We Talk The Talk

Review: "Circo" dissuades you of any remaining circus nostalgia

2018-10-04T18:36:00.001-04:00

It's easy to love the romance of the circus. Despite the high-profile stories of animal cruelty and legends of "carny folk," circuses hold a magic usually reserved for wild west cowboys, prohibition gangsters, and seafarers of the golden age of sail. We all know it's hard and sometimes horrible work, but there's a dreamy nostalgia in the circus, even if the individual has never actually experienced it themselves.

It is easy to think that things have changed--that circuses were once something else and fell from their entertaining grace to the dregs of live entertainment. In this narrative, the circus can still be magical. It can be the forerunner by Disneyland. "Circo" director Aaron Schock has made a film to show you that the suffering of the circus didn't get worse over time. If anything, he shows that in a world without regulations, without Netflix, and without money is actually much uglier than Barnum & Bailey when the curtain finally went down.

Schock follows the Ponce family and their one-ring circus, Circo Mexico. The documentary Tino, the ringmaster of Circo Mexico. Indebted to his father and the family legacy, he trains his children to perform in a low-level circus while his wife tries desperately to convince him that he is being taken advantage of, and destroying his family to boot. Through it all, there are failed shows with low turnouts, deaths of circus animals, and testimonies of loss from even the family's youngest members.

In the turmoil of the time spent with the Ponces, it is easy to forget that this is, at its core, a family of performers. The perfectly scripted marital struggles are convincing, but if you catch yourself thinking about them, they can feel a bit canned. Still, this family is struggling to get by, and with the exception of Tino's father, who is depicted counting money and demeaning off-camera family members for most of his screen time, they all come off decent and sincere. That decency and sincerity is what makes their separate paths so much more powerful.

Ultimately, "Circo" is a moving depiction of a family in a poor country trying to get by in a very difficult, unorthodox way. There are moments that feel manipulative, others that feel exploitative, but as a whole, it feel fair. The family you are watching is sometimes manipulative, as all our families are. The family you are watching is exploited, as many of our families have been. The filming is beautiful, the music great. But the people are what make this documentary worthwhile.

Review: Manhattan Short

2018-10-02T20:32:00.000-04:00

If you knew nothing about the 21st Manhattan Short Film Festival and were an attendee at my showing, you couldn't be blamed for having low expectations. Shown in a 20-seat theater in a charming (or rundown, depending on your perspective) old screening room in Salem, Massachusetts, you might have winced, as I winced, at the amateurish graphics starting the program. You may have cringed, as I cringed, at the founder introduction, which felt less like a greeting to a cinematic experience and more like a pitch for a timeshare in a a mediocre part of Florida over Skype.

You may very well have felt all these things that I felt. But you didn't, because unless you were part of a single elderly couple, you were not there. And that is unfortunate.

For all the criticism of the festival's lack of slickness that could be levied against it (and I was TOTALLY prepared to levy that shallow critique), the festival's seven films were almost to the minute excellent. While I have very little experience with short films, the compelling variety of the festival made a case that a collection like Manhattan Short could serve not just as a competition for the few cinephiles, but as an introduction to the moving novella to the many entertainment seekers.

Baghead

The first film, "Baghead," pulled no punches. Described by director Alberto Corredor as a story of a shapeshifter who is one thing, then another, we are given a vignette reminiscent of Neil Gaiman's opening scenario to American Gods, but with a mourning husband who is significantly less compassionate and understanding than Shadow. It is filmed both beautifully and creepily, and the performances submitted by all parties (but particularly Natalie Oliver's Lisa and Julian Seeger's Gatekeeper) are convincing and gripping for its fifteen minute run. Meanwhile, writer Lorcan Reilly should be commended for writing a genuinely good story about how grief and anger can bring out a special kind of ugliness in a person.

Fire in Cardboard City

Following the base horror of "Baghead," viewers were given comic relief in Phil Brough's mostly-animated "Fire in Cardboard City." This absurdist cartoon asks the not-insignificant question: "what if our children's creations are not as happy as the absolute worst scenarios in "Toy Story," and then proceeds to deliver the answers in a sometimes tragic, sometimes confetti producing, and consistently funny and well-timed way.

Clocking in at less than nine minutes, this was the shortest film of the evening and the only comedy, but it had no problem leaving a lasting impression on the audience. It also had the most intricate credits, which for a film of its scope was no small thing.

Home Shopper

Dev Patel's directorial debut "Home Shopper" presented the closest thing to Hollywood's submission to Manhattan Short, and for the most part it didn't disappoint. Presenting the story of the end of a marriage between a very neat, mail-order obsessed stay-at-home wife and her unpleasant working stiff husband, this film is paced excellently, even if it suffers a bit from heavy exposition at parts. Patel's choices in shots make for a real surprising turn midway through and then a series of hilarious and macabre uses of TV miracle products were bolstered by an incredibly sympathetic Sophie Kargman and a very funny, if off-brand Armie Hammer selling goofy wares on the tube.

Her

Americans likely don't know much about life in Kosovo, and More Raca's "Her" is made to tell you that things you think don't happen in the world's more "civilized" (read: white) parts are, in fact, happening. This gray world of domestic violence, arranged marriages, and desperation left at least one viewer wondering about the problem of male-dominated societies and familial oppression, and while (spoiler) the suffering women escape in the end and appear genuinely happy to do so, the viewer couldn't avoid worrying what was going to happen to them when they inevitably got caught down the road.

Two Strangers Who Meet Five Times

This British short film, which tackles racism in the UK, would be easy to write off as a heavy version of a very light, feel-good story of redemption and forgiveness. That is absolutely how I was inclined to feel at the end of Marcus Markou's nearly trite film. But the truth is that Markou found that sweet spot where sentimentalism and familiarity lick the heels of cliché without diving in entirely. The result is a short film that is genuinely heartening and fulfilling.

Equally responsible for the films power are its principal actors. Laurence Spellman portrays a white man who exhibits petty racism toward a man who becomes a potential employer at a make-or-break moment, while Sargon Yelda is a powerful but brown man in the United Kingdom. Yelda's character gets revenge for Spellman's racist slights, but also allows forgiveness when Spellman's broken future self identifies his past mistakes and apologizes for them.

Someone

It is difficult to make a movie that matters set in World War 2. It is harder still to make the hero German. Marco Gadge's "Someone" succeeds in 14 minutes where many have failed in hours.

As Red Army soldiers occupy Berlin and commit horrible crimes against the civilian population in retaliation for what was done to them on the front, a stone faced Fabienne Haller takes the brunt of a young Russian war criminal and decided for herself that her suffering will be the end of the barbarism of the war. Utilizing a documentary-style interview interspersed with a highly stylized period shoot, this short film gives a human face to the children of Nazis, a monstrous face to the young cannon fodder of the front, and a rare principled stance to an enemy officer in a time of war.

Cuchotage

Two Hungarian interpreters have their hearts set on a beautiful conference attendee and find themselves on a collision course with wackiness!

This semi-romantic comedy probably offered the least of the short films in the festival, but was amusing and submitted solid acting performances by the entire cast. While the finale was a bit predictable, it was nonetheless satisfying to see the goofs in the audio booth fumble their shots at romance with Andrea Osvá rt.

Fauve

Holy shit, folks. "Fauve" is tough to watch. This French Canadian drama follows two latch-key kids who have dirty mouths and very few inhibitions. When unsupervised stupid boy behavior turns into a horrific accident and death, Félix Grenier's Tyler shows with skill that matches genuinely great performances how childhood tough guy exteriors can crumble in an instant and be replaced with horrified fragility and infantile sadness and panic.

This film, directed by Jérémy Comte, is painful to watch in its climax. In it, I imagine most boys--most people could see themselves, and how their mistakes throughout their lives could have easily put them in the cement-covered shoes of Alexandre Perreault's Benjamin, flailing and sinking in a surface mine pit, watching the world slip away.

Lacrimosa

"Lacrimosa" was the festivals final film, and to me, the weakest. While some of the film's technical achievements were impressive, it had a very specific aesthetic that felt very 1990s--a sort of hybrid of a Tori Amos song and what an art student would imagine for an Ace of Base video. If you like this aesthetic (and over nine million Americans did at some point), then this film is probably a charming dreamscape with a dark, emotional finale that still brings hope. For me it was a bit of a predictable anti-climax to an otherwise really fabulous series.

This is not to take away from Tanja Mairitsch's filmmaking abilities. I am certain she achieved the majority of her vision with this film. I am just the wrong audience for it.

In the end, the 21st Manhattan Short Film Festival was a genuine, under-the-radar joy. A perfectly curated blend of tension and tenderness, comedy and comity, it is a testament to the festival's founding director Nicholas Mason's success. It is no wonder that Manhattan Short finalists have garnered a handful of Academy Award nods over the years. The real wonder is why more people aren't going to see it when they can every year.

Echoes of McCarthyism bring book back to relevance

2016-08-16T19:34:00.000-04:00

Book Review: A Conspiracy So Immense: The World of Joe McCarthy, by David M. Oshinsky. 597 pages. Oxford University Press.

To the modern ear, "McCarthyism" is synonymous with "anti-Communist witch hunt." In truth, when the euphemism was current it meant more than that. Harry Truman defined it as “the corruption of truth, abandonment of the due process of law. It is the use of the big lie and the unfounded accusation against any citizen in the name of Americanism of security. It is the rise to power of the demagogue who lives on untruth; it is the spreading of fear and the destruction of faith in every level of our society” (348-9). If Truman’s definition is accepted, “McCarthyism” becomes familiar in 2016. While the witch hunts and shaming are no longer aimed at Communists, Senator Joe McCarthy’s tactics seem to be coming back into style, as if they’re a clothing style that has just been rediscovered.

A Conspiracy So Immense, Professor David M. Oshinsky’s tome on McCarthy and his “-ism,” delivers a detailed account of the American mood in the first half of the 1950s. With chapters on the history of American communism and journalism (which may have worked equally well as appendices), Oshinsky succeeds brilliantly at keeping the many balls in the air that brought the notorious Senator to power and eventually to censure and death. He paints a picture of a man who seemed to plan on taking power but not knowing what to do with it, almost like Heath Ledger’s analogy of a dog chasing a car in Dark Knight. If it seems long and at times disjointed (and it is almost 200 pages longer than most other academic biographies of McCarthy), it is because the extra details, explanations, and anecdotes not only make the story richer, but add a deep context that holds the attention of someone well versed on the subject while also keeping the leisure reader--a staple in the Oxford University Press market--involved no more strenuously than the most meager intellectual jog through the park.

McCarthy’s career was complicated. Chroniclers of the famed demagogue have had trouble weeding out the legends from the facts, while many revisionist apologists have attempted to contribute to something of a reclamation project of the late Senator, based on new claims that McCarthy was right about some of his victims. If new evidence has been presented on McCarthy and the subjects of his victims, that evidence did not make its way into Oshinsky’s 2007 reissue of the 1980s watermark high treatment of McCarthy. What might be more significant is that without addressing whether or not McCarthy was “right” about alleged Communists, Oshinsky seems to be arguing that whether these people were Communists or not was immaterial. What the author, and the Senators who finally stand up to McCarthy, seem to be saying is that is that while Communist subversion may be a problem, that problem can not be solved by oppression of free speech and free thought. The author is also careful to highlight, without overstating, the significance of identity politics, pointing to McCarthy’s not-so-subtle association of Communist sympathy with Judaism and “sexual perversion.”

Oshinsky manages the people of his story well, for the most part. Much like in McCarthy’s hearings, almost nobody comes out of A Conspiracy So Immense looking particularly good. President Truman appears partisan and bulldogish; President Eisenhower weak and more concerned with the image of the presidency than the state of the nation. The Democrats are presented as aware of McCarthy’s excesses early on, but fail to act in any substantial way, whereas the Republicans, equally concerned with McCarthy’s behavior, see it as a wave they can (and did) ride to the majority. Once in power, they found they couldn’t control the monster they’d made, and so most of them continued to stand by him in public, even as they grumbled in private. Even Senator Ralph Flanders of Vermont, the author of the resolution that ultimately censured McCarthy in 1954, is quoted as not wanting to help the Democrats by going after a fellow Republican. For his part, Lyndon Johnson sees McCarthy as “the Republican’s problem,” and remains silent until the last possible moment, when the die of McCarthy’s censure was already cast. All in all, McCarthy’s contemporaries struggled with a combination of disbelief, denial, party loyalty, political opportunism, and self preservation. This kind of behavior may have been hard to believe in 1983, when the book’s first edition was published, or even in 2005, when the new edition was released. It is no longer so difficult.

If A Conspiracy So Immense has shortcomings, they are few. The many characters involved in the multilayered tale drop in and out, and often disappear entirely without explanation. Senator Margaret Chase Smith, so central early on for being the first Republican to publicly denounce McCarthy in 1950, disappears from the narrative in 1952, simply declared as “probably need[ing] a rest.” Likewise, G. David Schine, the friend of McCarthy staffer Roy Cohn and apparent catalyst of McCarthy’s downfall, vanishes with the Army-McCarthy hearings. Oshinsky also makes an assertion about McCarthy’s mindset during the buildup to censure. He writes that McCarthy “had begun to think in terms of a third party movement with Joe McCarthy as the presidential nominee. He wanted his enemies to see this groundswell, and he needed to see it himself” (485-6). This assertion, while certainly good for the story, appears unsubstantiated and never again addressed. On the contrary, in the book’s conclusion Oshinsky states that McCarthy “had no desire to lead a movement, to run for higher office, or to formulate a program that went beyond the simple exposure of Communists” (507). These two seemingly contradictory statements, which are presented not as possibilities but equal truths, leaves the reader wondering which McCarthy they’d been dealing with the whole time: the scheming opportunist or the dedicated red-hunter.

The cliches that history repeats itself and that we can learn from our past to the benefit of the future are always appealing. Though, as British historian A.J.P. Taylor has suggested, trying to make judgments on the present and future based on the past is dangerous business. That said, if there is a moment where the past at least rhymes, the rise of a bombastic outsider in American politics whose arsenal consists not of actual votes or authority but bluster, smear, and vague generality devoid of evidence, it is today. In this regard, Oshinsky’s well-regarded biography, an accepted standard on McCarthyism for over thirty years, is worth dusting off, if only to show readers how far we’ve come, and how easily we can slip.

Public Enemy made me care about people who aren't like me

2016-05-18T08:15:00.000-04:00

When I was very young, like 9 or 10, I discovered Public Enemy. An older kid in the neighborhood got me on hip-hop, and I was hooked.

Other kids in the neighborhood gravitated toward NWA. And for sure, NWA was really good. But for me, immediately, Public Enemy was what I wanted.

I'm not totally sure if I was a kid who listened to lyrics and thought about them, or if Public Enemy was a group that made me pay attention to lyrics, but however the relationship transpired (I think it was the latter), PE made me think about things that a white, middle class kid in the suburbs didn't think about naturally. The shit Flavor Flav was talking about in "I Don't Wanna Be Called Yo Niga" was not exactly in the forefront in suburban Massachusetts, where minorities were legitimate novelties. In "By the Time I Get to Arizona," Chuck D forced me to confront the idea that not everyone thought MLK was awesome. PE's visual message was potent, too. Their Black Panther aesthetic didn't frighten me -- it resonated. Why were these people so angry? Everything where I was seemed pretty okay.

References in hip-hop by groups like Public Enemy made me scour my public elementary school library for what the "KKK" and "lynching" where. My teachers weren't very excited to tell me, but the librarian at Burrell Elementary School, whose name is lost to me but whose catch-phrase when classes entered -- "books on the book drop, bodies on the rug" will be emblazoned upon my memory through the later degrees of dementia -- was happy to help. There, in tiny chairs around long tables, I learned about America's history of violence and oppression. I learned that I liked history, and I felt the pangs of juvenile disappointment that Massachusetts didn't have any great battles in the Civil War to right the wrongs of my heritage. It was a long road to finding my state's role in abolition. It was a longer road to finding an appreciation in our road to independence. It was a longer road still to appreciate Boston's role in segregation well into the late 20th century, and that road led me to the social and political positions I now enjoy.

If I were to trace my growth as a person, my social interests, and my begrudging acknowledgement of privilege, I cannot say it was some great teacher I had, though it is true that I had great teachers. I cannot say that punk rock made me see them, though punk rock gave me a really personal view and helped me to relate to the struggles of others. If I was to point to what made me realize that life was easier for me for no reason at all, I'd point to Public Enemy. Those guys scared the hell out of people, but they did it with a voice that screamed equality and empowerment rather than violence and revenge. It is why, as a pre-teen, when my mother took away all my rap tapes because she was afraid of the message, I was able to convince her to let me keep Apocalypse 91... The Enemy Strikes Black. There was no misogyny there. There was no violence against innocence. Public Enemy was a call for revolution. It wasn't peaceful all the time, but it was never unjust.

25 years later, I still don't totally get how I can help stop injustice, but I do know that I am supposed to bring the noise. I know that because of Public Enemy.

The Value of the Internet Argument

2016-05-11T08:15:00.000-04:00

When I was in my early twenties, I started dating the lady named Erin who would eventually marry me.

We were really different: she was from Texas, a preacher's daughter, shy, quiet, a great listener. I am not those things. For whatever reason though, we hit it off. Being with her, I was put into close proximity to the kinds of people that I had previously disregarded entirely. I had not had much interest in spending time with people who weren't like me, and didn't have many friends who were Christian, or southern, or gay, or anything but white suburban transplants that listened to punk rock and liked comic books. I certainly read a lot, and that reading shaped my views, but there was very little practical life experience to back up my thoughts on a lot of things.

Erin didn't have those hangups. She was just nice, and very patient. Because of this, though she is not religious, she still maintained relationships with people she had met through her parents' church. One of them -- probably her closest friend from church -- was a lesbian who had also lost her faith. We'll call her Annie.

Annie lived in Portland, and was just beginning to live as a gay adult in an America that wasn't particularly excited about the prospect of her having any rights at all. This unfortunate national position was compounded by a complete lack of sympathy or support for her by much of her family. Those things, along with her general demeanor and college-aged angst, made her a very emotional and stubborn person. This was a person who was much more naturally like me, but who had a serious and difficult societal barrier that I did not have, nor did I understand it.

But whatever, I'm a liberal! I support folks! Sure, I thought (and still think) that economic inequality was the main problem with society, but I'm willing to support anyone in their struggle for rights. All I required (and require) is to understand why a change is required, and I will support said change. This is what I asked of a gay woman when she started talking about trans people and bathrooms when we went to visit her for the first time.

I used that age-old trope about sexual assaults and keeping people safe. Annie kind of lost her shit about it. She got really angry. I think she yelled at me. Erin was in an awkward position, and didn't really understand the issue, either. Thankfully, this argument erupted at the very end of the visit and we were actually at our car. We sort of makeshift made up, and then Erin and I were on our way.

On the way home, I was incredulous. "How am I supposed to support an idea if I don't understand it?" I railed. Erin was good enough to just let me explode. She said that Annie was struggling with a lot of stuff, and probably wasn't up to having to deal with my constant challenges on her political ideas. This didn't really appease me. "If people want the support of non-interested people," I exclaimed, "they need to make their reasons clear." Yes, I know. I actually talked like that. I was young and VERY pretentious.

Now, looking back on this incident, I feel kind of stupid, but also pretty grateful. Back in 2005, I had to look a person who thought this issue was important for PERSONAL REASONS (Annie was dating a trans man) and argue with them about the issue of trans people using the bathroom they identified with as opposed to the bathroom they were born to. Like gender-assigned bathrooms were an integral part of western civilization or something. At the time though, I wanted to be right. Immediately afterwards, I wanted to understand. But I had no one to tell me, and I didn't know where to go, so I just kind of forgot about it.

Fast forward to now again: laws in North Carolina and Alabama are going after trans people over bathrooms, and I'm hearing the same people who I disagree with on literally every issue saying exactly what I said to Annie 11 years ago. "If you let trans people into whatever bathroom they choose, what's to stop a sexual predator from putting on a dress and going into a woman's bathroom?" Except now, I've been corrected of this logical fallacy. I don't know when it happened, but at some point between then and now, someone said to me "rapists are already breaking the law by raping. Why do you think they wouldn't just go into a woman's bathroom dressed as a man? And what about male sexual predators that target men and boys?" This very basic logic convinced me I was ABSOLUTELY wrong about the issue of trans people and bathrooms, and by the time it became a major legal issue, I was long past feeling like the sexual predator argument had any merit. Now, and for a long time, I've been with Annie on this.

So what does this have to do with the internet argument? I don't know who said the above, but I do know that I saw it on Facebook. It was one of those blowout partisan arguments that you see in your feeds all the time -- the kind of argument you have to tell yourself not to engage in. Someone was being terrible and stupid and hateful, and someone else was being terrible and stupid and hateful on the other side, and then some people were chiming in with non-sequiturs. And in that rough, somebody said something responsible.

And the reasonable thing stuck. It changed me. It made me an ally to the cause.

People often say that your opinion changes when you know somebody who is effected. I think that that is often true. In this case, it wasn't. In the years that followed the initial meeting, Annie and I became friendly; even friends. We never talked about that argument again, except once, like ten years later, and even then it was veiled. But she wasn't able to convince me, because she didn't have it in her to make that argument for the zillionth time. And very probably it is not her responsibility to do so. But it's also very hard to make the case that every citizen needs to constantly research every slight, real or imagined, by every group. In both cases we are asking too much of people.

But in the case of the internet argument, there is separation and opportunity. The one thing that flare wars on social media do well is expose people as unreasonably mean or unacceptably uninformed. And to those people, you're probably not going to make much difference. What about the lurkers, though? What about those people who are watching? To see people melt down, to have something to talk about to mutual friends, to kill time waiting for the bus, or whatever reason? What about them? According to a 2015 poll, more than half of Americans get news at least partially from social media. In a world where well designed (or even really badly designed) memes can carry the same weight as the entire White House correspondent's bullpen, engaging in the nonsense you're seeing on line might be the only chance an otherwise reasonable person might have to see a differing view from their friends list and their partisan news outlet of choice.

The evidence I have for this is circumstantial. In addition to my own change in opinion on the issue of trans rights, I've done a lot of arguing with crazy people on the internet. Sometimes I say things I shouldn't say, but I'd like to think that more often than not, I'm making a point-by-point argument or asking questions to help me better understand a position. This has paid dividends in my own social media circle. About a dozen people have messaged me to tell me I'd changed their opinion on an issue. This is, to me, a very big gesture. It's hard to admit you're wrong. I certainly have trouble doing it. But people I barely know -- people that I mostly went to high school with (I went to five high schools) and who I have never had close relationships with, but who have been "friends" or "followers" since the early days of social media when people just blanket connected with anyone they'd ever known -- have told me they understood something better because I took the time to explain it.

I feel the same way about so many people I follow, though I certainly don't tell them enough.

Social media is often a place where people can be anonymous. It is a place where people can say absolutely horrible things that they would never say to people's faces. That's certainly what it can be. But it can also be what it was designed to be: a platform for discussion and for the sharing of ideas, thoughts, and arguments. When it works that way, social media is important, and very powerful.

Annie was right all those years ago, but she couldn't convince me. And she shouldn't have to. But now that I understand, I should feel obligated to carry the weight of arguing for justice at least some of the time. Rather than looking for reasons to say "no," I should be seeking reasons to say "yes." And when I see people making a case to prevent someone else from basic rights that we take for granted, I think it is my responsibility to ask them "why." After all, my rights are not being assaulted constantly, so I can use some of my bandwidth to work talk to people about other people's problems.

Sure, I might not convince the person I'm confronting. It takes a certain kind of person to share a meme that says "Transgender people have a problem with their head, not their crotch." They may not be easily swayed. But what about their friends and family? They might still be won over by rational argument. It's all of our responsibilities to make them from time to time. Otherwise, poor Annie is going to have a heart attack having to answer every apathetic acquaintance who can't be bothered to find out why they are being so wrong.

Does Cincinnati know how good it has it?

2016-05-05T08:10:00.000-04:00

I didn’t really set out to spend time in Cincinnati, Ohio, and my colleagues were pretty confused as to why I’d asked for the time off to go there. An old friend of mine lives there. We’d previously lived together in Boston (where I still live), and she has since lived in Florida, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. My wife and I had visited her in all of those places, and had predictable responses to each (in order: vom; wow; cars-and-famous-people-are-everywhere). I’ve kicked around a lot of American cities over the years, and have consequently gotten pretty good at assessing places before I get to them. I had read up on blogs and Yelp, looked at maps, googled bars, cafes, and cultural institutions, and spied a Flcker account or two. I was not anticipating a particularly good time in the land of Johns Cranley & Kasich, and maybe those low expectations helped. But hot damn, if Cincinnati, Ohio isn’t one of the most promising places I’ve visited!

I should clarify: I spent almost all of my time in Over-the-Rhine (OTR), which, I suppose, most closely parallels Boston’s Back Bay/Downtown. This comparison is far from perfect. “What about the other neighborhoods?” you might ask. “The higher end part of town is all well and good, but what about where people are struggling?” This is a fair question, and one that people I spoke to in OTR were definitely talking about. But let’s talk about what “higher end” means in Cincinnati: the friend we were visiting lives between the 12th and 13th Streets, flanked by Main and Vine. She walks to work, can walk to baseball and football games, art galleries and museums, cafes, bars, clubs, theaters, parks, the river, and an array of (mostly local) stores offering everything from freshly made dog food to high end appliances. The big complaint is the absence of a good grocery store (though there is a pretty terrible Kroger’s nearby). While the lack of a grocery store is a big problem, it is also one that the residents of Downtown Boston suffered from until a Roche Bros. finally opened up in Downtown Crossing just over a year ago.

The above amenities make OTR a desirable location by most urban living measurements. It is also a location she pays less than $800 for. Sure, her apartment is technically a “studio” with an attic and it’s below market rate, but it also costs less than half of what I pay for a below market apartment seven miles outside of downtown Boston, and while I technically live in a one-bedroom with an office, her apartment was actually bigger than mine, and if it were in Boston, it would be advertised as “huge open floor plan with secret office space.” Comparable apartments are available in Over-the-Rhine for around a grand, which will get you a room with some roommates in Boston. While the clear drivers of Boston’s housing discrepancy with Cincinnati are colleges and jobs, it’s worth noting that Cincinnati’s unemployment rate (4.5%) isn’t much higher than Boston’s (3.7%). It is also lower than the national average (5%). Boston’s glut of students, compounded by higher paid hospital workers, is causing a housing crisis. Meanwhile, Cincinnati has a sea of vacant buildings begging to be filled.

But let’s skip the economics for a bit. Let’s assume that you’re young(ish), educated, and employable. In Cincinnati, you can afford to live in the middle of everything, and despite what you might think (and what I definitely thought), the middle of everything is actually a lot in Queen City.

Day-to-day stuff to do

Neon's Famous Unplugged. Dogs welcome.
(photo credit: Neon's)

First, nightlife: There is a dizzying number of good bars and restaurants in OTR. Places like Neon’s offers a huge patio that welcomes dogs and giant Jenga games. Instead of a regular menu, owners invite different local restaurants to use their food prep space. We chowed on some excellent tacos there and drank a few Nati-native beers among punks and parents of more races and ethnicities than any bar or restaurant I’ve been to north of NYC. Motr Pub handed us live brass bands, turn-of-the-century hardcore, and beat poetry within a 72 hour span, all for free. There were tasty bowls of ramen, weird Mexican food-concoctions called “turtles,” and better pizza than I’ve had in most of Boston. Almost everything was available at later hours than anywhere in my current neighborhood is open. It's like closing before 1AM wasn’t allowed in most of the town. I also saw groups of ladies in dance club uniforms, so I assume that kind of thing is available, if you are into that sort of thing.

A Whirlwind through Arts & Culture

But how’s the culture game? Well, it’s stellar, actually. Cincinnati is crawling with art galleries and studios, featuring some really great stuff. Places like the Contemporary Arts Center may not be able to keep up with the MOMA or Boston’s ICA, but they do a pretty damn solid service, and they’re right downtown. Plus CAC is free. You know what else is free? The Cincinnati Art Museum. This place is genuinely impressive. While it also doesn’t quite have the star power of a Boston Museum of Fine Arts, it does feature some minor works of major artists. It’s real glory is in its major works of minor artists. While CAMs Van Goghs and Picassos aren’t going to floor you, the 30 Americans exhibit, featuring works by people I’d previously never seen or heard of, is more than worth a look. The Cincinnati exhibit is also aces, highlighting the city’s dedication to the coexistence of arts with labor and the importance of philanthropy. While it could be said that Cincinnati’s mayor and governor could both use a refresher course on those ideas, the same is being said in some corners of the art community about Mayor Walsh of Boston and Governor Baker in Massachusetts. All of them might consider taking in the message of Clement Barnhorn's Industry Protecting Art and Music, which beautifully and concisely captures the relationship between art and labor viscerally.

Industry Protecting Art and Music,
Cincinnati Art Museum.
(Photo credit: Wikicommons)

The museums housed by the Cincinnati Museum Center may not have been quite so excellent, but even here there are praiseworthy moments, starting with the beautiful art deco building that houses them and including a reproduction of a city block of 19th century Cincinnati’s Main Street that literally lets you walk into a lost world. Where these museums fall flat (likely due to lack of funding for updates), the Cincinnati History Museum’s volunteers certainly step up. Both friendly and knowledgeable, they guide visitors to some easy-to-miss must-sees like a real shrunken-head or the operational 19th century printing presses operated by an equally ancient printer.

Bibliophiles will also find their havens throughout OTR. The Ohio Book Store is reminiscent of Boston's Brattle Bookstore, but in a much larger space, and lovers of the Atheneaum will find highbrow solace in the Mercantile Library, well hidden on the 11th floor of a business district building.

And can we talk about murals for a second? Being from Boston, I do not like them. Every once in a while we get a good one, but the conservative tastes of our City on a Hill have worked against interesting work with even a hint of perceived controversy (see examples here and here). Instead, Boston's walls are often left with neutral and often amateurish themes. While there is certainly a place for encouraging children to make art, that place might not always be on the walls of heavy traffic areas.

Cincinnati's murals do not suffer from these problems. Predominantly created by a group called Artworks, Cincinnati's murals touch on a variety of themes and figures, including one of local political semi-crank Jim Tarbell in a top hat. Having this figure on a main street seems, if I understand the local explanation of Mr. Tarbell correctly, would be similar to Boston putting up a monument of Maura Healey arm-in-arm with Vermin Supreme.

Cincinnati puts its fringe politicians and
championship boxers on buildings.
(Photo credit: Artworks Cincinnati)

These bright, well-executed works of art combine with colorful row houses to make virtually every street pop. Even on streets with multiple vacants, boards over windows and doors are painted to look as if they are occupied. It's a little thing, but it's the difference between feeling like you're in a post-apocalyptic city and one that is being lived in and improved upon.

The real win for Cincinnati

All of this stuff is great, but it’s also just a collection of the impressions of a tourist. The question I kept asking at these places was “can someone really live here.” That’s what I really wanted to know. It seems that the answer is “yes” for a certain kind of person: the I-want-to-do-something person.

From the coffee shops to the galleries to the stores, I found the same thing -- the owners were there and they were working. People in Cincinnati who want to do something seem to be able to do it pretty easily, or at least more easily than in Boston. With what seems like very little capital, people can start up shops and stops that may not be able to generate the revenue to be sustainable in the Brooklyns or Jamaica Plains of America. And whereas many cities don’t have the populations to support art galleries, specialty cafes, locally owned bookstores or letterpress shops in any form, Cincinnati appears to be in that sweet spot where people who want to do stuff can afford to and people who would enjoy that stuff are there in numbers large enough to support those makers-of-things. This is a rare and special special thing -- many cities never experience it and those that do can only do it for a few years. Cincinnati may be in that latter camp. Nothing gold can stay. But for now a good, hearty bronze crown is on the Queen City. It didn’t make me want to move there, but it certainly made me wonder why I was still here. When other cities could so illustratively offer so much more bang-for-buck, what's the incentive of the Bostonian to stay? Unless you're very rich, very connected, or have some kind of super-understanding I can't fathom, Boston seems to be pretty well shaped, its residents end up bystanders who pay top dollar for the privilege. In Cincinnati, a few bucks and a whole lot of hustle might just be enough to pursue your dreams, or at least your business. And that's worth quite a lot.

We were the gentrifiers

2015-09-13T17:41:00.000-04:00

The story is almost cliched at this point: rents are getting too high in a neighborhood, and so the people who have lived there forever are starting to get pushed out by landlords who are cashing in. For me, this happened about three years ago, when Jamaica Plain became impossible to afford. So my wife and I moved to Roslindale, which is starting to see its rents go through the roof. A number of friends are making the same complaints. One claimed that an apartment on her street was being emptied out so the investors that bought it could turn it into a full-time Airbnb.

Walking through Fort Point yesterday, a neighborhood that has transformed from industrial wasteland/bohemia to something akin to a Miami tourist strip in just fifteen years, got my blood up on the same issue. As I strolled toward the Boston Design Center past the lofts, cafes, bars, and internet start-ups, against a steady stream of affluent, beautiful joggers and graphic designers, I seethed at these people and their wealth. I loathed that they turned a wasteland into a liveable, interesting place, like the coolest Mormons ever. “Why do these people deserve to stay, while I’m getting pushed out,” I thought. This is a common refrain in my head. I think it’s getting more and more common in a lot of people’s heads. With a household income of $100,000 necessary to pay the median rents in Boston, average folks are going to feel the pinch and look to blame someone.

Yesterday was different, though. I had a moment of self-reflection, and I’m not sure what brought it on. After my incredulous question, “why do these people get to stay,” I answered my question with another question. “Why do I get to stay?”

The truth is, this has never been my city. I’ve thought of it as mine for almost 14 years, but in truth, I’m not from here. I’m from a medium-sized town outside of Boston. It has a small common that I used to meet my friends at and a football stadium I’ve never been to. It’s very white and very middle-class, and growing up, I very much wanted to leave it. In total, I lived there for eight years. I was born in another town nearby, and moved there when I was five. I bounced around other suburbs through high school, and when I showed up in Boston with nothing but a milk crate and a duffle bag full of stuff I don’t have anymore in late September of 2001, I decided that this place was my destiny, and that I could make myself of it - from it. I paid $300 a month to share an 8x8 room, and had five housemates. I have no idea what the rent was in total, but it was around $2000 for an apartment in a neighborhood that had not yet shaken its old nickname of “Mission Kill.” Before the year was up, the building was condemned.

I moved to Allston. I don’t remember what I paid there, but I remember I didn’t like it much, and a year later, 2003, I moved to Jamaica Plain, where I’d stay pretty much continuously for the next nine years. I lived in a few places in JP, including a three-bedroom (really a two-bedroom with an office) that I paid $1300 for, which was in terrible shape, but that we thought was a steal. The landlords jacked the rent up after 3 years, and so we moved to a small one-bedroom basement apartment for $1000. After that, we rented out the attic of a decrepit mansion near Forest Hills Cemetery and paid $900. That was quite a grab, though a bit unconventional.

After a few years that house got a bit too crazy. It was known as a party house, and I was married and wanted to not share a house with five or six other people anymore. My wife and I, along with a friend who was in grad school and needed housemates, went looking for a two-bedroom apartment in Jamaica Plain. We couldn’t find one for less than $1800, and at the apartment tours, the realtors always had a dozen or so other people looking at the apartments. The other couples seemed a lot more “together” than us. They didn’t live in Jamaica Plain yet, but they wanted to. They’d heard about it. They’d read about it. Their friends lived there. Some of them had strollers.

We ended up getting a good deal on an apartment just outside JP, in Roslindale. Our landlords are great and keep the rent reasonable, but I’m hearing about rents around the neighborhood, and the Boston.com is speculating that costs here might get unreasonable sooner than later. We’re a house sale away from getting pushed out of here, too.

But here’s the thing: I already did this to someone else. In 2001, I came here and paid way too much money to live in an undercode building in a neighborhood that just a few years prior was so dangerous that the universities in the area made sure classes got out before dark so the students could get home safe. Some slumlord pushed people out of Mission Hill to let the kids take over, and eventually, enough of us didn’t get killed that it became a feasible place to invest. So then they pushed us out and now that condemned apartment on Mission Hill is a half-million dollar condo. I was an early gentrifier. Not the first, but part of what turned Boston from the stuff of way too many movies into a place you’d want to raise your kids. I did that at the expense of other people who were already here, and I didn’t really ever think about it too seriously.

So now I’m the person being pushed out. Part of a middle-class that has found himself in the midst of an unstoppable combination of wealthy people who want the city life and college kids who are willing to pile into places so they don’t have to live in dorms or with their parents. Boston seems reluctant to build enough to accommodate the demand for city living, and so I’m getting screwed.

This is at least partially my fault, and I feel like I should take responsibility for it. Over the past fifteen years, I have been part of a nationwide effort to live where I want and do what I want for less money. This has given rise to companies like Amazon.com, which has put so much brick-and-mortar business out of business that all but the cities are essentially hibernating dens between work days. I helped put out the record stores with iTunes. So the two places where you’d see human beings in the world, and talk to likeminded people in a consumer setting, are gone from pretty much everywhere, except the cities.

I used Foodler and GrubHub, who take a piece from the food I ordered, which lead the take-out places to raise their prices, but also made it so I didn’t have to talk to a person. I used Airbnb, because it was cheaper than hotels. Never mind that this perfectly nice apartment I stayed in clearly didn’t have a resident in it anymore, and was being turned over for visitors like me. I used Uber, because they are cheaper than cabs. Never mind that they are ruining a working class industry with their part-time “sharing economy.” I did these things because they took the Walmart model of “so cheap it hurts people” and made it feel hip and valuable. And it screwed us. It made some people rich, it made some other people a little extra pocket money, and it made Greater Boston unlivable.

I don’t “deserve” to live here any more than anyone else. Certainly, I deserve to live here less than the people I often scoff at, who have lived here their whole lives. I didn’t want to live in a dump. I wanted to live in a beautiful city, with fancy restaurants, and good coffee, and subways, and bike lanes, and farmers markets. I got those things, and it turns out everyone else wanted them, too. That I’m so indignant that I’m getting bumped for richer or more financially responsible people might be a bit unfair, but it’s also an important life lesson: you reap what you sow. I did this. We did this. We were the gentrifiers. Now we are being gentrified.

Why I want Republicans to make good on their threats to boycott CNN and NBC

2013-08-07T13:16:00.001-04:00

Who is the "liberal media?" Anyone that isn't Fox News!

If you follow the Republican National Committee on facebook or Twitter, you've likely seen their campaign trying to guilt CNN and NBC, which they characterize as "the liberal media" into dropping documentaries about Hillary Clinton. Their mechanism of enforcement? They're threatening refuse to let those networks host 2016 presidential debates.

Here's why I think CNN and NBC should air the documentaries and make the Republican Party boycott them: There's no way the RNC can do it. If the RNC prohibits their candidates from appearing on CNN, a station that Democrats trust more than most, and NBC, they'll be stuck with PBS, a station the party wants to defund, ABC, or CBS. Since neither of the latter stations have a cable news presence comparable to Fox, NBC, or CNN, what the RNC is essentially saying is the only major cable news station that can host a debate is Fox News. This presumes that a Democratic candidate will appear in a debate on that station while stations more sympathetic to him or her are blacked out. Ultimately, it makes it very easy for Democrats to not deal with Fox News, while Republican candidates would have to boycott all stations except Fox News to protect themselves from a similar kind of criticism.

This problem for Republicans is actually based in their party's greatest strength - agreement. While there are differences within the Republican Party right now, there are constant squabbles in the Democratic Party. As a result, as the above linked article shows, Republicans overwhelmingly watch Fox News, whereas Democrats watch a pretty wide array of news stations.

By boycotting the two big cable news channels that lean left (though honestly, if you think CNN is overwhelmingly liberal, you're kind of a brainwashed dope), thus leaving only the overwhelmingly conservative Fox News channel (which, if you don't see as overwhelmingly conservative you're definitely a brainwashed dope), they are allowing Democrats to play ball in their home park all the time while Republicans still have to subject themselves to hostile environments full or real questions and fact-checkers like those communists at PBS.

So I say bring it on! Air those documentaries! Let the Republicans remove themselves from where a huge segment of the population gets its news! Letting Republicans close themselves off from major media outlets does nothing but help the liberal agenda.

We can't talk about the reality of American politics on TV because David Gregory's kids might have dick-pic nightmares

2013-08-05T09:39:00.004-04:00

Not worried about his kids hearing questions about

whether the president is legitimate, but super concerned

about dick picks

The August 4, 2013 episode of Meet the Press was pretty uneventful all things considered. To me, the most interesting thing said was a question by host David Gregory, who asked former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani - himself a sex scandal survivor - "is there something disqualifying at a point when I can't even turn on the news, that that's going to create a bigger conversation than I want to have with my eight year old?"

Giuliani, in typical MTP form, dodged the question. For once though, I agree that a politician should dodge the question. It's a stupid question. David Gregory, host of the longest running news show on television, just asked if a politician should be disqualified from office for private indiscretions because he was afraid his kid would see David Gregory, who chooses to give coverage to this local non-story coverage, talking about it.

Mr. Gregory, let me give you a quick rundown on American politics, the media, and children, since a life in Washington and being a father has apparently taught you nothing about them.

Exhibit A.

1. American politicians frequently do things with their penises that their wives would not approve of. Joy-Ann Reed had JUST EXPLAINED THAT to you. The only difference between the sex scandals of Anthony Weiner and Bill Clinton and those of John F. Kennedy and Franklin Roosevelt is that in the past the press had the common decency to leave public figures' personal lives alone, and now people like you circle it like carrion birds.

2. Your eight year old knows about sex. He's probably heard you having it. He's seen it on TV and read more detailed explanations of it in issues of Spider-man. At the very least, he goes to school with someone whose parents aren't as afraid of talking to them as you are and he now knows a way more vulgar and detailed version of sex than any news show has presented.

3. Your concern with how these scandals might lead you to have an uncomfortable conversation with your kid leads me to a statement made my comedian Louis CK about gay marriage: "'How am I supposed to explain to my children that two men are getting married?' I don't know. It's your shitty kid, you fucking tell'm... Two guys are in love and they can't get married because you don't want to talk to your ugly child for five fucking minutes?"

I understand this isn't an exact parallel and that being gay is not the same as deviating from your marriage on company time, but the point remains valid. If we have decided that the sex lives of politicians are news (which David Gregory has), why can't we talk about it just because somebody doesn't want to have to explain a real world situation to his kids? If David Gregory is so concerned with the moral fortitude of political candidates, he should not vote for those candidates. If he is concerned about how their sex lives might scar children, he should make an effort to stop talking about it so much on his very frequently watched show.

4. I've been eight years old. No eight year old is intently watching Meet the Press. It's what my parents used to put on when I was being bitchy about nap time. I conked right out. Further, if they are watching the news, there is way worse stuff on it than discussions about Mr. Weiner's self-titled selfie. I don't know if you've heard, but Northern Africa and the Middle East have been in a perpetual state of war for a while and maimed children have been making pretty regular appearances on TV. Football players have murdered people. Baseball players are being suspended for drug use. A huge child prostitution ring was just broken up in America. Boy Meets World is getting a spin-off. All of these things are more important and will have a bigger impact on your children than the sex scandals of municipal politicians.

It is astounding to me how much the media talks about how terrible all these non-stories are while putting past political figures who did the same things but who weren't persecuted by the same media. Anthony Weiner might not be a particularly good or effective politician. He may not have a very good platform in is run for mayor. If he's not the right guy for the job, it will be easy enough to prove that without talking about his phone sex habits. If you find yourself forced to bring it up though, you might have to explain to your kids that when a man and a woman love each other very much, they send each other digital representations of their affections in the form of lecherous sexy-texties that sometimes give birth to a scandal. If you have to have that conversation because you talked about it yourself on a show you let your kids watch, it's your own damn fault.

Geez. Leave Colin Powell alone.

2013-08-02T15:41:00.002-04:00

He's denying it, but it appears from emails released by a hacker that Colin Powell had a pretty personal relationship and possibly an affair with a Romanian politician. I won't bore you with the "why do we care about public figures' sex-lives" diatribe, as that's been well-tread. What I want to know is why this should be considered a strike against citizen Powell, who is not currently employed by the American people.

How do you not have an affair with this guy?

Colin Powell has made a name for himself for being a moderate and generally trustworthy (except that one time) military and political figure. He most recently raised the ire of conservatives over his endorsement of Barack Obama over Mitt Romney, which was, according to some douchebag on the radio, obviously because they're both black. Before that, Powell had served in the Reagan and Bushes 41 & 43 administrations, not to mention that whole 4-star general thing. While in those capacities, if it had been exposed that he was having or had had an affair with a foreign politician of an allied nation, it would have been nobody's business unless national secret swapping was part of some weird pillow-talk ritual. Maybe his wife would have been rightly pissed, but it wouldn't have been anyone else's business unless government money or national security was involved.

That would have been the case when he was in the employ of the United States. He's not now. Now, Colin Powell is a pretty smart guy whose sex life, like the rest of his life, is entirely private. The way this information came to public attention was itself illegal and, unlike the Bradley Manning or Edward Snowden leaks, which one could argue at least had some semblance of public interest, it has nothing to do with government policy, national security, or even have to do with how government works. They're private emails on an American citizen's private account.

While the whole nation is losing their goddamn minds over whether the NSA is spying on us, there seems to be no outrage toward the personal information of private citizens being made public. What this hacker did to Colin Powell was worse than anything the NSA has done to anyone reading this. If you're concerned with your own privacy, you should be shaming the media for running these stories and calling for serious consequences for hackers of this type.

If this kind of thing continues, it will further discourage good people from running for office in fear that the things they do privately will lead to their names being dragged through the mud. Then all we'll have left are the Anthony Weiners and Mark Sanfords of the world - public figures who don't have any dignity, and so don't care when it is sullied.

2013 Boston Mayoral Race - Track the Candidates

2013-08-02T07:27:00.004-04:00

Below is a roundup of website and social network links for all mayoral candidates appearing on Boston's 2013 preliminary ballot on September 24.

Felix Arroyo - website / facebook / twitter
John Barros - website / facebook / twitter
Charles Clemons - website / facebook / twitter
Daniel Conley - website / facebook / twitter
John Connolly - website / facebook / twitter
Rob Consalvo - website / facebook / twitter
Charlotte Golar Richie - website / facebook / twitter
Michael Ross - website / facebook / twitter
Bill Walczak - website / facebook / twitter
Marty Walsh - website / facebook / twitter
David James Wyatt - No online presence found.
Charles Yancey - website / facebook / twitter

I mean, come on. Who wouldn't want to work here.

As you can see, David Wyatt's campaign doesn't really have an online presence. Charles Yancey's online presence exists, but his campaign page hasn't been updated since his last bid for D4 Councillor. The rest are on top of it, and I recommend reading/liking/following all of them to stay as informed as possible about the upcoming Boston mayoral race. This is not a particularly exciting election, but whoever wins gets to shape Boston's post-Menino legacy. That's kind of a big deal.

If you don't know where to vote, you can find out here. If you're not voting, no big deal. It's only one of the three things you're absolutely responsible for in the republic and will take maybe fifteen minutes. But by all means, skip it and say something clever like "they're all corrupt!"

(Updated 9:28am 8/2/13 because I initially forgot Marty Walsh. Sorry about that.)

Congratulations Boston! Your hollow outrage gave Rolling Stone a windfall!

2013-08-01T13:00:00.000-04:00

Remember a few weeks ago when everybody in Greater Boston was having a collective brain aneurysm about the Rolling Stone cover featuring Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev? There was an online cause to boycott the issue on Facebook that drew 170,000 likes, refusal by some stores to carry it, and general insistence by most of your friends and colleagues that they would never again buy or read a magazine they probably already didn't buy or read. All because Rolling Stone published an issue where they labeled a very normal looking American kid a "monster" and had the audacity to ask "how could this happen?"

How dare you use a picture of a person
looking like a person!

The outrage about this cover was centered not around the terrorist on the cover (we've seen that before), but that the terrorist didn't "look" like a terrorist, but rather like a rock star (or, if you'd prefer it, a semi-attractive normal teenager, which is how most rock stars start out). When bin Laden was on covers of magazines, he was wearing Middle Eastern attire we associate with Islam. Tsarnaev, on the other hand, has messy hair, facial stubble, and a kind of cool t-shirt on. He looks like your kids, and because of that, some people seem to think seeing him will turn kids (not your kids! They're perfect!) into terrorists in the future. Apparently most parents are not confident that their parenting skills can effectively deter their children from blowing up their neighbors when faced with a cover on a magazine that was last relevant when Led Zeppelin was still putting out records.

So folks took to the streets (or the internet) and worked the whole region up into a lather. End result? Rolling Stone's retail circulation doubled!

This reemphasizes the old adage "any press is good press." Talking about this magazine non-stop for days as people did made people who hadn't thought about Rolling Stone in years or ever think about Rolling Stone. Add to this problem that the article itself was actually pretty good, and all the outrage has made Rolling Stone a kind of viable media entity again in things-not-written-by-Matt-Taibbi.

It's cool if they look Muslim.

So let this be a lesson, reactionary citizenry: no matter what you're freaking out about - Rolling Stone, gay marriage, Doc Rivers to LA - outrage about it only encourages people to find out more about what you're talking about. Not only is this result inevitable, it's good for a thinking, informed population. All the outrage about this cover made people think about why it's an outrage. Are we being honest with ourselves when we all flip out about a photo of a person involved in a major news story because he looks like he actually looks? Wouldn't it have been more inappropriate for Rolling Stone to have used some doctored picture of Tsarnaev to make him look evil? And how would it have been better to put the victims on the cover? The story was not about them. It was about how a normal American teenager could turn into a monster. That's a conversation we should be having, and thanks to Rolling Stone, in partnership with Mayor Menino and the people of Boston, now people are having it in a more informed way.

Hey Massachusetts! Tax Alcohol!

2013-08-01T08:48:00.000-04:00

As of yesterday, Massachusetts raised taxes on gas and cigarettes again. Honestly, I don't have much of a problem with this. It certainly doesn't affect me much, as I don't smoke or drive a car. Further, as gasoline is subsidized by federal tax dollars, contributing to absurd profits for oil companies and making it so even with the tax, gas is still cheaper here than in Europe, it's hard to complain. I'm certainly not going to defend cigarettes, either. They're gross, cause cancer, are the source of litter in gutters near bars everywhere, and frankly, I hope the tax deters my neighbors from smoking so I don't have to breathe that garbage as it wafts in my bedroom window at night from their late night porch smoking.

These are taxed.

The issue here is that these two products keep getting tax increases while other things remain untouched. The number one culprit in Massachusetts? Alcohol.

For those who don't remember, Massachusetts had a brief-but-bitter affair with alcohol taxes, which were ultimately overturned in early 2011 by voters, who apparently think that alcohol, as a sort of consumable, should be taxed like food (not at all) rather than a vice (a lot). I voted against repealing the alcohol tax in 2010, and I still oppose it now. It's not because I think we should deter drinking, either. I'm not sure cost is much of a deterrent. If it were, people would stop using cocaine rather than living their own private Less Than Zero lives. Rather, the reason support taxing alcohol is that you don't need it to live or be a citizen. In Massachusetts, in the tradition of the Commonwealth's founding, we do not tax food, clothing, or periodicals. As such, one can be fed, clothed, and informed without paying the state anything. The consumption of alcohol (which I'm a huger fan of than I should be) provides no benefits to any of these natural or civic necessities.

These are not taxed.
See what I'm saying?

We live in a state where we pay a 6.25% tax on books - the things we spend millions of dollars annually to encourage children to use. Meanwhile, we spend tax dollars and volunteer hours through programs like D.A.R.E., M.A.D.D. and S.A.D.D. trying to dissuade young people from abusing alcohol, not to mention the cost of treating alcoholism and alcohol-related medical problems to the state. How does it make sense that we tax beneficial things like books, and even necessary things like housing, but allow this one vice a free pass while demonizing others like cigarettes and criminalizing other drugs?

At this point, I want to discourage readers from drawing the conclusion that I'm arguing that we should repeal taxes on books or houses. I am not doing that. I don't like paying taxes, but I do like infrastructure. I went to public schools, I use public roads and public transportation, and I'm a big fan of having police and fire departments readily available. I'm arguing in favor of equal treatment, or at the very least, treatment based on societal benefits. Raising cigarette prices through taxes didn't cause convenience stores to close, nor did banning their sale at pharmacies cause pharmacies to close. On the contrary, Downtown Boston actually got a pharmaceutical super store after that ban (which is stupid, but certainly implies at least one pharmacy chain isn't struggling from the pressure of lost cigarette revenues). Books are beneficial and they are taxed. Alcohol is decidedly not beneficial, or at least no more beneficial than board games, iPads, or purses, and yet it carries no tax.

To extrapolate on this further. Clothing isn't taxed. Accessories are. You do need pants. You don't need a briefcase. To the same effect, you do need a sandwich. You do not need a beer.

As it currently stands, the people of Massachusetts' voices were heard, and as a result, we have a totally arbitrary exemption on one vice while another is taxed excessively. Moreover, items of higher value to society are taxed, while one that is protected by special interests who effectively lobbied on its behalf. This was a mistake and it should be remedied. Pass a new tax on alcohol.

Massachusetts LLC costs are prohibitive

2013-07-31T09:37:00.000-04:00

It's a rare day when I think conservatives are right about something, but their constant and incessant whining has produced a pretty good point - the cost of running a business in Massachusetts is prohibitively high.

As you can see, we're a big money operation.

My wife and I recently started selling posters at farmers markets and like shows. Sales have been good and more and more, we are receiving requests to do work for other people. We'd also like to expand the business. Many people recommended we file as a limited liability corporation (LLC) to separate ourselves from the business. I looked into it. It costs $500 a year in Massachusetts to start and then another $500 annually to file a report - one of the most expensive LLC filing fees in the United States.

Since I was a kid, I've been hearing complaints from Republicans and some Democrats that policies in this state hurt small business. I generally didn't care, as I wasn't a business owner, and thought that it would only benefit the rich. Now though, as I look into starting a business, I find my state has higher rents and other start-up costs than almost anywhere. Many of the start-up costs, particularly rents, are outside government control. I understand that - it's valuable real estate. But fees like the LLC fee just add to the overwhelming cost of starting a small business.

I'm not advocating that Massachusetts adopt Colorado's $10 annual fee, but perhaps the Bay State should consider a tiered approach more like New York's. There, if I understand it correctly, LLCs that make less than $100,000 annually pay only a $25 filing fee (this doesn't take taxes into account).

I certainly support moderate-to-high taxes on business profits, but doesn't it make more fiscal sense for the state to encourage businesses with lower start-up costs and then get the money out of them by taxing profits made? To a big company, $500 doesn't seem like much, but to folks trying to scratch a few grand together to pursue a letterpress business on the side, $500 as an annual cost is frankly a huge deterrent.

What do readers think? I don't know a lot about business law, so maybe I'm not seeing how this is reasonable.

Clearer rules and better enforcement needed to make Boston safer for cyclists

2013-07-30T09:50:00.000-04:00

Without fail, whenever somebody I know has a bad experience with a cyclist, they come to me about it.

Whether it be co-worker, friend, or family member, if they're not cyclists themselves, they feel the need to report to me that this cyclist was going up the street the wrong way or that cyclist almost ran over an old lady in the crosswalk. You know, because we all know each other. I should bring up these injustices at the next meeting we all have. It was a college kid in skinny jeans. It was a middle-aged Latino guy with window washing equipment. Do I know them?

It usually comes as something of a surprise to people that I do not know the people who are running lights or riding on the sidewalk any better than they know the driver who parked at a bus stop or refusing to pick a lane. All cyclists are not created equally.

In years past, I always wished people would ride more and that the city would be more bike friendly. In more recent times, I got my wish, and now I regret I made it. The rise of programs like Hubway, which rented its 1 millionth bike last month, and the cultural shift in acceptance of bicycles as an alternative form of transportation have led to an explosion of riders on Boston's roads. The problem is that most of them don't know how to ride in the city, and it's making us all look bad.

Part of this is an information problem. Many people, both in cars and on bikes, don't know that bikes are supposed to follow the same rules as other vehicles. The sidewalk rule is sketchy, but given that you're definitely not supposed to ride on sidewalks in "business districts" and there are businesses virtually everywhere in Boston, riding on sidewalks is, generally speaking, a good thing to avoid.

More than anything though, there's the problem of inability to enforce bike safety rules. Sure, the city of Boston can give you a $20 fine for blowing a red light, but they can't do anything if you don't pay it, and $20 is barely a penalty anyways. Meanwhile, folks ride the wrong way in the bike lane on streets as busy as Washington and Columbus right by police and nothing is said or done. This latter infraction, which is one of the more common, is incredibly dangerous to everyone. Not only is the cyclist who is going the wrong way increasing its velocity toward the vehicle it is potentially getting in an accident with, they are also speeding toward people who are going quickly in the right direction in a path that is too narrow to avoid collision in.

Barring any legal changes, there are still things that can be done to increase bike safety. Stopping cyclists who are breaking traffic laws regularly is not a great answer, but the hassle of having to be lectured by police when you're trying to get to work might deter some people. Better, more publicly displayed rules of the road posted strategically around bike areas would also help.

Good rules from Hubway,
but not visible enough

Since many of the folks in question are bike renters, involving organizations like Hubway in enforcement might also be a good deterrent. While police can't enforce tickets, Hubway certainly can ban users for infractions. It wouldn't be great for their bottom line, but setting up a report system that temporarily bans users who are stopped for reckless riding would be an easy fix. Hubway should also consider making their safety sign more visible. Currently, their safety information (posted very clearly on the website! Good going there!) resides on the bottom left corner of their signage at bike pick-up stops. This information should be more prominent, and perhaps a quick digital "I agree that I've read this" option would encourage more responsibility among riders.

Being a cyclist in the city is dangerous business, but it's on us as riders to contribute to the safety of our whole community. So long as seeing riders ride like assholes every day is common practice, it will be difficult to get folks to rally around the idea that kids who get hit by buses are victims rather than reckless.

Boston Bulletin’s Editorials and Op-Eds lock up the grumpy old man market

2013-07-29T07:09:00.000-04:00

I don’t know why I do it exactly, but I try to read the free Boston weeklies when I can. Some of the reporting is solid, and they cover things that are sometimes overlooked by the dailies. Wow, though. The editorials and op-eds usually sound like they gave a page to my grandfather and asked him to write about things he was no longer comfortable saying out loud.

The Bulletin. Keeping a finger
on the pulse of the nearly pulseless.

See, for example, the July 25, 2013 edition of the Boston Bulletin[i] (I’d love to link to the actual stories, but the Bulletin, a free paper, doesn’t post their stories online unless you buy a subscription, and then it’s just a PDF. All this despite the fact that there’s an ad in the paper that reads “What drives the internet? CONTENT. Read the Bulletin online at www.buletinnewspapers.com). In it, among a lot of advertising for things you won’t use, ten actual stories, some event listings, one editorial and two op-eds. We’ll start with the op-eds.

In “If I Had A Son,” Frank Sullivan (regular writer of the “Frank Reflections” column) nails the tone-deaf white Irish-American attitude, implying that President Obama is a racist because the latter had the temerity to suggest that if he had a son, that son would resemble Trayvon Martin. Frank, who totally recognizes that America’s racial history is “disgusting,” argues “I thought we are not supposed to use phrases that suggest ‘They all look the same,’ [sic] when describing a black teenager.” His whole follow-up, where he pretends that if he had a son he’d explain to them that they should respect Rosa Parks and MLK, but that any present-day racial struggles are fabricated race baiting, is based on this idea, which is to say “Obama thinks all black kids look alike.” Except that’s not what Obama is saying. He’s saying if he had a son, that son would look black and black teenagers, in his experience, are profiled and in the instance of Trayvon Martin, stalked and ultimately killed for being black. His point is not that all black kids look the same. It’s that all black kids look the same to white people.

Frank goes on to say if he had a son “if he is lucky, he will look like his mother and his sisters [nice self-effacing family plug here, Frank]. He won’t look like any random white teen who dies in the midst of pounding a victim’s head on the pavement.” The implication here, of course, is that any kid, white or black, who is defending himself against somebody who he perceives (and in the case of George Zimmerman, clearly is) a threat, they deserve what’s coming to them. Note that George Zimmerman, in Frank's eyes, is the victim here. But let’s not do hypotheticals about imaginary sons here, Frank. Let’s talk about one of those daughters you mentioned. If your daughter was being stalked by a middle aged man with a gun, decided she was in a position where she was threatened enough to have to try to defend herself, and was shot in the process, what would your opinion be then? This might seem like a harsh question, but since it’s all right to ask a presidential candidate a similar question, I think it’s fair to ask a columnist who’s saying someone else’s kid got what they deserved.

And if your daughter died in an instance like this, Frank, and the guy who shot her wasn’t even detained for 24 hours, as Zimmerman wasn’t, what then? Would this be a clear “justice has been served” situation?

Frank also calls race baiting on black Boston leaders, who he says are making a bigger deal out of the Martin case than of a triple murder on Intervale St. in Roxbury, which he said is getting no attention because there is no race element. Now, assuming these two cases are even sort of similar, which they aren’t, the outrage about the Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman case was entirely about George Zimmerman going free. Since there isn’t even a suspect in this triple murder, these crimes are totally incomparable. A better (though still not good or parallel) comparison would be of the Amy Lord murder in South Boston, for which there have been plenty of community meetings and much organization and press. Is Frank Sullivan equally outraged that the Amy Lord case is getting this much media and community attention while the Roxbury murders remain on the back burner?

A few pages away, next to a temper tantrum column by Joe Galeota (My Kind of Town, p. 4) about how the terrorists have won because it’s harder to park near the esplanade on the 4^th of July (I’m not exaggerating. The column is actually called “Another victory for the brothers Tsarnaev,” where he calls parking on Storrow Drive for the Pops a “short but meaningful Boston tradition” that “bites the dust.” Apparently nobody’s told Mr. Galeota about the Green Line), an unsigned editorial, which actually takes a pretty reasonable position on student debt (something needs to be done about student debt, author is open to legislation bringing down student interest rates and proposes an Obamacare-like policy on schools where they are required to spend 80 percent of their spending on education), shows the author’s total lack of understanding of all things under forty in an arbitrary (not to mention incredibly dated) dig on Occupy Wall Street.

This is Farhad Ebrahimi. He might look
like a hippy to the Bulletin, but he's
actually worth more than their entire
company. Also, if you think he looks
like a hippy, you don't know what
hippies are. Look into it.

In bringing up Occupy, the author writes “Frankly, many of those protestors were dumbfounded that a degree in art history doesn’t make you rich, and that forces of supply and demand won’t allow you to pay a mortgage by selling hemp-made hacky sacks.” The economic falsehood of the second half of that statement notwithstanding, this nonsense talk shows both a total lack of understanding about what Occupy was about (most people there didn’t want to be rich, they just didn’t like that other people were getting rich exploiting the labors of people who were poor) and who was supporting it. I, for example, have a real job (totally hemp-free, I might add), as did and do many of the people I know who were involved with Occupy. There were college professors, retail workers, office drones, managers, and even millionaires involved and/or supporting the Occupy Wall Street protests. Perpetuating this myth that there was nothing but a bunch of hippies and slackers at Occupy is a baseless lie, and the language the Bulletin chose to use really reflects hostility toward what happened in the 1960s more than the modern day.

Were there deadbeats at Occupy? Sure there were, but saying it’s the norm for those protests, or even particularly common, is a statement from a person who couldn’t even have been bothered to go down to Dewey Square and talk to some of the folks he decided to write about. If the editors of the Boston Bulletin had bothered to read a single edition of The Occupied Wall Street Journal (which I’d bet gets a hell of a lot more readers than that Boston Bulletin site) as closely as I read the Bulletin, they’d be hard-pressed to find a word about anyone trying to get rich, nor a single pitch for a hemp cooperative start-up.

There are a lot of reasons why local newspapers are dying. The internet is a huge part of it, as are budget cuts[ii] and willingness by writers to trade their writing for “experience.” But more than anything, newspapers like the Bulletin are losing readership because they’re catering to a population that is going extinct. The target market of the Boston Bulletin’s editorial pages is older, white, reactionary, and resistant to change – all things that a modern Boston (and a modern America) is not conducive to. I’m not saying these columns and columnists should all be booted to the curb – quite the contrary, I think their opinions are very valuable in characterizing what stupidity looks like in print – but what I am saying is that these papers need the voices of younger people who aren’t ready to scream “get off my lawn” every time a stranger comes by next to those of the old guard if they want to continue past 2020.

Boston is changing, and if small weeklies like the Bulletin don’t change with it, they’ll be as gone as the days of Whitey, Yaz, and Honey Fitz.

[i] I am using the West Roxbury – Roslindale edition of the Bulletin for this story, though their columns are usually syndicated in all editions.

[ii] I’ve written for the Bulletin in the past. They pay $20-25 for an article. Hardly enough for a writer to live on.

The Private Spy Network: You’re Afraid of the Wrong People

2013-07-26T10:01:00.001-04:00

Ever since the whistleblower/traitor (take your pick) Edward Snowden brought to it to everyone’s attention that the United States Government was collecting data on American citizens exactly like they told us they were going to, folks have been a little touchy about government surveillance. Among the spying revelations, it has been brought to light that there’s even a secret big-but-not-as-big-as-originally-reported data facility in Utah that can pretty much store all data that man has ever created. Presumably the same storage space will be available in thumb drive size by next Christmas.

This is Larry Page, CEO of Google.
He knows everything about you.
Mostly because you told him.

In the midst of all this big brother panic, most people seem to be overlooking that the organization that has the most data on you isn’t the NSA, but likely a private company like Google or Facebook. Why is this? Because you keep giving them all your information! On a regular basis, we enter very real and personal information – our addresses and phone numbers, our interests and political views, compromising photographs and vacation plans – to the social networks. Many of us then use those same social network signins to gain access to other websites. Those websites then also get access to some of your information, not to mention the social networks gaining information about your activity on those websites you’re using them to sign in with.

Think about what has been the most destructive force to the American people in recent years. If you work really hard, you can try to blame Chris Dodd and Barney Frank for some of it, I guess. Really though, the most destructive force in peoples’ lives since 9/11 has been private corporations (mostly banks) taking advantage of folks’ desires to own houses and other property. The information that individuals keep willingly allowing private companies to collect (which we usually do not out of necessity but convenience) is a much clearer invitation to be taken advantage of or otherwise injured.

Let’s be honest about what the government can and will do with your personal information. They’re not going to march into the houses of gun owners and take their guns away. They’re not going arrest people for being anarchists (usually). At worst, you might be unfairly audited. If you’d like to test this theory, I encourage you to request your FBI file. I did this after being involved in student protest groups recognized by Mother Jones and being on the cover of a few newspapers bodyslamming an effigy of George W. Bush. My file was empty, and I was trying to get their attention.

Now let’s consider what happens when you give information to companies like Google. Look to the top or right of this article. There’s probably an ad there. Does that ad sound familiar? When I look at my page, I see ads for Johnston & Murphy and Frank & Oak. Why? Because I Googled men’s clothes and shoes recently, and Google remembered it when it gave me my ad placements. Granted, this is good business. They’re giving me what I’ve already articulated I want. But think about everything you’ve ever Googled. Think about everything you’ve ever searched or posted about. Google knows all of it. If you use Chrome, it even knows where you visit without searching. Ever been to ChatRoulette? Google knows. How about searching for a new job with a competitor when you’re already employed? Google knows. What are your weaknesses? The government might know, but if they do, Google definitely does.

And how about Facebook? What have you said or done on Facebook that could screw your life up. The answer, hopefully, is nothing, but if you’re concerned the government might have something they can hurt you with, it’s pretty likely they got it from a company like Facebook – a company you give data to. Admittedly, both Google and Facebook have voiced their concerns about NSA snooping. They are currently opposed to handing over their data to the government, but a cursory look at the way they advertise to us should tell us that they have no problem using it against you themselves, and their resistance to government data mining is only as good as Google's promise of "don't be evil," which they've been sort of flexible on lately.

This isn’t to say I think the NSA is doing the right thing (though if you had a problem with it, we really could have used your help opposing it a decade ago). Nor am I saying you should stop giving private companies information to make your life easier. I like Google and Facebook most of the time. What I am saying is that we as a country need to start having a big-kid conversation about data, privacy, and how one is everywhere and the other is ending.

To be clear, nobody has the “right” to privacy in America. It’s a thing we used to sort of agree was important, and has been whittled away at for centuries now. But now, most of our information is already out there. You can get access to enough of someone’s personal information in most cases to open up a cable account in their name just by searching their names. In a lot of ways, this is a good thing. More sites are requiring you use your real name to do things, and people are way less likely to say horrible stuff to each other if their actual names and faces are next to the posts. Open- and crowdsourcing have done some amazing stuff to further technological solutions to real world problems. Crowdfunding through companies like Kickstarter makes it easier than ever for people to use stored information to fund projects and companies they like. Do we like this? Because we probably can’t have it both ways. Either things are easy and we have to trust parties both public and private with our information, or we need to stop willingly giving it to them.

The idea that the government shouldn’t have information that could be used to oppress you but will likely be either ignored or used to stop a crime but a private corporation who has no natural interest other than to take your money for a (hopefully) good product can is absurd. We all need to accept that the government is going to have access to our information because that information is out there already. It is thus our responsibility to remain a nation of laws, and to have those laws (many of which allow the government to do these things we’re all suddenly surprised and angry about) executed by good and capable people who we trust. How do we do that? We remain engaged in the democratic process, we vote our consciences and for the people we believe will do what is best for us, and when they violate that trust, we work to get them out of office.

There is no totalitarian state coming. There’s no need for one. The American system has functioned perfectly well doing things that people don’t want because people don’t hold them accountable. Hold them accountable and do the work and you can make them stop. The ones you can’t make stop are the companies, where votes are absolutely connected to dollars. Until we stop handing all our valuables over to them, we’re really in no position to get mad at the government for doing the same thing.

Unpaid internships are exploitative, classist bull$#!+

2013-07-25T09:58:00.002-04:00

Over the past few years, unpaid internships have popped up everywhere, often seemingly replacing what had previously been jobs that adult people with paid vacations did. Plenty of people have gone into great detail about how unpaid internships are exploitative and usually don’t lead to jobs, but let’s say they do. If working for free is a requirement to get a job that pays, I’ll make the case that that arrangement is even worse.

My compensation is a thing I also have to pay for? Super cool, bro!

To start, there’s the obviously exploitative nature of the internship. At its very best, you are learning a skill in much the same way that an indentured servant in a colonial print shop would. Sure, at the end you will have the skillset to open your own shop (if you can somehow acquire the capital after not working for so long. Maybe you can borrow $20,000 from your parents?), but in the meantime, your boss made a bunch of profit having you do a bunch of stuff he either a. should have been able to pay you at least minimum wage for, or b. couldn’t afford to pay you minimum wage for because his business model doesn’t bring in enough profit for the required labor. At worst (and I’ve seen this done many times) someone doesn’t want to do something in an office or a “start-up,” and so they say “we can just get an intern for that.” The company fills out some paper work, the intern packs and sends mailers or orders, and at the end, they both lie to a university and pretend the kid learned something about marketing.

But let’s say the company looking for interns is honest and really trying to give their neo-apprentices valuable skills. Great. Who can take advantage of those opportunities? In most cases, the intern is required to be enrolled at a college or university and do the internship for credit in lieu of a class. This means that, when a good student is not in class or studying, she will be working at an internship. What gives? The time to have a job that actually pays you.

Remember these assholes?

It’s a noble idea that people don’t have to work while they are in college. In practice, that idea is wildly classist. Students who are not from wealthy families and don’t want to be crushed by private student loan debt (which they get shamed for taking) have no choice but to work their way through school to at least pay their living expenses. You can make the “live with your parents” argument, but that assumes that all students have parents that will let them live at home, and that that home is anywhere near a college or university. No problem in Massachusetts. Sort of a problem in a lot of other places. If it’s between the unpaid internship that might assist in getting a job some day or working at a coffee shop to pay for rent and food, there’s not much of a choice there. The kid who needs to work can’t take an unpaid internship and dedicate an appropriate amount of time to her school work.

Who does this leave to take said internships? Let’s not split hairs. It’s privileged (and mostly white) kids. This practice inherently gives wealthier kids an advantage over their moderate- and lower-income classmates. This perpetuates class division through generations and while it doesn’t totally eliminate opportunity (I got a job in my field without ever doing an unpaid internship), it’s a significant handicap.

For the unfettered capitalists reading (I think you’re on the wrong blog. You might like this one better), this inequality isn’t just unfair to the poor kids. It’s also unfair to the employers. By placing a restriction that most good internships could remedy without any serious change to their profits, companies are missing out on loads of talent that they never get to interview because those kids don’t even bother applying. You just hired some kid who probably is going to work for his dad (your competition) when he’s done. Meanwhile, your ideal future Assistant Director of Blickidy-blop is making your macchiatos.

To me, the solution here is obvious. There are ways to make federal work-study money go to paying for interns. These programs should be expanded, better funded, and “need qualifications” should be reworked. Employers should have to apply for the money along with students, and should have to match it. Past this, all unpaid internships should be made illegal, or at least prohibited from being used as college credit for universities that benefit from non-profit status.

In an age where tuition costs are going through the roof, public colleges and universities are getting budgets cut, where qualified academics don’t have job stability and are forced to hop from campus to campus on adjunct assignments, making them difficult for their students to reach and work with, and where student loans are getting more expensive, we need to make improvements. We need to invest in the training of our future employees. The government can’t do it all. If private enterprise wants good and capable workers, they need to pay with more than their expert guidance to train them.

Anthony Weiner. Come on, dude.

2013-07-24T10:04:00.001-04:00

I was really happy to see Anthony Weiner mounting a comeback in American politics. While short on actual accomplishments, Weiner was a good liberal advocate in Congress. More to the point, though, I’m not really comfortable with people losing their jobs because of their marital infidelities.

Anthony Weiner (NSFW)

America has proven time and again in recent years that, in regard to sex scandals, there can be second acts in politics. Bill Clinton is the most obvious figure here, but more recently, Mark Sanford was elected to congress after stealing taxpayer money to go on a sexy excursion with then-mistress/now-wife. Even Weiner’s NYC pal, Eliot Spitzer, who had some fun with prostitutes on the public dime, is up 15 points in his primary for New York Comptroller. All three of these examples were pretty indisputably worse infidelities than Weiner sending selfies to women not named Huma. And worse still, all of the above cost taxpayer dollars which, unless you’re counting a data plan, Weiner did not do.

So I was happy to see the Weiner surge in the polls. He was up 3 points on City Councilor president Christine Quinn as recently as last week. Then he had to go and muck it up again.

If you’re not following me, yesterday Anthony Weiner had to have a press conference to talk about more sexy texties he’d sent after his resignation to a 22 year old woman, forcing himself back into a scandal he was coming out of and really making his wife look bad. Apparently, losing your seat in congress, embarrassing yourself on national television, and having to explain yourself to your pregnant wife whose mentor is America’s poster child for being cheated on wasn’t quite rock bottom for Anthony Weiner. After all that, he kept on doing the thing that brought him down.

Now, I agree with his wife, Huma Abedin, who said that this was a private matter. That said, continuing to engage in that kind of behavior after you already dragged your family through the mud, lost your job, and apologized for a thing that was none of their business anyways is kind of difficult to swallow. It is difficult to trust in your sincerity if you are back at it right after the press conference is over.

Truthfully, I hope this scandal doesn’t derail Weiner’s candidacy for mayor (though that seems unlikely, given the calls for him to pull out of the race). I fully expect that it will. While the scandal itself is really none of the public’s business, Weiner knows the rules of the road at this point. And even though sexting without actual sex is the 0.08% blood-alcohol of sex scandals, after you get pulled over for it once and lose your license for a while, it’s really your own fault if it happens again.

Mayoral candidates have exact same opinion on T service

2013-07-23T15:00:00.000-04:00

As previously mentioned, I’m a bit dissatisfied with the current crop of Mayoral candidates. That said, I’m willing to hear what they have to say, and will inevitably vote for one who loses in the run-off (looking at you, Arroyo) before being forced to choose between a corporate shill and a union hack.

But okay, currently there are a lot of candidates. I wasn’t excited to have to wade through all of their platforms, but luckily on the issue of late-night transportation, they’ve saved me the trouble by all having virtually the same position![i] And what’s that position? According to a Boston.com “Meet the Mayoral Candidates” piece, it’s that Boston should be open later.


City Councillor John Connolly. Get used to this face. He's probably your next mayor.

So every candidate agrees we should be open later. Then how do they separate themselves from each other and help us separate the almost nonexistent wheat from this ever-growing pile of chaff? Let’s read more closely and find out!

Both Felix Arroyo and John Connolly manage to use the term “24/7,” while Bill Walczak suggests we become a “24-hour city.” Mike Ross, John Barros, and Walczak all hoped for “late-night” service, while Charlotte Golar-Richie couched her position by saying she’d “strongly encourage the MBTA to make improvements to the system.” That’s lovely, candidates. Very innovative. But what are you actually planning to do?

As far as tangible ideas and proposals, John Barros came out swinging. He mentioned working with the Governor (which, to fix the T, you’d need to do) to get system the funding it needs, and proposed a student discount pass for university students, which is a really good idea given how expensive being a student in Boston is.

As far as little-substance answers that sounded good go, Connolly really did well with his answer. While he didn’t really explain how he’d fix late-night transportation, he gave really good reasons why it needed to get done. “Too often,” he said, “the debate involves only a discussion about liquor. This is really about ensuring that Boston has a rich, welcoming, and inclusive arts, culture, and social life so that we can attract and retain talent and draw visitors to create jobs and fuel our economic engine.” This answer was probably the best articulation of what Boston’s problem is – we’re the urban equivalent of Clint Eastwood in Gran Torino. Boston needs to be open late because places where good and interesting shit happens are open late. We have no parking, so public transportation is really necessary to foster that.

Bill Walczak. Businessman, community organizer,
non-profit guru. If you like Felix Arroyo
but would like your answers to have more than just
empty calories, Walczak might be your guy.

Walczak, also lacking any actual roadmap, did tip his hat to taxi drivers and service workers, advocating the former be treated better by employers and the latter be treated better by their community by providing them a way home that costs less than $30. I like what I’m hearing from this guy. He’s got a clear interest in helping working people, not just finding ways to build more condos and be friendlier to developers and businesses.

Mike Ross earned the gut-laugh of the digital town hall. “Not only will I bring late night public transit to Boston,” he said, “I’ve done it before.” For you young folk, Councilor Ross is referring to the train wreck (see what I did there) Night Owl program, which was supposed to provide bus service along some of the T lines. Here’s the thing about Night Owl: it didn’t work. At all. It was horrible. As anyone who tried using it will tell you, the Night Owl service was notorious for its unreliability. Frequently, you’d wait at a designated stop only to find the buses never came at the posted times, and you’d end up walking home another hour or two more tired than you would have been if you just hiked it in the first place. Why any mayoral candidate would trot out a failed program so embarrassing that it would blow a job interview at a Dairy Queen is beyond me. If Night Owl is what we can expect from a Ross Administration, you can go ahead and skip it.

The two most perplexing answers were from Felix Arroyo and Charlotte Golar-Richie. While Arroyo gave an answer with less actual statements in it than an interview with a baseball player, Golar-Richie said plenty… It just didn’t make a whole lot of sense. The only candidate who didn’t outright say she’d expand service, she proposed service and city improvements like better street lighting, followed by proposing a series of better information distribution, suggesting solutions like schedules, real-time updates, and an app to tell when trains are coming. Click on the links to those words and you’ll find that she’s proposing a bunch of things that already exist. I imagine she wants to improve these programs, but her answer suggested (I can’t imagine accurately) a complete lack of information about the current state of the MBTA in Boston. The problem isn’t not knowing when the train is coming. It’s knowing it’s not coming after about 12:30am.

Great answers from John Barros. His background resembles
Walczak's in a lot of ways and his answer was just
as good. Here's hoping they don't split
the thinker's ticket.

Overall, these answers don’t mean much for the future of the T. Should there be a demand for it, candidates will start rolling out more detailed explanations of how they’ll fix the ailing transportation system if they get elected. It’s certainly unreasonable to expect a full plan in a paragraph this far before the election. That said, these answers do show that candidates like Connolly (no surprise), Walczak (kind of surprised), and Barros (really surprised) are capable of making clear statements that articulate what they think is important and broader than the question asked. At the same time, we have been given another sign that Arroyo and Golar-Richie might not be ready for prime time. Most glaringly though, we’ve learned that Consalvo (my councilor) and Walsh, two pretty serious candidates, don’t feel like they have to answer questions, or at least questions that that the constituencies they already have don’t care about.

[i] Information according to the linked Boston.com article. This applies only to candidates who actually answered the question. Dan Conley, Marty Walsh, David James Wyatt, Charles Yancey, Charles Clemons, and Robert Consalvo did not. Of those, I have a feeling Walsh and Consalvo might oppose T service expansions or not feel strongly about them. I have no evidence to support this assumption. That said, I would if they answered the question posed to them by the highest traffic news page in Boston.

There’s a new royal baby. Can we all calm the hell down, please?

2013-07-23T07:55:00.001-04:00

Kate Middleton and whichever actual British Prince she is married to (I’m guessing William?) had a baby yesterday. I’m sure they’re thrilled. The American press sure is!

Huffington Post - by most accounts now a major news source - is leading this with ridiculous headline:

Boy King! I’m serious right now. An American news source is leading with the birth of the newest incarnation of an institution we oppose as a nation on principle. And what’s worse, we only do it for that royal family. There are royal families in Belgium and Spain. Where was all this press for Infanta Sofia of Spain or Princess Elisabeth, Duchess of Brabant? We don’t celebrate them. Why? Partially because they don’t speak English and we like that, but mostly because Americans are under this insane impression that we are somehow linked to Great Britain because the majority of the founding population was Anglo-Saxon. Nevermind that we aren’t anymore, or that they consciously made the decision to no longer be British and specifically avoided establishing an American royal family.

Meanwhile, under the fold on HP, we have stories about how LaGuardia Airport was temporarily closed due to a plane crash and how it is very likely that some guy is putting his dick in your food. It’s hard to argue that both of these stories are not immeasurably more important to your day-to-day life.

And HuffPo wasn’t alone in its coverage of Britain-Goes-Baby-Crazy. NBCNews.com led with the story about one baby who is really no different from other babies, too. Boston.com gave the big spot to Ed Markey basking in Liz Warren’s senatorial spotlight and gave a big image to the Red Sox losing, but worry not, royal readers! Baby coverage is still in full force, above the fold with a live blog! Somebody at Boston.com is being paid to tell you about spit-up rumors. FoxNews.com didn’t lead with it. That real estate is reserved for Obama-bashing and Republican proposals to defund stuff. It’s still above the fold though, declaring that the “World Awaits First Look At Britain’s New Prince.” The whole world, guys!

This whole ordeal reminds me of some criticism of the Boston Bomber and Trayvon Martin cases. In those cases, folks brought up murders that went uncovered, in some instances of as many or more people, after these incidents took place, and the sensationalism of focusing coverage on these specific cases when there’s so much evil in the world. In some Bizarro-World parallel universe, we’re doing the same thing with the royal baby. There are over 10,000 American babies born each day. Sometimes they’re even born to people we’ve heard of and all of them are capable of being a more powerful person in world affairs than a British prince by pure virtue of their eligibility to be the president of a much more powerful country.

The British royal family does not matter, and it really shouldn’t matter to us. It is an antiquated relic of a dead system that we helped to destroy. Getting excited about there being a new one is pretty similar to rushing out to Best Buy because you heard all your favorite new movies are being released on VHS. Celebrating royalty is essentially saying you’d prefer it if some people were born “better” than you. Since you probably don’t believe that, make a little “good for them” sound in your head (mine sounds like a very upbeat “hmph!”) and then go be nice to your kids or go crazy about the babies of your friends and neighbors. Their proximity and abilities are much more important to your life than any archaic birthright.

2013 is not Boston's year.

2013-07-22T17:06:00.000-04:00

I'm a big fan of the city of Boston.

I grew up around here. I’ve lived in the city proper for 12 years. I’ve voted in every election, been in the clubs, seen a lot of the bands, and watched all the teams. There have been few moments where I haven’t been proud to be from here, and I have a knee-jerk civic pride that borders on supporting forming our own New English nation-state and declaring Boston the capital.

With that in mind, it’s hard to say we’ve been having a very good year.

There’s the obvious thing – the bombing. The bombing was terrible, but produced a really interesting and positive reaction within the community. Boston Strong, before it was co-opted to be a synonym for “Yankees Suck” or “Fuck the Canucks,” was a really positive rallying point that definitely made me feel closer to my neighbors. But then Boston Strong became some weird money-making scheme. T-shirts with no connection to One Fund Boston have popped up everywhere, and the benefit concert went unaired due to rumored promoter opposition in hopes that they could sell a DVD, despite airing the concert live being a much more beneficial way to raise money and serving as one big advertisement for the DVD besides. So now I guess they’ll release it on a medium most people don’t use anymore long after the majority of people even care about the cause (not trying to be nasty on that last part – people have short memories and other bad things happen). The lineup also left something to be desired. While the Sandy benefit had predictably big names because of its NYC connection, Oklahoma’s Tornado fundraiser had the (granted terrible) national names like Tobey Keith and Garth Brooks. Sure, we had Aerosmith, but really, the Boston concert wasn’t exactly dripping with relevance. Names like Dropkick Murphys and NKOTB certainly have national appeal too, but they’re really local names at heart. At least Dane Cook was there. He just doesn’t ever want anyone else to see it.

Speaking of concerts, there was Outside the Box Festival on Boston Common all last week. While a noble effort for sure, the lack of serious modern acts (The Bosstones headlined? Have they put out a record since 1999?) was notable. Additionally, it was the second music festival this year on Boston civic property to be negatively effected by terrible weather. Don’t get me wrong – I’m an advocate of Outside the Box. I like it in theory, enjoyed what I saw of it, and there were acts I like that performed at it. It just disappointed me that Boston couldn’t attract more star power. (Disclaimer: I understand bands like Boys Like Girls, Buffalo Tom, and the Lemonheads have star power, but this was a highly touted weeklong event and the majority of the acts were only known by Google).

Back to the bombing, you’re surely aware by now that the surviving Boston bomber, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, is on this month’s cover of Rolling Stone, and that Greater Boston is having a conniption about it. After going through a very bad week following the Boston Marathon and seeing my neighbors and statesmen behave in generally admirable ways that made me think very highly of them, I was really disappointed at the reaction to this cover. Was it done to sell magazines? Sure. But the whole point here (I’m not sure because nobody’s selling the goddamn magazine around here) seems to be that a seemingly normal American kid became a terrorist. It’s not like they did a photoshoot with the kid. That’s what he looks like. Terrorists have been on the cover of loads of magazines. The Rolling Stone cover calls Tsarnaev a “monster.” Time Magazine called Hitler “man of the year.” And more importantly, when was the last time any of these people actually bought an issue of Rolling Stone anyway? It doesn’t seem particularly “Boston Strong,” or very American, to advocate outright boycotts of sales of a magazine that does something unpopular. If you don’t like it, don’t buy it, but don’t demonize stores for selling it. It makes this city look a weird combination of uptight and petulant.

Then there’s the Mayor’s race. Mayor Menino, who has been mayor since the James K. Polk administration, announced he wasn’t running and Boston suddenly realized that while we hadn’t needed a new mayor in a generation, we apparently have no idea who should be the next one. The coming primary, a brawl between seemingly every city council except the ones you’d expect, with a sprinkling of other unrecognizable state politicians, union guys, and agency heads, smacks of disappointment. Gone are the days of former congressmen and Boston’s leading businessfolk wading in. Where was Stephen Lynch on this? Or even Sonia Chang-Diaz? Dukakis for a twilight run? I don’t know… Couldn’t we have even shaken up a Kennedy? Maybe Chuck Turner could run? Oh right. He’s in jail. Chicago got a former White House staffer. NYC has a (disgraced) former congressman in the race. We’re voting for last call at Doyle’s. I mean seriously, who are these people?

Meanwhile, Boston’s Fourth of July celebration, due to a combination of heat, fear of terrorism and inconvenience due to new rules because of terrorism, had a reportedly very low turnout. Apparently bag searches and cooler limits are not conducive to big crowds of people sitting outside all day waiting for a show in July. Not that anybody saw the bad turnout, given that for the first time in decades, the show wasn’t aired on national television. Because what better way to honor a city in the middle of a non-violent patriotic frenzy as it reels from terrorism and had just missed out on a major fundraising opportunity due to shoddy planning by the benefit organizer than to pull it from television? Thanks, CBS. I hope CSI or Two & a Half Men or whatever you chose to air instead really killed it that night.

But don’t worry, all will be redeemed come New Year’s, when Boston – the place that invented First Night – will party like it’s 2014. Except maybe we won’t. If you missed it, First Night Boston was wildly mismanaged and shut down operations! Yeah, you read that right. The non-profit responsible for an idea that inspired a national celebration couldn’t pay for its PO Box anymore. The city is supposed to be picking up the slack, but this looks pretty bad. I hope we can afford the ice sculptures.

I guess all isn’t lost. There was clearly some good out of the response to the bombing, and events like Boston Calling are certainly promising. But in a city the mayor likes to call “world-class,” we’ve been blown up, disappeared from the national airwaves, had both our major holiday events demoted very publicly. The Bruins lost the Cup, the Celtics lost Truth and KG, the Patriots had a murderer in their midst. It’s been a weird year. But hey, there’s progress being made at the big hole in Downtown Crossing, the Red Sox are doing well, and maybe this next mayor will surprise us just like Menino did our great-great grandparents. One Fund raised $61 million. Folks like Future Boston are proposing some promising ideas for the future, and John Connolly at least seems open to them.

And most of the above things I’m complaining about were at least partially good things. My concern though is that this is the best we do. My whole life, I’ve been hearing about how Boston is “world-class” despite its closing at 4:30 in the afternoon and having only about three good pizza places, and I’ve always wanted to believe it. I still want to, but I’m not sure I do.

A Gay Citizen and a Straight Soldier

2012-11-20T21:39:00.000-05:00

I’m a very lucky man.

When I was a teenager, I was in a punk rock band. That band had five members: guitar, bass, drums, and two singers. It wasn’t very good, but that band changed my life.

I was one of the “singers” (read: screaming). The other guy was a guy named Tom. Tom was gay. We all knew he was gay, but apparently, he didn’t. He came out to us, and we accepted him because he was our friend and we already knew it. It apparently changed his life. I don’t even remember it because it was so inconsequential to me.

There was also a guy named Eric in the band. There were two other guys named Corey and Chris in the band. They are both wonderful people, but they’re inconsequential to this particular story. Eric ended up having an unexpected child, getting married, and joining the military, where he served valiantly.

Tom came out to us as a gay man. Eric came out to me as a conservative. They both accept each other, and I accept both of them. These two men are two of the most influential people in my life. I love and respect them both. They are both strong-willed and opinionated. They disagree on a lot of things, but they agree on the humanity of the other.

I am worried most of the time about how there’s no middle ground, and about how there isn’t any hope for us to find it. I’m concerned that we’ll find a way to kill each other. I’m worried about division.

Talking to both of these guys gives me a lot of hope. They occupy opposite ends of the political spectrum in a lot of ways, but they still give a shit about each other. They’ll always be friends. That gives me a lot of hope. There needs to be more Toms and more Erics. They’d be helpful in making the Matts of the world understand the grey areas that are so hard to understand.

Stories in Criminal Class, Savage Kick, book review, etc.

2012-07-09T13:03:00.002-04:00

A brief update on written work. My first published short story, "Crooked," is available now in Criminal Class Review, Vol. 5 (Chicago). You can order it here. "Crooked" involves a weak-minded drug runner, his prostitute girlfriend, and their dealings with a crooked cop in an also-ran city.

Next up, the first story I ever submitted is finally coming out in the next few months via Murder Slim Press's literary journal, The Savage Kick #6 (United Kingdom). I'm pretty excited about this one, because Savage Kick's reputation among crime-noir-terrible-people writers is sterling, and the piece they're printing is the best story I've written. The story revolves around a bad and abusive father's accidental killing of his young daughter.

I've also got a book review coming in the fall issue of The Historian, and am diligently working on a novella which I hope to finish in September.

Happy reading,

When people die, the people around them get terrible

2012-03-12T20:42:00.002-04:00

I saw a name today. It was my late sister's fiance's name. I don't think about it much, but it makes me really mad and upset when I see it.

My sister died when she was 27 years old. I've written extensively about it on this blog. I was 25. I'm 29 now - almost 30. It's been four years, and in that time I've gone from concerned to friendly and supportive to angry to arguing to not on speaking terms with her fiance. The last of those has lasted over three years.

My sister was a writer, and a prolific one. She had piles of notebooks and a hard drive full of short stories and poems. I'd like to read them. I'd like to collect the best stuff for a book for my family, but her fiance won't return emails. I suspect there might be some embarrassing stuff about him in the journals. I don't care about that. Rip that out. I just want the stories, and the stuff about her life. I want to read the only record that she ever existed. I have a handful of poems and a few pictures, and nothing else to prove she was ever even here. What kind of person does that to a family? What kind of person takes all of a person's record and buries it?

Her fiance met a woman on the internet and was married within six months of her death. He moved to Chicago with her life insurance policy. He got married on the week she was born - maybe even the day.

Hundreds of pages of stories and poems remain languishing on hard drives and in note books. Some have probably been deleted, some thrown away. But there might be some left out there, and I want to read them. I want a little record that she ever existed in the first place.

What kind of person does that? What kind of person wants to bury the memory of Amanda Wilding?