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ROYALE LADY LAMB
WU-TANG FOREVER
I’m sure that quite a few of you joined me and several million others this past weekend in binge-watching the new Wu-Tang Clan documentary on Showtime, Of Mics and Men. Directed by the gifted Sacha Jenkins, the film is more than just a triumph; it’s a lesson plan in grit and gusto and a mandatory assignment for anyone attempting to use their talents to better their own situation as well as the world around them. Since even aunts and uncles of mine who don’t know Raekwon from Ray J have asked for my thoughts about the doc, I think I can forego the gratuitous explanation that’s typically offered when hip-hop comes up. For some reason, even though acts such as Nas, Tupac, and Wu-Tang have sold billions of records combined, most reporters have catered to stodgy demographics, spoonfeeding consumers with descriptions that are never given for artists who white Baby Boomers worship. Just imagine an NPR announcer assuming that listeners don’t know who the Beatles are. But things are changing, just as I always hoped they would. These past few weeks of seeing the Clan in the spotlight—on major talk shows, getting a street on their native Staten Island named for the group—has been a reminder of how far hip-hop has come. I’m not simply talking about how many records rappers have sold; if that was the bar for real change, then you could have said that the genre made its indelible mark decades ago. Rather, I’m talking about how those of us who were raised by Wu-Tang have come of age and in innumerable ways use their scriptures to navigate our own lives. As somebody who worships the crew and has been lucky enough to collaborate on books with RZA, GZA, Ghostface Killah, Raekwon, and the family of Ol’ Dirty Bastard, I have followed their rhymes and business-life model closely. I even run this newspaper in Wu-Tang fashion, nurturing the finest talent from around the way to be part of our team, all while giving them my full support when they are doing projects outside of the mothership. I have found wisdom in their tutelage, and the Jenkins doc is no exception; of the many lines of inspiration I took from it, some standouts came from RZA (“I didn’t know the [major record] label could be wrong [early in his career]”); Raekwon (“It’s time to do it ourselves”); and ODB (“Don’t let these people change you, baby”). I couldn’t agree more; fuck changing yourself, it’s about changing the world around you. On that note, watching the Wu clock all these headlines this month made me think of an article that I wrote for Columbia Journalism Review back in 2008, in which I criticized the New York Times for only letting non-hip-hop musicians like Marilyn Manson use monikers. “At the Times,” I wrote, “the penalty for being a rapper is twofold: you are routinely called out on your birth name (no matter how nerdy and ironic it might be), and you rarely are addressed as ‘Mr.’” I visited the Times website last week to see the paper’s write-up on Of Mics and Men, and guess what I found? Unlike the old days, when they referred to members as Robert Diggs and Dennis Coles, now they’re simply called by their Clan names—RZA and Ghostface Killah, respectively. It’s about time, though I always knew that they would break eventually. Unlike elitist honorifics, WuTang and hip-hop are forever.
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EDIBLE DERANGEMENT TALKING JOINTS MEMO
As state seeks solutions, Boston formalizes grudge against cannabis dining BY DAN ATKINSON
Restaurants that host popular marijuana-infused food events were put “on notice” by the Boston Licensing Board (BLB), which is threatening any venue that holds THC tastings with losing their licenses. The crackdown comes as the state’s Cannabis Control Commission (CCC) overseeing marijuana considers a pilot program for infused event licenses. In Boston, groups that organize such gatherings say they have tried to work with the BLB and have received conflicting information, and that city officials need to recognize the business of serving legal weed. “We are getting approached by venues who want to host events,” said Sam Kanter, the owner and operator of cannabis dining service Dinner at Mary’s. “They’re going to happen, you’re not going to stop them from happening. “People want to get involved, it’s time for the city to let us do it.” While voters legalized recreational marijuana in 2016, on Beacon Hill, the CCC is still writing regulations regarding “social consumption.” Meanwhile, at the federal level, the Food and Drug Administration has not cleared any cannabis derivatives as food additives, meaning that edibles are not legally allowed on the market. None of which has stopped people from using CBD or THC in their own cooking. Indeed, several groups have sprung up to organize events where chefs prepare infused meals at gatherings both in privates spaces and at local restaurants. Kanter said her company is one of the groups that prompted an advisory that the BLB released last week, warning restaurants and bars about hosting the pot parties. City officials said both Dinner at Mary’s and another cannabis dining service, Eat Sacrilicious, were particularly put on notice, and that they found out about the dinners after a member of the public complained to the board; the BLB, they added, told Kanter in writing the events were illegal in February and April. Any infused food event at a licensed premise— whether or not it is open to the public, and whether alcohol is consumed or not—is illegal, the BLB advisory states, and violators “will be subject to disciplinary action” including a suspension or revocation of their license. The 4
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advisory also says while it is legal to give marijuana as a gift, doing so in conjunction with sales of another item, including tickets or membership fees to attend an event, is also illegal. “All holders of a Common Victualler or Alcoholic Beverages License issued by the board are formally on notice by the board of the illegality of such an event,” the advisory reads. “Any business which hosts such an event at its Licensed Premise does so at the peril of any license issued by the board.” At the state level, the CCC will discuss pilot programs for cannabis cafes and social consumption host licenses, aka event licenses, at its meeting this Thursday, according to commissioner Shaleen Title. Both programs are being recommended by the CCC’s working group on social consumption. “A primary goal of the pilot program is to promote and encourage the groups that have thus far been unable to meaningfully participate in the legal cannabis industry,” Title said in a statement. “Another goal of the pilot program is to start small, with a limited number of participating municipalities, in order to have the opportunity to closely monitor any unforeseen challenges and ensure that in wider implementation.” But Boston won’t be part of any pilot, a spokesperson for Mayor Marty Walsh said. “The city of Boston is focused on improving the marijuana licensing process to ensure equity applicants have access to the opportunities of this new industry,” said Samantha Ormsby, a spokeswoman for Walsh. “While we are not participating in the pilot program for cannabis cafes or events, we are reviewing how services such as cafes and marijuana delivery will impact the city’s marijuana landscape.” Kanter said the two boards should be on the same page when it comes to events licensing: “The separation of the CCC and the licensing board confuses me. It doesn’t feel like these two teams are working together, which makes it that much more challenging for us in the space.” And Kanter said the licensing board was making business difficult in other ways. The advisory also claims there are “a number of companies organizing such events
and providing misinformation regarding the legality,” which Kanter blasted as a mischaracterization of her business. “It’s frustrating the advisory said that—it’s insinuating we’re purposefully providing incorrect information to get venues to host,” Kanter said. “We’re providing all the information that we have. … When we came on the radar, they said, ‘We’re not shutting you down, but do certain things—get a catering firm, do private events.’ They gave us a list [of things] to do and we did them, and as soon as we did those things, they came up with another problem.” Dinner at Mary’s has advertised numerous infused meals at bars this year, including on April 20 at Shojo. Euphoric Foods, an infused-meals catering company, organized a prix fixe dinner at Trade with Chef Jody Adams in March that was advertised in local media. Chef David Ferragamo, who runs Euphoric Food, said navigating the landscape of infused foods is difficult, while the advisory is making things even more complicated. “There’s not a lot of problem-solving, it’s more like problems being surfaced,” Ferragamo said of the advisory. “It made me nervous—‘Oh no, are they cracking down? Should I pull back?’ But we’re not doing anything illegal.” Ferragamo added: “It’s hard to work within that space, it’s all gray areas. Now that this [advisory] is out, things have to be fine-tuned … We want to develop a good relationship with the [BLB], we’re not trying to do anything wrong, we’re trying to work legally in the space we’re allowed.” While Ferragamo hopes to eventually run a restaurant serving infused meals, he said the March event at Trade was the only meal that he has organized in a licensed venue. His normal method is to host meals for private gatherings where he is paid for his abilities as a chef—the hosts purchase any cannabis that’s used, but at no point is marijuana sold outside of a dispensary. Kanter said private events are one way to prepare pot-infused meals, but restaurants provide a more comfortable venue for people who are curious. She framed her organization’s meals as a way for those who may be unfamiliar with edibles and infused meals to learn about the concept in a friendly environment. “We try to put on a specific caliber of event, higher end, and make the guests as comfortable as possible,” Kanter said. “Being in someone’s home [who] you don’t know is not comfortable. A restaurant is a comfortable space, and they have a kitchen to serve the safest food.” While Kanter is waiting to meet with city officials further and is anticipating more discussion of the CCC’s potential pilot program, she has canceled a planned event for this weekend. City and state officials, she said, need to come up with a framework that treats cannabis like any other substance. “The time is now,” Kanter said. “It’s been two and a half years [since] recreational legal cannabis [was approved by voters], but we don’t have the resources to show the public how to safely use cannabis. “It’s one thing if they’re not cracking down on it and looking the other way. They’re trying to stop what we’re doing, but not giving us other options.”
THE SUMMIT: PART IV SOMERVILLE
Residents vent on issues related to immigrant communities BY BOSTON INSTITUTE FOR NONPROFIT JOURNALISM As a major initiative for 2019, the team at the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism (BINJ), in collaboration with partners at DigBoston, Somerville Media Center (SMC), and various other outlets, is focusing on identifying and reporting critical stories in the City of Somerville. To that end, we have been leading journalism workshops at SMC, including some with high school students, and in February BINJ turned out more than 100 Somerville residents and active community members to the ONCE ballroom on Highland Ave to converse with area journalists about issues they think need more coverage. The information these participants provided has already seeded articles and will continue to bear fruit over the coming months. In addition to our follow-ups, we have transcribed all of the presentations given at ONCE. It’s a lot to chew on, so for the purpose of reporting back we parsed sentiments of the participating Somervillians into the following categories (many of which overlap at multiple intersections):
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• Neighborhoods, transit, and accessibility • Union Square and other development • Low-income residents and affordable housing • Immigrant communities • Trees and the environment • Arts, artists, and artisans In addition to reports that stem from the February meetup, over the coming weeks we will also publish words and ideas that stood out at the summit. This week, we get into excerpts from various testimonies related to immigrant communities.
Ruth Farris, Center for Arabic Culture
The Center of Arabic Culture is a small nonprofit [with] offices right in the Armory. Let’s face it, if anyone needs good press, it’s Arabs. Specifically we are, in our charter, a cultural arts organization. We take no position on politics and religion and we’re pretty unique in that way. Most Arab organizations are sort of based in a church or a mosque, so what we do is we have one of our biggest things is a large Arabic School that runs in Newton at Brimmer and May for adults and children to learn Arabic. We [also] run a lot of programs right at the Armory. We recently had a big calligraphy workshop, we do foreign films, Arab films. We’ve participated with [the Somerville Arts Council initiative] Nibble in doing an Arabic cooking class, and we do it because we love our culture and we want to keep our culture for our children to enjoy. Also, because we don’t want non-Arabs to be afraid of us. We want people to learn about the beauty of our culture and to counter some of the negative things that go on in the press.
Kenia Alfaro, The Welcome Project
We are an immigrant nonprofit based in Somerville, but we work with immigrant families throughout the Greater Boston region. Some of the news … we would like to be covered is … about some of the issues that many immigrant families are facing here in the city. IMAGE VIA THE WELCOME PROJECT I think as a very liberal city, sometimes we don’t focus on some of the bad things that are happening … especially things that are affecting immigrant families. For example, in equity and education, the stories that we hear from many family members—or even our students—[are] about different acts of discrimination or racism that they’re hearing themselves. Some of the other things that we also seeing and sometimes hearing about, and maybe want to have more conversation about, is centering the voices of immigrant families that are often not centered. For example, the way we are hearing a lot of the stories, it would be really great for those voices to also be centered within the news to hear what it is that they want changed. So if they’re looking for some changes in specific locations, let’s say more greenery and more family spaces in East Somerville, those voices should be the ones that are centered, and not necessarily the outer community or us ourselves as an organization. Healthcare access for many immigrants and healthcare access is [another issue that warrants attention] as well. What does healthcare look like within this city? What does it look like if we’re talking about environmental racism that often affects many underrepresented people of color and immigrant families themselves?
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MORE DEMOCRACY NEEDED TO SURVIVE GLOBAL WARMING APPARENT HORIZON
Or: Free the Wu Train
BY JASON PRAMAS @JASONPRAMAS The hits just keep on coming from climate scientists—as they drop big global warming studies with increasing regularity. Fielding data and projections that look ever more depressing. Most recently, a new report by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services says that not only have humans caused the abundance of plant and animal species in most parts of the world to drop by 20% in the last century— threatening one million species with extinction within decades— but also humaninduced climate change is now accelerating that collapse in biodiversity beyond a current rate already “tens to hundreds times higher than the average over the last 10 million years.” In this context, I was pleased to see a new special issue of MIT Technology Review on the newsstands entitled “Welcome to climate change.” Because it’s exactly the kind of accessible academic publication that needs to take leadership in facing such an existential crisis head-on. The better to influence mass-market news outlets downstream. However, as good as the content of the issue is, and as unblinking and data-heavy as some of the takes MTR editors solicited are, there was one prediction that gave me pause. It was in the short story “A Full Life” by Paolo Bacigalupi. A piece that reminded me of nothing so much as my own writing on global warming. But from the perspective of a teenage girl. Writing at an unspecified date in the near future, maybe 25 years from now, when climate changes start hitting humanity far faster than we can deal with them. Through her eyes, we see the once-stable life led by her middle-class Colorado hipster family end abruptly as one environmental hammer blow after another drives them from the Rockies to Texas to Miami to New York City and ultimately to Boston. As fine and arresting a work as the story is, when the main character arrives in the Hub alone—forced to live with her grandmother once the survivors of her immediate family become climate refugees—I found myself laughing out loud. Because our city is portrayed the way our local boosters in government and business like to portray us. As a city that’s smarter than other cities. More forward-thinking and better prepared to deal with global warming than other cities. To the point where the subject of the story and her friends “perch atop the new Charles River levees.”
Boston is not a leading American city in global warming preparedness anywhere outside of the confines of its seemingly endless series of chirpily titled focus groups and “town hall” meetings on “climate resilience” and the like.
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“Boston definitely seemed to have plans,” the girl explains. “Billboards called Greater Boston a ‘City of the Future.’ They’d banned cars from Alewife all the way to the ocean. Only electric trams and occasional emergency vehicles used the narrowed main roads. Remaining streets were being converted into e-bike paths and gardens. Climbing vines shaded walking paths for summer. Enclosed skyways leapt from high-rise to highrise for the winter. Not a drop of gasoline anywhere.” Leaving aside the fact that the author doesn’t appear to know our region very well—since a line drawn from Cambridge’s Alewife T stop to the ocean would only include one corner of the metropolis—Boston is not a leading American city in global warming preparedness anywhere outside of the confines of its seemingly endless series of chirpily titled focus groups and “town hall” meetings on “climate resilience” and the like. Right now, there are no plans to build levees or dikes anywhere around Boston Harbor. Major defenses across the inner or outer harbor have already been shot down largely on cost grounds. Levees are mentioned precisely twice (and dikes not even once) in the entire 199-page Climate Ready Boston full report released in 2016—and not as an alternative that the city expects to act on. Current language in the Climate Ready website about preparing the city for flooding from global warminginduced sea level rise coupled with increasingly severe and frequent storm surges only features terms like “elevated landscapes,” “sea walls,” and “deployable flood walls.” The Climate Ready report does make it clear that work will eventually need to be done to shore up the dam area: “Other flood entry points, such as the flanking of the Charles River Dam or Fort Point Channel, are likely to require large-scale infrastructure improvements to reduce flood risk.” But not until the 2050s. And levees are not in the cards. Instead, the city is discussing “Potential flood protection solutions [that] could include a tide barrier across the mouth of Miller’s River, a tide gate and connecting flood protection system just west of Littoral Way, or a deployable barrier across the railroad right-ofway connecting Charlestown and North Station.” For the near to medium term, maps of planned coastal defense projects—most of which have yet to see a shovel break ground after years of meetings and studies—include nothing for the Charles River dam area other than some work on a nearby North End park. Meaning that building more robust defenses is effectively pushed off to some future time. Long after the current Boston political establishment has left the stage of public life. Which is not to say that city government isn’t doing anything. It’s just doing what I’m sure will be deemed “too little, too late” in a decade or two. And that brings me back to my ongoing discussion about the need for more people to get more active in state and local government. Because I’m not saying that there aren’t smart and thoughtful people trying to push the dialogue on global warming along faster in Boston city government—and state government as well. There definitely are. Case in point, Boston City Councilor Michelle Wu. She’s someone who’s been impressing me (and apparently others lately, given the very public talk encouraging her to run for mayor should Marty Walsh run for higher office) as a politician that is serious about marshalling city resources to defend the city against the some of the worst effects of climate change. In recent months, she successfully convinced a solid majority of her fellow councilors to back the Green New Deal program proposed by New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (and, in fairness, originally conceived in more militant
form by the Green Party in Europe as early as 2006 and popularized by the US Green Party during Jill Stein’s presidential campaign in 2012). Wu has also pushed for an effectively free public transportation system for Boston, knowing it was a virtually impossibility in the current political order. And without a concrete plan to make it happen. She did the right thing in that case. She raised a demand to get people talking about a broad and necessary reform— partially on environmental grounds. Hoping that when conditions change, it will be possible to make the demand a reality. Or that she’ll be able to get the job done incrementally, as with her current campaign to make a single bus line free. But the problem remains that politicians of reasonably good conscience like Wu are hemmed in by political barriers erected by ruling elites against democractic governance on issues like global warming preparedness. Just as I mentioned how undemocratic state government is in my last piece (“More Activism Needed in State and Local Politics”)—for like the umpteen millionth time—so too I can’t discuss Boston politics without pointing out yet again that it is dominated by large corporations. Too many of which have a financial interest in moving slowly on climate change. Beyond that I can say Boston politics—like American politics at all levels—is still based on the assumption that any potential solutions to crises like global warming must somehow be solved by the economic system that played the largest role in creating them, capitalism. Which is unlikely to work, since endless growth doesn’t play well with a finite ecosystem. But as long as rich and powerful interests control our government, that’s going to remain the limit of reform. Still, slow progress is better no progress. The important thing to me in this period is not that politicians like Wu declare themselves to be socialists (although that would be nice). It’s that they should be free to do everything they can under capitalism to mitigate the worst effects of global warming, until such time as political horizons expand to allow socialist solutions to be put on the table of deliberative bodies like the Boston City Council. Which will, I believe, be necessary to really give humanity a hope for the future by allowing us to share the resources we still have on a warming planet more equitably and democratically. While slowing economic growth to what our ecosystem can handle. Yet the problem I outlined last week, and in many columns and editorials over the last 11 years, remains. The corporations at the commanding heights of our economy are not going to give up their lock on politics without a fight. And if we can’t win such a fight in the service of stopping a species-destroying threat like global warming, then I seriously doubt that we’ll be able to get real movement on a host of other important related issues either. So, once again, I challenge readers: Step up. Get involved in local and state politics. Make government more democratic and responsive at those levels. Then move on to change national politics. Because humanity is a species too. And we’re now definitely under threat of extinction. 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 executive director, and executive editor and associate publisher of DigBoston. Copyright 2019 Jason Pramas. Licensed for use by the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism and media outlets in its network.
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TWO NEW FAVORITE MASS BEERS Don’t Worry by Wormtown and CBC Hopheads Guide to the Galaxy BY CITIZEN STRAIN
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Welcome to the Boston Better Beer Bureau, our latest incarnation of the trusty suds reporting we’ve done at DigBoston ever since people referred to beer as suds. Really, we remember the days when we’d spend half our checks on fancy German bottles just so that we could review them, whereas these days breweries from all around New England kindly send us samplers and stay in touch. The BBBB is an attempt to return that love, all while sharing more news about the innumerable microbreweries and pubs among us. Entering the craft beer section these days is like walking through the cereal aisle: pure and unadulterated paradise. Lots of remarkable selections, a few disgusting ones, certainly a ton of mediocre product, and when you’re lucky, picks so delicious that you keep on returning for more. Month after month, year after year. If you have ever tasted Honey Smacks, then you know the song I’m singing. Beer basically works in the same way. And since it is a jungle out there, with new pun-riffic IPAs and extravagant hoppy variants dropping each week, it helps to have some brands that you can typically rely on. This can take time, patience, and deep investigation; Dorchester Brewing Co., for example, brews some of the finest sips this side of San Francisco, and not always in its own skin. Of course, I don’t always have enough time to read the fine print and see what brewery is co-packing or bottling for whom, and in moments like those I reach for names that I know I can trust—standout standbys like Wormtown and Cambridge Brewing Co. I guess that’s how I came upon Don’t Worry last month. Wormtown’s bestknown IPA, Be Hoppy, has become a frequent flyer in my home refrigerator, and so it made sense to finish off the chorus. While Be Hoppy is that perfect mix of clever pun and delicious hop punch, Don’t Worry packs less of a bite than its taller and slightly darker tallboy brother. That’s not a knock for me and it should not be for you either, though; these silver bullets aren’t for the hop-wary. At 5.8% ABV, Don’t Worry is the perfect halfway bitter solution for day-drinking all summer long, a sweet tongue shower longtime fans of Wormtown’s flagship will begin to worship in short time if they haven’t already. And then there’s CBC’s Hopheads Guide to the Galaxy, a 7% ABV triumph for the serious beer drinker who wants it all. Phil and Will and their brew team in Cambridge have done good this time. Perhaps better than usual if that is even possible. This one’s smooth but rugged, simultaneously simple and complex. There’s citrus bursting out of every sip, but I would go so far as to recommend Guide to the Galaxy to hopheads who are not particularly crazy about juicy treats. There is enough action bouncing around this universe to tickle virtually any palate. Now here’s the part where I get sentimental. Perhaps it is because I have been ogling the cans for Don’t Worry and Hopheads for a couple weeks now and have come to like having them in close view, but I can definitely see both of these beers having some serious staying power. The latter’s been around for two years strong already; the former has a solid start; both have the flavor and a killer can design that separate them from the average four-pack.
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AN ORAL HISTORY OF THE DIG: EPISODE 7 FEATURE
The one in which there is an altercation and the editor is fired BY BARRY THOMPSON
The ’90z - 2003 (cont.) Probably Seth Putnam’s favorite episode, assuming they let you read the Dig in hell. In all your reviews you always talk about yourself No one really cares how drunk or high you are You always write about the dumbest fucking bands It figures you live in Allston You try and take over everything you’re involved in You started a new column because your camera got broken Are you gonna start a new column when I punch your face in? Anal Cunt, a regionally based grindcore band of dubious repute, etched original Dig Editor-in-Chief Joe Bonni into shock rock history by referencing him in the 1996 tracks “Punching Joe Bonni’s Face In” and “Everyone In Allston Should Be Killed.” In doing so, the group’s frontman Seth Putnam did Bonni’s legacy in this town a severe disservice—dude played a prominent role in tattoo and cannabis legalization, to say nothing of co-founding the very publication you’re presently reading. So it is with some regret we must attempt to recount the events surrounding the original editor’s 2003 departure from the Weekly Dig, ’cause they’re pretty vague and a little embarrassing. Not as embarrassing as Anal Cunt, but embarrassing nonetheless.
JEFF LAWRENCE (founding publisher): I already knew he was unhinged, insofar as he wanted to run a radical, heavily socialist-anarchist publication that pushed every fucking boundary. And at that point we had a business that relied on advertising that was going to pay our salaries. MATT KING (classifieds manager): They used to butt heads all the time. Every now and again they would clash over this or that or the other thing. I remember Jeff getting upset that there were too many stories about pot. I think that’s the time the business started to … basically, the Dig outgrew Joe Bonni. I think the Dig outgrows most people. GRAHAM WILSON (sales manager): Joe and Jeff had different visions. Joe was more of a punk rock guy, more of a zine guy, and wanted to kind of keep things gritty and underground. There’s no problem with that, but we wanted to create something that had a larger audience, and we knew we had to be a little more diverse in our coverage. BONNI: One of the nastiest arguments that we had was about how I didn’t have a wide-enough variety of stories. I literally put a docket full of stories—like, 12 different kinds—on his desk. I had no editorial staff, really. It was never like I had “x” amount of dollars to produce content. … So I was just sitting there throwing the docket down screaming bloody murder that the content was more
JOE BONNI (founding EiC): As the years went on, it became really clear to me that [Publisher] Jeff [Lawrence] was being highly influenced by the structure of several other much larger alt-weeklies. It’s not fair to say he wanted to mainstream or corporatize the Dig, but indeed, to some degree, he wanted to mainstream and corporatize the Dig in ways I wasn’t comfortable with.
BONNI: One production night, just before we went to press, Jeff was nowhere to be found. Jeff and I were not on good terms at this point, almost four years into the partnership. But bailing on production night was just plain bizarre. When he finally showed up at the office, he was drunk after some meeting at Foley’s around the corner. I ran into him just outside the building. Jeff and I had words about Jeff not being around on production night and how Tak and I were putting the paper to bed without him. He rambled on about my “career in this town” being on thin ice and eventually shoved me. A small fight broke out between the two of us, and then Jeff fired me.
KING: I was sitting right across from Joe and Jeff in the office, and they were arguing about something. And then it got heated, and they went outside, and Jeff came back upstairs. His shirt was torn, his hair was messed up. I think he might’ve taken a punch to the face or something like that. I never saw Joe Bonni come up and get his stuff anything. It was just like, “Oh. I guess Joe’s out.” In the next episode: The Dig gets a whole new Joe to replace the old Joe and embarks upon a brighter era. SETH PUTNAM OF AXCX PERFORMS AT THE RELAPSE FESTIVAL IN 1993
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LAWRENCE: Bonni’s seriously one of the most intelligent people I have ever met in my life, hands down. He’s also absolutely the most obstinate, corrosive individual that you could ever want to try to have a business with. So at the end of the day, here’s me paying the bills, and he’s saying, “We need to look at socialism under Stalin,” or, “We need to go to an all-barter system.” It’s like, “Dude, you don’t live in the real world.”
TAK TOYOSHIMA (art director): All I remember is working on an issue and Jeff coming upstairs talking about him and Joe having a physical altercation. I don’t even think he mentioned Joe being fired at that point. Just that they had a fight. I feel like the announcement was made after the fact.
BONNI: I was resistant to some of the things Jeff wanted to do. And I know that created tension. But I also considered myself a partner and a cofounder, period. So I didn’t actually think I could be fired, in the same sense that I couldn’t fire Jeff. I thought if things ever got that bad, he and I had to figure it out, find an exit plan, work through it.
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WILSON: When I worked for an indie record company, my goal was always to take bands and move them onto a major label. Nobody I ever worked with was like, “Stop selling records for me! You’re selling too many fucking records!” or “I don’t want these A&R guys from Sony and Warner Bros. coming to my show!” So if we believe in what we’re writing and we get more readers, how is that bad?
LAWRENCE: Frankly, the only way or reason I was able to fire him and stop holding back after I had capitulated against requests and probably my own desires for quite some time was the fact that I did a couple of shots and fucking duked it out with him on the street.
J. BENNETT (music editor): Everyone got along. Joe and Jeff had … I won’t say weekly blowouts, but monthly blowouts, I think is safe to say. To both of their credits, they were able to have those, get it all out of their systems, and go back to working. At the time, there didn’t seem like there was much of a grudge building up.
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HITTING THE CIRCUIT GTFO
How to hike the hardcore Middlesex Fells rock trail WORDS AND PHOTOS BY MARC HURWITZ @HIDDENBOSTON
It’s no secret that the Greater Boston area has all kinds of hiking options from easy walks that couch potatoes can do to difficult climbs that will test even the most seasoned hikers. And those who take their hiking seriously often look for “training” hikes in the region that can be used to prepare them for the real-deal stuff a few hours to the north, such as in the White Mountains of New Hampshire or Vermont’s Green Mountains. I explored one of those training hikes last year—the very challenging Skyline Trail in the Blue Hills just south of the city. Now, it’s time to look at another one just north of Boston in the Middlesex Fells. While the Fells has its own Skyline Trail in the vast western part of the reservation, I’m more interested in the shorter Rock Circuit Trail in the smaller eastern part of the Fells. The Skyline Trail in the Fells really isn’t that tough, but the Rock Circuit sure is, so much so that if you’re a beginner hiker, the best plan is to train for the Rock Circuit, which will in turn help you train for the real mountains up north. The Rock Circuit’s a loop (hence the “circuit” part of its name) that runs a scant four miles in length as opposed to the seven miles that the Skyline runs. Unlike the Skyline, however, you won’t find many long stretches of relatively level ground here, and as you might also gather from its name, the path is extremely rocky, testing knees and ankles alike. There are two popular starting points for the Rock Circuit, with one starting from the Flynn Rink in Medford by the western part of the trail (and the parking lot here is indeed open to hikers), but for the benefit of people without wheels, we’ll focus on starting from the east, which is surprisingly close to the Oak Grove T stop on the Orange Line in Malden and which also has plenty of free street parking on weekends. Leaving the station on the Washington Street side, walking two blocks north, and turning left on Glen Rock Avenue for another two blocks to a right on Elliot Street will get you to the trailhead, which is just after the last house on the left. The trail that starts from Elliot Street is very short but rather brutal, getting your heart beating right off the bat as it climbs steeply into the Fells. This is not actually the 12
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Rock Circuit trail, but by taking a right at the end, then soon taking a left on the blue-blazed Cross Fells Trail, you’ll find yourself meeting up with the white-blazed Rock Circuit trail maybe 15 minutes after first entering the reservation. It doesn’t matter if you take a left or a right on the Rock Circuit (remember, it’s a loop), but for the sake of getting to some of the best parts right away, take a right and you’ll almost immediately start climbing and dropping steeply along Black Rock, which has several viewpoints to the right, including a huge open ledge at the northern edge of the hill that has jaw-dropping views of Boston, Malden, Melrose, Stoneham, and beyond, including Boston Harbor and some hills off to the north. The Rock Circuit descends steeply as you leave Black Rock, soon coming to the head of a gorgeous cascade that has a narrow trail that heads down just before it. This is an extremely steep trail and can be dangerous when wet, but it’s worth going down it to see the waterfall front and center— and also to look back up at the cone of Black Rock, which from this vantage point really does look like a mountain that’s above treeline. Returning to the Rock Circuit (if you went down to see the cascade, that is), continue to follow the white blazes and some more relentless ups and downs until reaching Melrose Rock, which has a similar table-like ledge to that of Black Rock
and which also has spectacular (and slightly different) views of civilization far below. As with Black Rock, care must be taken here because the rock face basically ends at some steep cliffs, so it’s best to keep a bit of a distance from the edge. Melrose Rock marks the last of the views for awhile, with the Rock Circuit continuing to climb up and down rocky sections and finally dropping down to the busy Fellsway East, which you’ll cross and then start a modest climb up and over some unnamed hills and ledges. This part of the trail more or less parallels the High Fells Reservoir, a bucolic tree-ringed body of water to the left that can be accessed near where the Rock Circuit Trail eventually meets up with the Wyoming Path and the Reservation Path. This is a highly recommended breaking point if you want to get off the Rock Circuit for a bit and explore, as a series of interesting trails and fire roads loop around the reservoir, and if you have a map and a good sense of direction, there’s a peninsula that goes out into the water and is a great place to have a picnic or snack break on any number of rock faces overlooking the reservoir. One of the “easiest” (and yes, take this term loosely) parts of the Rock Circuit Trail is the fairly short stretch from the reservoir to the Woodland Path intersection where you can take a right and be at the Flynn Rink in five minutes, just in case you need concessions or a bathroom break. If not, well, the easy stuff is done and now you need to get ready for what they call a “leg blaster” of a hike, doing nearly constant ups and downs for a good mile or so, and with some limited views here and there. Things get pretty interesting toward the latter part of this stretch, as one more steady climb will bring you to an historic site that’s basically the foundation of the longgone MIT Observatory. This site, which dates back to the 1800s, includes little more than a stone foundation and a bulletin board giving all kinds of information about the observatory, and even though there are no real views here, the sheer remoteness of the site and the fact that it is so difficult to find makes it a rather special spot that’s a good place for a break. If you decide not to take a breather here, a break will surely be warranted a few minutes later upon reaching Boojum Rock, a rugged outcropping with some tremendous views of the Boston skyline. Once again, views of Boston Harbor and the communities below can be had,
and on a clear day the Blue Hills to the south can be seen as well. The Rock Circuit Trail can be very tough to follow from Boojum Rock, so it’s particularly important to always be watching for the white blazes on the trees and rocks from this point on. The trail drops down to the left through a narrow notch from Boojum, then zigs and zags with some more great views straight ahead and off to the right. It soon comes to a major intersection at which point you may look up and say “No way,” as a seemingly impossible climb awaits straight ahead. This steep scramble takes you to the top of an unnamed hill with more views far below, then the trail
starts a fairly long and steady drop until it reaches another section of the Fellsway East road which you’ll need to cross once again. From here, the Rock Circuit banks to the right and soon reaches a steep and rather menacing-looking rise called Pinnacle Rock. Even if your legs are rubbery at this point, it is worth getting one more burst of energy to climb up to the top, as its steep and narrow cone affords what some consider the greatest views in the entire Fells, including an open view of the Boston skyline that has to be seen to be believed. From here, it’s a quick but grueling scamper up and down more rocks and boulders to the Cross Fells Trail intersection where you take a right and head back to
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Elliott Road. The Middlesex Fells has countless trails and some truly great places to check out both on the east and west sides, but for a sheer “bang for the buck” experience, the short but oh-so-intense Rock Circuit Trail is tough to beat. And much like the Skyline Trail in the Blue Hills, it’s one that will get you in shape quickly for the more serious hikes far away from Boston while at the same time being only being a few miles away from the city. Maps for the Rock Circuit Trail and the Middlesex Fells can be found at friendsofthefells.org.
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THE LONGEST TRIP FEATURE
An Uber driver recalls a fare he drove all the way from Massachusetts to Miami and wonders, Wait a minute, what the hell was in the trunk? BY JENNY ROLLINS “I’m experiencing the passing of a kidney stone. “If I seem distracted, it’s because the pain is exquisite.” William Thompson III is perched on the stool across from me at a coffee house near Boston. He orders peppermint tea (it’s for the kidney stone, he says) and looks at me seriously while waiting for his drink to cool. “The first thing I have to tell you is that I have two jobs, and I can’t talk about one of them,” he says. “I won’t go on the record, so don’t ask me about that one.” From his appearance Thompson seems like an ordinary white-haired Bostonian. He’s wearing nondescript jeans, a basic button-up, and a black coat. But I quickly learn that he’s a slow cooker, a longtime driver who keeps stories simmering and is ready to share them with his customers, whether the drive is five minutes or an hour long. He spins yarns, then lassoes you in with them, taking people along for a ride on multiple levels. Though he isn’t willing to give all of the personal details, Thompson says that he has always had dreams of sharing his wilder experiences with the world and claims that he is working on an autobiographically inspired fiction project that reflects his crazy cabbie stories. Get him talking, and he’ll gladly tell you about how he helped police in Brookline solve a robbery. Or the time when he was nearly arrested for robbing the Star Market in Fenway. Or how he once allowed a homeless woman and her child to live in his cab for several weeks. “My autobiography or my biography would be very
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out there,” Thompson says. He also has one about the time he picked up a guy who had blown off a couple of his fingers with a gun. “I’m not trying to be coy, but let’s just say I’ve had a weird life. Weird things have happened to me a lot.” He draws a line… “If you want to go off the record, I’ll tell you all of it, but I don’t want to tease you and not tell you.” I can’t verify all of the tales that Thompson tells, but I did everything I could to check out the crown jewel of his story collection: the one about what may have been the longest, and strangest, Uber ride of all time. No airplanes! On May 18, 2017, at 4:30 pm, Thomson received a ride request in Waltham from his Uber app. Minutes later, he pulled his red 2014 Prius up to Public Storage on Lexington Street to pick up his passengers when a middle-aged woman approached him. “Is it okay?” He recalls that she was yelling and pointing at something. “Is it okay?” Thompson asked what she meant, at which point the woman said that she and her husband needed to go on a long trip. Interpreting “long” as somewhere in Cape Cod or Providence, he says that he agreed before seeing the destination. The couple went into the storage building, and moments later emerged with five backpacks—stuffed with something, according to Thompson’s account—
that they crammed into the trunk. “To be honest, [the couple] almost looked like they were homeless,” he says. “They didn’t smell bad. They just looked poor.” When the destination popped up on his screen, Thompson assumed it was a practical joke. For a second, he says he came close to kicking them out of the car. The address was on 1st Street … in Miami Beach, Florida. Thompson says the woman told him that the estimated price was around $3,000, and claimed that she was in a hurry. Explaining that her mother lived in Miami and was suffering from end-stage Lupus, the passenger said that her family’s doctor didn’t expect her mom to survive the weekend. At this point, Thompson says he offered to take them to an airport, but that the woman refused. “No airplanes! No airplanes!” Thompson tried to drive them to a train or bus station, but recalls that the woman said that neither was direct enough.
“Miami is my town,” he says he told the waiter. “I should stick around and soak up the magic.”
“For someone who looked almost like a street person, she reacted with derision,” Thompson says. “‘Oh, the bus! I’ve taken the bus and no!’ It was too déclassé for her.” Fortunately for the couple, Thompson’s other job is with his own “kind of secret” company, and his hours are flexible. Like that, they set out on a gallant journey, allegedly to return the woman to the side of her ailing mother… nearly 1,500 miles away. As proof and for the keepsake nature of it, Thompson still has screenshots of the route, plus trip IDs, photos snapped at various pit stops along the way, a thank you message from the customer, and a payment from Uber. The price tag on just one of the receipts, for the stretch between Connecticut and Florida: $2,283.93. Dealer’s choice Her husband pulled out an iPad and asked if he could DJ. “What kind of music do you like?” “Dealer’s choice,” Thompson replied. “Whatever you’d like.” The male passenger ran through his playlist until New Haven, where a message popped up on all of their Uber apps. The ride had gone too far, and was promptly ended. The woman panicked, but Thompson says he placed a call to Uber, and after some waiting got it all sorted out. A man named Jake from the priority support team sent him a message, “As you know, trips like this are extremely uncommon and cause some minor issues in the system.” They continued driving, stopping only to get coffee, use the bathroom, and fill the car with gas. Thompson says that he listened to audiobooks and language learning lessons to pass time, and that the couple mostly kept quiet in the back, either sleeping or using their iPads with headphones. Once they got to the Sunshine State, though, Thompson says the husband and wife started asking to take smoke breaks. “We probably made 12 stops going through Florida,” he recalls. After nearly 30 hours of straight driving, they arrived at First Street in Miami Beach at around 9 o’clock on Friday night. Thompson says the couple exited the car, collected their bags from the trunk, and walked off. He then got out to stretch, took a picture of his wheels in the drop-off spot, and headed back. “I said, ‘I’ve gotta memorialize this,’” he tells me. A message came through on his Uber app: “Thanks for prompt arrival!” Pics or it didn’t happen Thompson shows me a selfie he took in a Steak ’n Shake in Miami. In the photo, his eyes are almost entirely closed. He’s holding up two fingers in a lazy peace sign, kind of like a teenager. Remembering the meal break, Thompson says there was a mixup at the counter, and that a stranger accidentally paid for his salad and shake. He thought of it as a reward for his heroic behavior, a little gift for driving all day and night to bring a woman to her dying mother’s bedside. “Miami is my town,” he says he told the waiter. “I should stick around and soak up the magic.” Before he found a place to pull over and sleep, Thompson tallied up the miles he had driven, partially in hopes that he had set a record. In later research, he could only find some fellow drivers bragging about measly trips from New York to Virginia, and posted about his own voyage in a forum for drivers: “I lay claim to the longest Uber ride ever: a 1600-mile trip from Waltham MA to Miami Beach FL.” “I exaggerated [the length],” Thompson says. It’s unclear why he tacked on the extra 100 miles; none of the contenders seemed to come anywhere close to his feat. “Pics or it didn’t happen,” one user responded. Thompson produced screenshots and a gentlemanly
retort: “Given the extreme improbability of my trip from Waltham to Miami Beach, I understand the skepticism. Here is some convincing evidence that I’ve attached.” At which point his foil replied: “probably carried 20lbs of weed down or other various class A’s. lol.” Thompson says he paused upon reading the comment. Had he been a drug mule and not even known it? Or was he really reuniting family moments before the death of a matriarch? He retraced all of it—the storage facility, the bags, the airplane paranoia, the frequent smoke stops. It seemed to fit. But then again, so did the story that the woman gave to him. “It’s like a puzzle,” Thompson says. He shakes his head. “You put it together and go, Oh, yeah! That’s cool. And then take the pieces apart and you reconfigure the pieces and put them together again and it’s an entirely different picture, and you say, ‘Wait a minute. Which is it?’”
you’re in—was part of what may have been the longest Uber ride of all time. And possibly an interstate drug deal as well. Thompson says his friends still tease him about the run. He prefers to think of himself as a hero, but also has let his imagination roam about having a drug connection in Miami. In the scenario that plays out in his head, the kingpin asks his mules if there were any problems, and they say, No, we got this idiot. He was very diligent … He bought our dying mom scenario like that and seemed very concerned. We were lucky we got this guy. Thompson hasn’t seen the couple since, but says that he still monitors an Uber driver forum to see if somebody else turns up with a similar story. “Then I’ll know,” he says. “After all, that mom can only die once.”
Not immune I initially heard the Massachusetts-to-Miami story secondhand from Wendy Lewis, a recent law school graduate who was a passenger in Thompson’s Uber. He told her his tale on a ride from Waltham to Brookline, with Thompson taking the whole 30 minute haul to get through the details as he effortlessly weaved through Greater Boston traffic. Lewis lauded her driver’s ability to tell a story, but also questioned his judgment, at least in the Miami case. “I figured it out as soon as he said that they came out with backpacks,” she said. “I was fairly certain they used him as a mule.” Uber, however, says it’s not that simple. “It would be foolish to assume that it was a drug run just because it was a long trip,” Susan Hendrick, an Uber communications professional, said. At the same time, Hendrick admits that enforcing this sort of thing isn’t easy. “People could easily bring drugs on almost any form of transportation,” Hendrick added. “We’re not immune to that.” The spokesperson also pointed to Uber’s strict policy against drug-running, even mentioning that it has close relationships with law enforcement agencies across the country and works with them when issues involving passengers or drivers arise. Hero If you hail enough Ubers in Boston, you might get Thompson as your driver. He will pull up in his red Prius, and he will probably tell you how his car—this very car NEWS TO US
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INDIE NO-GO MUSIC+OPINION
The Mass attorney general should investigate PledgeMusic BY RICHARD BOUCHARD @INDIEROCKRANGER Anyone with friends in the music community has probably seen almost as many requests for crowdfunding support from bands as they have GoFundMe’s for cancer patients being screwed by their insurance companies. Musicians have been turning to crowdfunding services like Kickstarter, IndieGoGo, and PledgeMusic to raise money for recording time, album production, touring, etc., for years now. While on the one hand we shouldn’t have to live in a dystopian hellscape that requires sick people to create a compelling and sad-but-not-too-sad video in order to receive adequate healthcare, when it comes to entertainment, crowdfunding should be a pretty good option for a lot of creators looking to make music or art, some new gadget, whatever. PledgeMusic, the only one of the major crowdfunding companies that focuses exclusively on music-based projects, has been making news in the music world lately because it has fallen behind on payments to artists, and it now looks like those artists and fans will never see the money they’re owed. I believe it actively committed fraud against the bands and consumers using its service by spending money for artists on other things, and since it has a Massachusetts office—and because I’m a big-government democrat who wants the government to solve all my problems—I think it’s something the attorney general’s office should address. PledgeMusic’s platform allows bands to set a goal for funding, create an online store to offer incentives to fans (a copy of the eventual album, a private performance, etc.). Fans purchase these things in advance, and PledgeMusic holds the money in an account until the goal is met. When enough money comes in to cover the campaign, PledgeMusic takes a percentage as a fee and gives the rest to the band so they can use it to record, cover tour expenses, whatever the campaign was set up for. At some point in 2018, PledgeMusic began delaying the payouts for bands, and eventually stopped making or accepting payments altogether. This means that consumers who sent money to PledgeMusic to support a campaign will never receive the items they purchased or have that money refunded, while bands and artists that were using PledgeMusic to recoup costs will be out-of-pocket on those expenses forever. Per PledgeMusic’s own terms of use, money sent by consumers to fund a campaign is to be held in an account and not touched until the campaign reaches its goal—that Pledge doesn’t have this money on hand can only mean that it violated its own TOU and used that money for other expenses or investments. Regardless of the company’s financial situation, that money should be available since it just exists in a limbo where nobody can touch it until the goal is met. To pour salt in the wound, per leaked emails sent to Digital Music News, it looks like Pledge is now attempting a fire sale and may be offering an agreement that doesn’t require the new buyer to take on the existing obligations. That sounds like executives at Pledge will receive some sort of payment, while the consumers and artists will be left in the cold. This is the exact sort of thing that the attorney general should be looking at. There are many, many people in Massachusetts who are hurt by this situation, and many more worldwide. If PledgeMusic is looking for a buyer and not including a payout for creators and consumers who they owe, then the office charged with protecting consumers in the Commonwealth should step in and make sure the little guy is paid before execs see a dime. Richard Bouchard is a band manager, promoter, and show booker in Boston. Follow him on Twitter @indierockranger.
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DAILEY OPERATION MUSIC
A beloved Boston music maker breaks down the HarpoonFest lineup BY DIG STAFF @DIGBOSTON
CLIFF NOTEZ We’ll just come right out and say it—not everyone is fond of music that you often find at breweries. Nicely put, a lot of people (ahem) would prefer some more diverse options than are typically presented, since they may not be into Irish stepdancing, and certainly do not appreciate the cover band variety of entertainment. And so upon inspection of this year’s HarpoonFest lineup—a roster that includes the Silks, Aubrey Haddard, Oompa, and several others that are high on our radar—we thought about how fortunate we are to have such a unique annual extravaganza. Not just for the beer, which this year will include such treats as Big Squeeze, Georgia Peach, and others, but for a summer kickoff every year that sounds as much like Massachusetts as it tastes. As it turns out, the scout behind the multiband festivities is musician Will Dailey, a longtime force on the New England music scene. Though more known for his songwriting than his show-booking skills, Dailey sees the HarpoonFest collaboration as a way he can pay it forward. “I’ve been doing the festival lineup for 10 years,” he told the Dig. “First I played it, then I started getting my friends to play it, and now it’s this big thing. “More and more companies are making the effort and realizing the benefit [of including local talent], but Harpoon has been doing it for a long time for artists like myself and my friends.” This year’s two-day blowout features 18 acts, including Jenny Dee and the Delinquents, Dwight and Nicole, and Band of Their Own (BOTO), a Boston supergroup with Kay Hanley of Letters to Cleo, Jen Trynin of Cujo, Tanya Donelly of Throwing Muses, and Gail Greenwood of Belly and L7. “This is like their coming-out party,” Dailey said of BOTO. As for the up-and-comers on the bill … “It’s important for artists to get that one extra lifeline,” Dailey said. “I know what it’s like to be an artist around here and you need that call. Hell, I still need that call. But to be a part of something where you’re the person who gets to make that call, that feels better than just helping yourself out. Helping out only yourself feels awful.” Dailey continued, “There are some acts that Harpoon likes and I always like and they’re going to be on there every year, and then there’s stuff from me just being around town and checking things out, keeping it all on my radar. Artists like Cliff Notez and Oompa, I’ve seen them perform and they’re amazing. “Really, I’m booking the show that I want to see.”
“Really, I’m booking the show that I want to see.”
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>> HARPOONFEST. FRI 5.17–SAT 5.18 AT HARPOON BREWERY, 306 NORTHERN AVE., BOSTON. MORE INFO AT HARPOONFEST2019.SPLASHTHAT.COM/WEB.
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INDEPENDENT PRESS FILM
On the pioneering filmmakers who made and released Between the Lines BY JAKE MULLIGAN @_JAKEMULLIGAN
IMAGE FROM BETWEEN THE LINES, COURTESY COHEN MEDIA The 1977 film Between the Lines, which shot two weeks on location in Boston, passed through the Midwest first. Midwest Film Productions, that is—the relatively short-lived company operated by the wife-and-husband filmmaking team of writer/director Joan Micklin Silver and producer Raphael Silver. Born in Omaha in 1935, Joan lived in Cleveland for a decade or so after she married, until the success of Raphael’s construction and real estate businesses led their whole nuclear family to move to New York City in 1967. It was only after this move that she entered the film industry, first by writing screenplays for shorts to be distributed in the educational sector, and then by directing some as well, most notably for the Learning Corporation of America. What followed after that job was a set of circumstances all too familiar to filmmakers who also happen to be women: Despite having both honed and proven her craft on completed projects, Joan was unable to sell either studios or independent financiers on the prospects of her feature debut, Hester Street (1975), a romantic drama of relatively traditional composition (aside from its blackand-white cinematography) that revolves around four Jewish immigrants in the Lower East Side circa 1896. But the Silvers, undeterred, financed the film themselves, with Raphael the first-time producer raising a budget in the neighborhood of $350,000, much of which was surely pulled from the couples’ rather considerable joint income. By this process they founded Midwest Films, based out of the same midtown office space where Raphael headquartered his other businesses. When it came time for the distribution of the completed Hester Street, the Silvers, spurned once again by the established players in the game, received an assist from one of the American cinema’s recurrent guardian angels. As Joan explained to Filmmaker Magazine in 2014: “After we made [Hester Street], nobody wanted to distribute it, and that’s when Ray called up John Cassavetes cold—didn’t know him. Cassavetes was so nice. He told him the problem, and Cassavetes said, ‘Well, why don’t you distribute it?’ … He said, ‘Well listen, I’ve got two guys that are working with me, I’m done with them, they just finished a project. If you want to, meet with them and they can help you.’ One of them was Jeff Lipsky, and Ray and Jeff—I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten this other guy’s name—distributed the film.” This whole long preface is necessary because what I hope to do within the space of this page is contextualize the production of Between the Lines, which is not only
a beloved townie-journalist favorite but is also one particularly strong film made under relatively unique circumstances (for the sake of that context there won’t be much room to describe the film itself, so I’ll just briefly say it’s very much characteristic of what Joan was so good at in this early period—it couches milieu-specific realworld textures within a traditional genre-based narrative structure; it creates extremely complicated portraits of male characters in anguish, mostly due to self-awareness of their many insurmountable anxieties and hang-ups; and it reaches a brilliant, unresolved ending). And in talking about Between the Lines on a nuts-and-bolts level, one really must begin with the (self-)distribution of Hester Street—for that begins a causal sequence leading Joan Micklin Silver into a series of minor encounters with Boston-area journalists that eventually has major ramifications on her next theatrical features. At its essence, Between the Lines is an ensemblebased romantic comedy about the staff of a fictional Boston-area weekly newspaper, the Back Bay Mainline, which screenwriter Fred Barron seems to have modeled after both the Phoenix and the Real Paper (the cast of the film includes John Heard, Lindsay Crouse, Jill Eikenberry, Stephen Collins, and Jeff Goldblum, among others). In an early scene depicting an editorial meeting, the film rightfully makes a laughingstock of the film-critic character for daring to request a trip to cover the Cannes Film Festival—but in point of fact it was exactly that assignment that got Between the Lines started in the first place, as Joan explained in an interview published in the 1989 book Film Directors on Directing. “[Barron] was doing a roundup on the Cannes Festival for the Real Paper, and Hester Street had played in that particular festival. Six months later when Hester Street opened in Boston, we met up with him again and he happened to mention that he’d written a screenplay.” That screenplay was of course Between the Lines, which Joan, a former Village Voice contributor herself, quickly selected as the source for her second theatrical feature. But despite the fact that the script is by no means uncommercial by the standards of 1977, and despite the fact that Hester Street had grossed more than $5 million on a six-figure budget, studios and financiers seem to have rejected Joan on this project just the same as they had on the last one. And so Between the Lines was financed with the cash earned by Hester Street, then produced outside the usual corporate filmmaking apparatus, and eventually
distributed by the Lipsky method once again, becoming the second and last of the truly independent film projects made by this particular filmmaker. To hear the Silvers tell it, Hester Street, in 1975, succeeded in part by filling gaps left by underperforming studio pictures. “Most theaters are booked a year ahead with the studio product line—the majors tell them ‘Film A will be a blockbuster, you’ll get 10 weeks, Film B will give you six weeks,’ and so on,” Raphael told the Washington Post shortly before the release of Between the Lines. “Then what happens is that the pictures begin to fall out of bed, huge holes inevitably open up… [and] our job was to convince the exhibitors that our film would do more business than those retreads.” But the film exhibition industry had changed a great deal in the two years that’d passed since Hester Street, and it seems the Midwest team had a harder time booking their second film, despite the proven success of the first one. “Just in that short period of time it [became] much harder to do,” Joan said about self-distribution in an extremely thorough video interview available on the Director’s Guild of America website. “We couldn’t afford the ads in the paper, which was where people were. … And it wasn’t about a theme, like Hester Street, that already had a niche audience, as they say now. It was much harder. … Although it’s a film that I feel very good about and I’m very happy about. … We distributed it, and it, you know, played where it played.” For the most part Between the Lines marked the end of successful days for Midwest Films. The company’s name would after that only appear on the two films that Raphael Silver directed himself, On the Yard (1978) and A Walk on the Moon (1987), neither of which I’ve seen. But while we’re on the subject of post-Between the Lines happenings, one last thing—earlier I wrote that Boston-area journalists had major ramifications on Joan Micklin Silver’s next theatrical features, plural, and for the sake of ending this article on a relatively positive note, I’ll conclude by describing how that is: Following Between the Lines, Joan got her long-overdue opportunity to direct a studio movie, an adaptation of Ann Beattie’s 1976 novel Chilly Scenes of Winter. The studio, United Artists, would end up retitling the film Head Over Heels (1979) and then (per Joan) “rushed it out, on a double bill with something, and it went blah.” But just as Joan Micklin Silver had contributed something to the cultural history of Boston’s alternative weekly newspapers, a Boston alternative weekly newspaper managed to contribute something to the oeuvre of Joan Micklin Silver. According to a 1982 report from the New York Times, “a rave by the film critic of The Boston Phoenix prompted a New England exhibitor to open [Head over Heels] in Boston,” and that booking led to more, as well as to renewed efforts from the film’s principal creatives (“Miss Beattie even wrote new ad copy”). The profit potential suggested by that particular run led United Artists Classics, a subsidiary company, to rerelease the film, now under the original title Chilly Scenes of Winter, and with one major edit made at Joan’s own request. This second version of the film is the one that remains in circulation today, on Blu-ray, for television showings, and repertory screenings. And how glad we are to see Between the Lines, the film that began that exchange, finally restored and back in circulation itself. These early Joan Micklin Silver features are uncommonly rich examples of the independent cinema of the period—they’re animated by a pioneering spirit borne out at every stage of the filmmaking, including exhibition itself. Speaking of which, see below…
>> BETWEEN THE LINES. RATED R. FRI 5.17–MON 5.21 AT BRATTLE THEATRE. 40 BRATTLE ST., CAMBRIDGE. $10-12. SEE BRATTLEFILM.ORG FOR SHOWTIMES. FILM IS ALSO SCHEDULED FOR RELEASE ON DVD AND BLU-RAY ON 6.18. >> HESTER STREET IS CURRENTLY AVAILABLE ON BLU-RAY AND DVD. CHILLY SCENES OF WINTER IS CURRENTLY AVAILABLE ON BLU-RAY. 20
05.16.19 - 05.23.19 |
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DISCLOSED
SAVAGE LOVE
WHAT'S FOR BREAKFAST BY PATT KELLEY PATTKELLEY.COM
BY DAN SAVAGE @FAKEDANSAVAGE | MAIL@SAVAGELOVE.NETE3 Garbage human here. I’ve had herpes for about 15 years. The first five years, I was in a relationship with a guy who also had it. The last 10 years, I haven’t been in a serious relationship. I’ve been a (rare, drunk) one-night-stand type of gal, and I don’t usually tell the guy because, like, everyone has herpes. (I get that one in five isn’t everyone, but if you count HSV-1? I’ve seen numbers as high as 80 percent.) Frankly, it seems about as significant medically as minimally contagious mild acne. (Some risks to pregnancies and immunosuppressed people exist, and I know logically it’s not my call to determine what may be serious for someone else.) I justify nondisclosure to myself these ways, even though I know it’s not ethical. On the occasions where I have disclosed, I’ve been made to feel like a leper by dudes who 10 minutes before were begging me not to have to use a condom. I obviously have a lot of resentment over having this stupid thing and over the guilt I have around nondisclosure, and I suspect my history of casual sex is influenced by not wanting to deal with this conversation. Which brings us to now. What I thought was a one-night stand has turned into a months-long affair, and I’m amazed to report I find myself liking and respecting this guy. (I know, I know: If I really respected him, I’d have told him before I ever knew I respected him). What do I do? I have to tell him. But how? Is there any justification for what I’ve done? Can I just say, “Oh man, I noticed a thing and went and got tested and guess what?” That just adds to the lie. There’s no way I can have a relationship with this guy based on trust going forward, is there? I’ve fucked this up and I have to bail, don’t I? Am I going to be alone for the rest of my life? Deserves To Be Alone You’re not a garbage human, DTBA. You didn’t share something you should’ve— the fact that you, like upwards of 50 percent of everyone, have herpes—but weren’t obligated to. The problem with not disclosing, as you now know, is that casual sex partners have a way of becoming potential long-term partners. And by the time you recognize someone’s long-term potential, the stakes are so high that bailing looks like an easier option. “We don’t think DTBA needs to bail,” Momo and Felix wrote in a joint e-mail after reading your letter. “And we don’t think she’s destined to be alone for the rest of her life.” Momo and Felix are the cocreators of My Boyfriend Has Herpes (instagram.com/ my_boyfriend_has_herpes), an Instagram account that has amassed more than 15,000 followers in just a few months. Using simple, direct prose and Momo’s charming illustrations, Momo and Felix educate others about herpes while sharing the story of their relationship—from how they met, to Felix’s disclosure, to Momo’s initial hesitation to get involved with someone who has herpes. “Our stance is pro-disclosure, always, but we know this isn’t possible for everyone living with HSV,” said Momo and Felix. “Unfortunately, one of the significant pitfalls of [not disclosing early on] is the difficulty it adds to the potential of a long-term relationship. And while we don’t agree with DTBA’s choice to not disclose to her partners, we understand why she might have made those choices. The stigma against herpes is terrible.” Momo and Felix both feel—and I’m with them—that you need to be completely honest with this guy, even if it means the relationship could end. But it might not end, DTBA. He might have a disclosure of his own to make—he could have herpes, too—or the relationship could end for other reasons. You’ve been dating this guy for only a few months, and he could decide to end things for reasons that have nothing to do with the savagelovecast.com disclosure you’re about to make and/or your failure to make it sooner. Or you might learn something about him down the road that’s a deal breaker. (Have you searched his place for MAGA hats?) So how do you broach this topic? “She obviously cares about this person,” wrote Momo and Felix. “She made a mistake and she wants to make it right. DTBA needs to acknowledge her actions (opting for nondisclosure) and their impact (putting her partner at risk without his informed consent). DTBA’s partner may very likely feel betrayed or deceived. He might want to end the relationship, and his feelings would be valid. Unfortunately, all that DTBA can do is acknowledge her mistake, make herself vulnerable, and accept his reaction.” “But whatever happens, she doesn’t deserve to be alone,” they said. “We all make mistakes, and we all have the opportunity to do better.”
On the Lovecast, listen and learn about vasectomies! Listen at savagelovecast.com. 22
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