18+/$12. greatscottboston.com]
WED 11.28
THE ALOPECIA 10-YEAR ANNIVERSARY TOUR WHY? + LALA LALA
[The Sinclair, 52 Church St., Cambridge. 7pm/18+/$23. sinclaircambridge.com]
I’m super lucky and grateful for that not being the case now. 7. “Check Baby” How many credit cards do you have? I’m terrible with self-management. Any cards I have, either my manager gave me or my wife got for me. In fact, it’s kind of funny. I have this Bluetooth speaker, and when I connect to it in front of the band or while recording—like after being like, “Hey, check out this song,” and go to play it—it’ll say, “Connecting to Suzanne Lang’s iPhone.” That’s my wife. Everybody will laugh at me. [laughs] So I think I have two or four that I use. They just sit in my wallet. 8. “Bottle It In” Which feeling are you most likely to suppress? Yeah, I think in general if somebody hurts my feelings, I will not tell them directly. It’s usually pretty obvious because I just won’t talk to them or look at them for a couple days. [laughs] I definitely can’t hide it. I can’t. I just shut down, kinda. 9. “Mutinies” In your opinion, what’s the most powerful form of protest that the everyday person could do? Wow. You know, the easy thing for people to do is just to say something on their Instagram. It does get the news out, and I certainly do that, but it’s not as powerful. I definitely think it’s cool when people are active and get out there. When they are active in any way, whether they’re making a difference or giving to charities or supporting things in person, like ACLU. Anybody who is trying to help make change, really. 10. “Come Again” Where is your go-to restaurant or cafe at home? Do you have a regular order there? It’s funny how much I space out on this one. I always say, maybe because I’m just nostalgic, that I like to go to Honey’s. I don’t even live in that neighborhood anymore. I get enfrijoladas and a potato latke, which is a Jewish potato thing. Definitely get enfrijoladas, as that’s the Mexican dish. I like the ambiance there. I’ve gone there a lot. My wife and kids like to go there. We sit in this one booth every time and chill out. It’s a vibey brunch place. But it’s particularly nostalgic for me because I started going there in my early 20s because I lived in that neighborhood. 11. “Cold Was the Wind” Where’s the coldest place you’ve ever visited not on tour? Wow. Hmm. Where do I go that’s cold? I don’t know if I would ever visit a place that was cold if I wasn’t touring. [laughs] I forget how cold it gets on the East Coast, honestly. You get sort of cocky in the summer about it, but then you forget how cold in general it gets. It can be punishing after a while. I don’t know where I’ve been that’s cold besides Philadelphia. It can be the coldest place in the world all of a sudden in winter. Actually, winter is the coldest place in the world. You know how people get depressed in the winter? It’s like its own place, its own world. You’re in the North Pole wherever you are when it’s winter. 12. “Skinny Mini” What’s the lightest weight you’ve ever weighed as an adult? Oh man. That’s funny. I try not to weigh myself. I’ve been trying to drink less so I at least look a little healthier. But I’ve been afraid to weigh myself since my 20s. I feel like I haven’t weighed myself since then because I see myself fluctuate. In the old days, I think I was 140 pounds? I don’t even know. I’m afraid to find out how much more I weigh now. I’ve gone like 10 years without weighing myself. I wouldn’t dare. I was just sort of watching my weight visually. At my daughter’s last birthday party, my dad grabbed my belly—this was back when I was drinking a lot—and he said, “When did this happen?” He said it twice, too. Just grabbing it. Yeah. And I was just like, “Uhh…” [laughs] But thankfully I stopped drinking beer, really. I feel better now. I feel better already. And honestly, I needed a wake-up call. It was funny. Drinking beer is just, yeah. Not good. 13. “(Bottle Back)” What’s your favorite beer of all time? It was Modelo, especially out of cans. But then I moved on. I just like light beer. You can drink a lot of them, and they’re cold and refreshing. All I could find in my new neighborhood was Amstel Light. They became my favorite beer for a second. Now I see them out here in Europe all the time and I do get a little pissed off, but now I’m over it. [laughs] I like light beers that are light and refreshing. Hate that hoppy, weird stuff. I’m a lightweight anyway. [laughs]
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THEATER REVIEWS PERFORMING ARTS
BY JACOB SCHICK @SCHICK_JACOB & JUAN A. RAMIREZ @ITSNUMBERJUAN
ALL BARK, NO BITE IN AKA THEATRE’S IN THE FOREST, SHE GREW FANGS
Once upon a time, there was a play. And in this play, presented by Also Known As Theatre, there was a girl. And a forest. And a grandmother. And a wolf. Stephen Spotswood’s In the Forest, She Grew Fangs, directed by Kelly Smith, tries to play off this classic scenario. A girl who wears a lot of red meets a wolf, deep in the forest. But, as Lucy (Kira Compton) explains at the start of the show, In the Forest, She Grew Fangs is looking to tell this story in a very different way. The show starts with Lucy, a high school outcast, simply existing her way through life. She lives with her grandmother Ruth (Karen Dervin) in a double-wide trailer in a small town in the woods. At night, Lucy goes on walks into the forest, submerging herself in an ice-cold lake, slipping down into the depths only to struggle up to the surface each time. And life goes on like this for a while. Most of her lines, and most of the lines of the play, are direct addresses to the audience. The characters monologue and shoot asides to the audience to explain their thoughts, feelings, and actions. Lucy explains that she used to be “somebody” at school, or at least not “nobody.” Before her mother left (and her father started working for long periods of time away from home), Lucy felt like someone. Now, she’s the main character in this story, but a part of the scenery in the lives of everyone else. That is, until Jenny (Branwyn Ritchie) arrives at school. A new and beautiful girl from out of town, she’s on her way out of the forest before she even arrives. Dressed always in red (wink, wink), Jenny’s parents are out of the picture. She is followed and fantasized about by a boy named Robin (Dylan C. Wack), who goes by Hunter (it’s starting to make sense now, isn’t it?). Where In the Forest, She Grew Fangs takes a turn is on one of Lucy’s nightly dives into the cold dark water. Jenny is in the forest and sees her take the plunge. She dives in after her and pulls her back up on shore. From this point on, In the Forest, She Grew Fangs becomes both a more realized version of a “wolf” story, as Lucy “dreams” of killing local animals in her sleep and a more allegorical version of sexuality. If that sounds odd, it’s because it is—at least in the way the play presents it. Sexuality as a stand in for some hidden beast in a developing hormonal body is an interesting idea, but it comes off as a little forced and disingenuous. And as Jenny’s role as a sidelined Red Riding Hood, Ruth’s role as the sick grandmother, Hunter’s role as… well… the hunter, and Lucy’s role as the Big Bad Wolf materialize, In the Forest, She Grew Fangs feels less like a theatrical production and more like a hollow fairy tale. Locker rooms, crushes, stories of spin the bottle, and school dances make the play into a high school drama instead of a novel and thoughtful reimagining of a classic tale. The payoff seems to keep building and building through this 90-minute show, but it never comes. Sure, there is a climax and things happen, but it feels like too little, too late. By that point, the actions of the characters don’t feel genuine or true. Instead, they are just the next step to get the show to its conclusion. The acting, and the set design (Maggie Kearnan) are very good throughout; there just isn’t enough there to prop up this story. IN THE FOREST, SHE GREW FANGS. 11.16–12.2. CALDERWOOD PAVILION AT THE BOSTON CENTER FOR THE ARTS, 527 TREMONT ST., BOSTON. —Schick 18
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A.R.T. CHEERS ‘EXTRAORDINARY’ DECADE
It seems the folks over at the American Repertory Theater have racked up a lot to be thankful for in the decade since Diane Paulus became the company’s artistic director. ExtraOrdinary, a collection of songs and talents from the 30-some musicals produced during her tenure, revels in a contagious self-satisfaction that’s hard to resist. Having churned out a treasure trove of New York-bound hits, there were certainly enough successes to merit revisiting, and in such affable company, why not indulge in a little celebration? Directed by Paulus, the revue weaves songs in and out of a book assembled by Dick Scanlan from interviews with the cast, each of whom has performed in past A.R.T. productions. Once bleeds into Pippin into Finding Neverland as the seven cast members share stories from their time at the Cambridge institution, tipping their hats to the diversity and artistic freedom they encountered. The cheerful diversity found across the A.R.T’s body of work in the last decade is matched onstage by a refreshingly diverse cast, as distinct in their personal identities as in their abilities. Onstage together for the duration of the show, they create a lovely sense of professional harmony as they play off each other’s voices and anecdotes. When a cast member announces Brandon Michael Nase’s (Prometheus Bound) upcoming paternity, it’s hard not to smile at their camaraderie. As joyful as their group numbers are, it is during their times alone in the spotlight that each actor makes the most of their talent. Bryonha Marie Parham (The Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess) takes an early lead with a sumptuous “Summertime”; MJ Rodriguez (Burn All Night and Trans Scripts: Part 1: The Women) bridges her speech about refusing to get boxed in by labels into a high-energy pop-synth number from the pop-synth musical; Melody
KIRA COMPTON IN IN THE FOREST, SHE GREW FANGS
A. Betts (Witness Uganda) brings the house down with “Bela Musana”; and Kathryn Gallagher (Jagged Little Pill) leads the cast in a sweet rendition of “This Land Is Your Land,” from Woody Sez: The Life and Music of Woody Guthrie, emphasizing a seldom-performed verse regarding the nation’s homeless. Nase, Terrence Mann (Finding Neverland) and Matthew James Thomas (Pippin) all deliver equally stellar, if less flashy, work. If there are fan favorites seemingly missing from the production—Waitress and Jagged Little Pill are given somewhat short shrift—its brisk two-hour runtime doesn’t allow much time for complaining. As if the condensed hit parade weren’t enough of a whirlwind, the core company will be periodically aided by special guests from A.R.T. productions past. Patina Miller appeared during opening night, with Alicia Hall Moran, Norm Lewis, Rachel Bay Jones, and Lea DeLaria enlisted for future performances. Joined by Thomas for a show-stopping “On the Right Track,” Miller (Pippin) flexed her star muscles, still intact from when she took her charmingly devilish Leading Player to Tony glory in 2013. Flashing her winning smile, she hit every mark of the Fosse-inspired choreography before reappearing for an electrifying curtain call performance of “You Oughta Know.” For a show titled ExtraOrdinary, it doesn’t try to cover up its barely there structure with costumes or sets. The cast is as plainly dressed as their backdrop, adorned only by the onstage band and few, intelligently deployed props. Stripped of extravagance, the revue makes its case as a celebration of 10 years of diverse Diane Paulus theatricality and more than backs it up through sheer talent. EXTRAORDINARY. THROUGH 11.30 AT LOEB DRAMA CENTER. 64 BRATTLE ST., CAMBRIDGE. AMERICANREPERTORYTHEATER.ORG
-Ramirez
PASSION FOR DANCE PERFORMING ARTS
The 2018 Boston Bhangra competition BY JILLIAN KRAVATZ @JILLIAN_KRAVATZ
The scene outside the Orpheum theater last Saturday some segments of each routine are meant to show off looked like any other night before a show. People lined up skill with quick, challenging movements, other, slower in the cold. Security guards waved metal detectors around parts of each routine will feature slower, more graceful puffy black coats, while women and men opened up choreography. their (usually black) backpacks and purses for inspection. “It all depends on the team,” she said. When she and Shuffling through the doors, people began peeling off Sahni were dancing at Princeton a few years ago, they black gloves to dig out their tickets. tried to make the cut for the Boston Bhangra competition, While I scrounged around in the pocket of my own but to no avail. “You have to send in an audition tape,” black coat to find my ticket, a flash of color caught my eye. Lamontagne said. “We would have been really really Across the lobby, a performer hurried backstage—his red excited to perform here. Boston Bhangra is really well and silver fan-like headdress, called a turla, caught the known.” light. It was only a tiny preview of what was to come at the Anil Kundal, co-president of the BU Bhangra team, said 2018 Boston Bhangra competition. that though BU is local, they haven’t sent a team to Boston Bhangra is a form of dance and music that began in Bhangra for a few years because they only wanted to come the fields of the Punjabi regions of Pakistan and India. if they knew they’d be ready for the competition. Originally a harvest dance among farmers, it has grown “We take pride and passion in what we do,” Kundal into a world-wide phenomenon, complete with its own said. “We’ve been practicing since the summer, about six competitions, pop and hip-hop stars, and well-connected months now.” internet community. At 6:20, an announcer warned everyone to find their Celebrating its 15th year, Boston Bhangra selected 11 seats, as the competition would begin in five minutes. teams from the US and Canada to compete this time out, “Wow, 6:25 … that’s pretty timely for these things,” Sahni ranging from traditional troupes to more modern dance said with a note of surprise. “Indian standard time is a real groups, co-ed to all-male troupes. Amit Bhambi, who cothing,” he told me. founded the competition with his siblings, told DigBoston “We once went to a Bhangra competition in California he wanted this year’s competition to be a celebration for that started an hour and a half late,” Lamontagne added everyone, both those familiar with Bhangra and people as proof. But by 6:30 the Boston Bhangra competition was who have never seen it before. officially underway, and minutes later the first troupe Entering the auditorium, I caught more glimpses of took to the stage, the Boston Bhangra Juniors or “BBJ.” color. A few women wore traditional jewelry, while other As they settled into their opening positions, one dancer performers dressed up in pag turbans and jugi waistcoats called out “Bhangra! Bhangra! Bhangra!” and was joined mingled with family members and acquaintances. There were yellow salwaar pants and purple kameez blouses. As I took my seat, I noticed something else. The air smelled ever so sweetly of butter chicken. To my right, a man sat with a styrofoam takeout carton filled to the brim with rice and chicken. Another man strolled by with a cane in one hand, a mango lassi in the other. The concessions stands weren’t serving M&Ms or popcorn here, but cartons of saag paneer, naan, and goat curry. Though the event’s website declared in all caps that the show would being at 6 pm “SHARP,” everyone was still mingling about chatting and eating at 6:09. I started talking to the couple behind me. Recently married, Elizabeth Lamontagne and Aneesh Sahni danced Bhangra together in college, where they started the Princeton Bhangra Team. Sahni explained the various segments that most routines would include. “See those accordion-like things? Those are sapps or shikke,” he said, pointing to a performer lingering in one of the aisles. “Every team will have a sapp segment.” Sahni also pointed out a few performers holding long staffs with small flags (usually red or white) tied to the end. “Those are khunde, or daangs,” he said, adding that each team would also have a segment to display their skill with daangs. Lamontagne added that while BOSTON BHANGRA COMPETITION 2017 NEWS TO US
by enthusiastic Bhangra fans and dancers in the audience, who shouted “Bhangra!” in return. As the music began and the dancers started to hop side to side, there wasn’t a still moment on stage—or in the room—for the rest of the night. Bhangra is a highly energetic dance, and from the moment the music begins to the very last beat of the dhol drum, the dancers do not stop moving. Even when they pose at the end, they bounce their arms ever so slightly. Moving through complicated formations, chanting sequences, unison choreography, and seamless prop changes, each team brought an incredible enthusiasm to the stage, riling up the audience and deserving their thunderous applauses. One feature of the Boston Bhangra competition, Kundal explained, are the gimmicks. A few teams brought moving vehicles on stage, like a mini John Deere tractor carrying a tall trophy or a rickshaw carrying a family. The BU team paid a tribute to the Boston Red Sox in their routine. After a performance by G Sidhu (who danced himself in the Boston Bhangra competition just a few years ago, according to Bhambi), the judges announced the winners. Taking first place was team Nachdi Jawani from Ontario, followed by Apna Bhangra Crew (ABC) from Washington state and Boston’s own BU Bhangra in third place. I asked Kundal and his co-president Devin Dhawan if the after-party was the best part and they strongly protested. “Dancing up there is all that matters. It’s our joy, our passion.”
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TO TELL THE TRUTH? SAVAGE LOVE
BY DAN SAVAGE @FAKEDANSAVAGE | MAIL@SAVAGELOVE.NET
COMEDY EVENTS THU 11.16
AFTER THANKSGIVING @ THE COMEDY STUDIO
Featuring: Emmitt Delaney, Alex Giampapa, Jeff Medoff, Joe Medoff, Kenice Mobley, Katie Que, Corey Saunders, John Succich, & Comic in Residence Dana Jay Bein. Hosted by Rick Jenkins
1 BOW MARKET WAY #23, SOMERVILLE | 8PM | $12 I’m a recently divorced single mom and full-time student. I’m really beginning to hurt financially and have decided to start working as an escort. I am at a point of great emotional stability, happiness, and confidence—all reasons that led to my decision—and I’m surrounded by people who love me and won’t judge me. (Not that I will be telling most of them.) I’ve been seeing a man who I like, but I’ve made it clear that I am not committed to him and can see him only once a week. I’ve explained that I don’t think I can ever be monogamous and I do not want a relationship. He has struggled with this and told me early on he was in love with me. We have AMAZING sex, and I think this causes him to have a hard time understanding why I don’t want a relationship. I do not want to tell him I am escorting. I feel the fewer people who know, the better. And I don’t know him that well, as I have been “seeing” him for only six months. I know he would want to know, and a huge part of me feels that the right thing to do is be honest with him if I am going to continue seeing him. I also know that cutting him loose would hurt and confuse him, especially without being able to give him a reason. How do I handle this? What is the right thing to do? My site goes live in three days, and what’s keeping me up at night is not how best to verify clients, it’s what to do about the man in my life who I respect and love, even if I am not in love with him. New To Escorting Let’s set the escorting issue aside for a moment. You don’t want the same things (he wants monogamy and a defined relationship, you don’t want any of that shit), you don’t feel for him the way he feels for you (he’s in love, you’re not), and you’re a busy single mom and full-time student—all perfectly valid reasons to end a relationship, NTE. You aren’t obligated to tell him that something you were thinking about doing but haven’t yet done, i.e., escorting, factored into your decision to cut him loose. While I definitely think people have a right to know if their partners are escorts, I don’t think people have an absolute right to know if their partners were escorts. So if the sex is really good, and you think there’s a chance you could one day feel as strongly for him as he does for you, and you’re planning to escort only until you get your degree, NTE, you could tell him you want to take a break. Explain to him that you don’t have the bandwidth for a boyfriend just now—kid, school, work—but you’re open to dating him after you’re out of school if he’s still single and still interested.
I’m a 30-year-old single monogamist and I recently realized I’m bisexual. I feel much happier. Except I recently crossed a line with a very close friend of mine, a man I’ll admit to having some romantic feelings for. After he broke up with his ex, I started getting random late-night text messages from him. And a couple weeks ago, we hooked up sans penetration. We acknowledged that we both have feelings but neither of us is in a good place. He’s still dealing with the end of his LTR, and I am only just coming out as bisexual. I love this person and our friendship is important to me, but I can’t stop thinking of the possibility of us being together. I’m confused by the timing and I wonder if this is real or just something I’ve allowed to distract me—or both! Also, what would this mean for my bisexuality? I’ve been to this rodeo before—meaning opposite-sex relationships—but what about the part of me I haven’t fully explored? Between Every Thorn Solitude Yearns
FRI 11.23 - SAT 11.24
JOSH GONDELMAN @ LAUGH BOSTON
Josh Gondelman is a writer and comedian who is a writer on Season 2 of HBO’S Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. His talent for squishing words together earned him work writing for Fuse TV’s Funny Or Die Presents: Billy On The Street, and then got him his position as Web Producer for Season 1 of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, where he wrote and managed digital content for The Daily Show alum’s HBO show.
425 SUMMER ST., BOSTON | VARIOUS | $25 FRI 11.23 - SAT 11.24
LAMONT PRICE @ NICK’S COMEDY STOP
Lamont Price is a hilarious oxymoron. His comedy is edgy and laidback, off the beaten path and anchored in social consciousness. He doesn’t care in that cool sort of way, and he doesn’t hold back. His commanding stage presence electrifies the crowd. Price’s love for comedy started nearly a decade ago with a stand-up comedy course, and has become an obsession with winning over a room.
100 WARRENTON ST., BOSTON | 8PM | $20 FRI 11.23
ANDERSON COMEDY PRESENTS: THE GAS! @ GREAT SCOTT
Featuring: Myq Kaplan, Terrence Pennington, Abbie Richardson, Dan Donahue & Joe Medoff. Hosted by Rob Crean
1222 COMM AVE, ALLSTON | 7PM | $5 FRI 11.23
WOMEN OF BOSTON COMEDY FESTIVAL STAND UP @ NECOMIC CON Featuring: Carolyn Plummer, Erin Spencer, Kathe Farris, & Emily Ruskowski.
242 ADAMS PLACE, BOXBOROUGH | 9PM | $25 MON 11.26
CITYSIDE COMEDY @ CITYSIDE BAR
Featuring: Mia Jackson, Zenobia Del Mar, Garron Chiu, Dan Crohn, Anjan Biswas, Sam Ike, & more. Hosted by Jonathan Tilson
1960 BEACON ST, BOSTON | 9PM | 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…
RUTHERFORD BY DON KUSS DONKUSS@DIGBOSTON.COM
You describe yourself as a monogamist—so, yeah, entering into a committed relationship with this man would prevent you from exploring your bisexuality. And the timing feels off: He may be on the rebound, and you’re still coming to terms with your bisexuality. So don’t enter into a committed relationship with him, BETSY, at least not yet. Date him casually and keep hooking up with him, with the understanding—with the explicit and fully verbalized and mutually consented to understanding—that you will be “exploring” your bisexuality, i.e. you’ll be getting out there and eating some pussy.
On the Lovecast, what evangelical Christianity does to women: savagelovecast.com
savagelovecast.com 20
11.22.18 - 11.29.18
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“I’M SORRY SIR, BUT THE COURT THREW OUT THE CLASS-ACTION LAWSUIT AGAINST AL STEWART”
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ANTIQUE ROADSHOW FILM
The latest film by the Coen brothers moves across the Old West BY JAKE MULLIGAN @_JAKEMULLIGAN
FROM THE BALLAD OF BUSTER SCRUGGS, COURTESY NETFLIX
While explaining he and his brother Joel’s reasons for adapting Charles Portis’ novel into True Grit [2010], Ethan Coen suggested it was a matter of language more than anything else. “The formality of it,” he said, “and the floweriness of it.” If the general style of American western fiction could be reduced to one single phrase, then you could do worse than “formal but flowery,” a phrase that would also serve well describing much of the dialogue scripted by Joel and Ethan Coen, which so often couches absurd turns of language within exceptionally mannered speech patterns, transforming regional dictions into poetic, Wildean screwball patter. You know their voice when you read it, or hear it, even if it predates their very existence. For instance, I was immediately reminded of their formal-slash-flowery prose when I saw an old New York Times headline, circa 1946, announcing the death of author Stewart Edward White—a headline that, if I didn’t know any better, I might’ve guessed was scribed by the Coens themselves, for the background of a scene or something: “STEWART E. WHITE, NOVELIST, IS DEAD; Author of Stories of Adventure and Frontier Life Was 73-- Stricken After Fabled Career CHOKED LEOPARD TO DEATH Writer of ‘Blazed Trail’ Knew Yukon, Africa and West-- Honored as Geographer.” One of White’s stories is loosely adapted in The Ballad of Buster Scruggs [2018], the Coen’s latest feature-length movie, which presents six tales set in the Old American West. In the first, “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs,” we’re continually serenaded by the title character (Tim Blake Nelson), a singing cowboy in the heroic tradition of Gene Autry and Roy Rogers, except this one is a killer with the moral compass of a Peckinpah villain. In the second, “Near Algodones,” there’s a morality play skewed and upended by ironic twists (a Coen standard), wherein a bank robber (James Franco) avoids punishment for his own crime only to suffer punishment for somebody else’s. The third segment, “Meal Ticket,” is one of the film’s two unbearably mordant tragedies, studying a proto-carnie (Liam Neeson) as well as the performer he presents, Harrison “the Wingless Thrush” (Harry Melling), a limbless actor who’s propped up to recite classical speeches and monologues for the benefit of dwindling crowds brought together
at venues like “Johansson’s Lower Pasture” and “Behind McCormick’s Feedlot.” The fourth segment, “All Gold Canyon,” concerns a prospector (Tom Waits) who spoils an idyllic landscape in search of gold, and is adapted from a Jack London story of the same name. The fifth segment, “The Gal Who Got Rattled,” is the second of the outright tragedies, and documents an exceedingly businesslike courtship between lonesome young woman Alice Longabaugh (Zoe Kazan) and wagon train leader Billy Knapp (Bill Heck)—this is the one adapted from White’s short fiction, though he called it “The Girl Who Got Rattled” himself. The sixth and final segment, “The Mortal Remains,” is a gothically inflected tale that the Coens themselves have cited as being influenced by Rod Serling, depicting a stagecoach full of bickering travelers as they move toward a destination that may or may not exist on our own mortal plane. Meanwhile the opening and interstitial segments of Buster Scruggs, which separate the stories, are framed to suggest that all six narratives are being “read” from the same hardbound book, itself titled The Ballad of Buster Scruggs and Other Tales of the American Frontier (With Color Plates). It is, of course, a fake book, but it suggests a real tradition, one that includes volumes like, say, White’s Blazed Trail Stories and Stories of the Wild Life (1904), which collected together 13 of that author’s works, including, don’t you know it, “The Girl Who Got Rattled.” These western stories are connected by a series of recurring elements (songs, objects, scenarios, phrases), many of which crop up in two or three or more. Beyond that, as many others have noted before me, is the beyond itself: The matter of mortality is the film’s most constant theme. Death often has a name in the films of Joel and Ethan Coen: Leonard Smalls in Raising Arizona [1987], Anton Chigurh in No Country for Old Men [2007], Bob Dylan in Inside Llewyn Davis [2013]. The names given to death in this latest film are vast, varying depending on the story, but among them are bounty hunters, “Comanche war parties,” economic considerations, bad judges, bad judgment—in other words, most of the same bogeymen featured in western fiction past, seen here in a form that’s rewritten but not entirely revised.
More than any thematic consideration, that quality is what brings the stories together—a fealty to certain hallmarks and standards of various western subgenres as they were practiced in the pre-hippie era. Which is not to say that Buster Scruggs constitutes homage or tribute—very far from it, as is demonstrated by that first segment, where the whole joke is seeing a particularly sunny subgenre (singing cowboy pictures) turned sour by modern-style screen violence (complete with off-puttingly chintzy digital effects, another modern skew on the antique form). It’s more that, as it regards the western format, the Coens have been typically exacting about what they revise, what they subvert, and what they simply rewrite in their own idiom. Buster Scruggs suggests an entire lifetime spent consuming western media; it’s a film replete with nods to films and stories and figures past, Annie Oakley to Zane Grey. And it’s also replete with many examples of the genre’s most insidious tendencies, themselves of course directly related to the sins on which we tread daily. One could fairly take issue with the fact that nearly every Native American character depicted in this film is a violent antagonist with no speaking lines, just as one could fairly take issue with the fact that the Coen’s screenplay refers to those characters as “Indians”—but it’s surely not without purpose that Buster Scruggs, a film utterly rich with historical details that reflect coldly on the present day, employs the same racist standards established by dime novels, B-movies, and pulp magazines, forms of media that seem lifetimes away despite the fact that a lot of people around the Coen’s age were probably raised on ’em. Following Inside Llewyn Davis and Hail, Caesar! [2016], Buster Scruggs is another Coen brothers twist on a specific art-historical tradition, the perceived beliefs of the given period viewed with a jaundiced eye while its verbiage is delivered with an ecstatic tongue. Take, for instance, the scripting of one action sequence in “The Gal,” the sole part of White’s story that the Coens adapt pretty much faithfully. Mr. Arthur (Grainger Hines), who’s only accompaniment is a defenseless woman, prepares to single-handedly do battle against a large group of Native Americans charging from a hillside. He starts firing at them from the cover of a bunch of holes and mounds dug by prairie dogs. In their depiction, the Coens don’t alter White’s disinterested and inhumane depiction of the people making up the “war party”—nor do they change much else about the encounter, except for shifting around some of the dialogue. They make it so that Mr. Arthur shouts out “doghole!” with great verve every time one of his enemies gets their horse tripped up, marking another instantly seminal entry into the large catalog of preposterous exclamations repeated ad nauseam in one of their scripts. As much as any matter of theme or subtext or philosophy, one senses that this is where the soul of Buster Scruggs resides—in these little bits of landscape and locution, and the larger history of the form and its tendencies that they suggest, pleasurable and shameful alike. Ostensibly studying mortality, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs gives a genre long presumed to be near death yet another spark of life.
>> THE BALLAD OF BUSTER SCRUGGS. RATED R. NOW AVAILABLE ON NETFLIX. ALSO PLAYING THEATRICALLY AT THE LANDMARK EMBASSY CINEMA; SEE LANDMARKTHEATRES.COM FOR SHOWTIMES. 22
11.22.18 - 11.29.18
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