THE BOSTON PHOENIX *

MORE TURMOIL AT FIDELITY

Another week, another top-level shake- up at Fidelity Capital’s Community News- paper Company (CNC).

The latest departure from

the 97-newspaper chain is

Rick Manning, who’s been

editor of CNC’s Tab group

for the past three years. Fi-

delity Capital vice-president Karen Ernst

confirmed on Wednesday afternoon that

Manning had resigned, just as word was

starting to trickle through the Tab’s news- room, in Needham.

Neither side would discuss what led to the exit of Manning, a former editor of the Bos- ton Business Journal and former correspon- dent for Newsweek who was kicked out of South Africa for his tough reporting during the heyday of apartheid. Man- ning wrote a book about his experi- ences, They Can- not Kill Us All: An Eyewitness Ac- count of South Africa Today, which was pub- lished in 1987 by Houghton Mifflin.

Manning’s res- ignation came ex- MANNING actly a week after

the departure of Bill Castle, editor of CNC’s North Shore group for the past year and a half.

Says Castle of his own situation: “It was mutually agreed upon because of different visions of how to develop the papers’ edito- rial content. And it was amicable.” Castle, a respected newsman who was business edi- tor of the Boston Herald before taking the North Shore position, will stick around as a consultant until June 8.

North Shore publisher Chuck Goodrich did not respond to requests for comment about Castle. But in an internal memo ob- tained by the Phoenix, Goodrich told his troops: “Bill has played a central role in our editorial department during the past 18 months. . . . He maintained a standard of editorial excellence which I hope we'll build upon in the future.”

According to North Shore insiders, Cas- tle’s short tenure was tumultuous, as he tried to improve weekly newspapers he be- lieved had grown complacent. “He did a great job without any resources to work with. He came in with six-guns blazing. Some of the editors never forgave him for that,” says one source.

Another, though, says Castle was “very abrasive,” and ended up alienating people he needed to win over.

Meanwhile, Vicki Ogden, publisher of CNC’s Cape Cod group, has been replaced as chairwoman of CNC’s Editorial Council by Asa Cole, publisher of the Middlesex group. Ernst says Ogden has drawn the as- signment of integrating Cape Cod with CNC’s newly acquired Mariner papers, on the South Shore.

In any event, Cole’s chairmanship is tem- porary: the position will be abolished when CNC hires an editor-in-chief. Ernst says the search for that top editor, as well as for the vacant positions of CNC president and chief financial officer, continues.

— Dan Kennedy

NUCLEAR POWER: A RIP-OFF?

Boston Edison ratepayers would shell out less for their electric bills if the energy company pulled the plug on the Pilgrim nuclear plant and got its power from other sources, according to a report re- leased by a national con-

sumer-advocacy group.

JEFF THIEBAUTH

Scam

alert

Pilgrim is among 57 nuclear power plants nationwide whose operating and maintenance costs exceed the cost of re- placement power, according to “A Roll of the Dice,” a report published by Public Citizen, the Ralph Nader-founded watch- dog organization. Replacement power is the energy Pilgrim’s owner, Boston Edi- son, buys from other sources to meet power needs during temporary shut- downs. (Pilgrim has had nearly 200 of those shutdowns since it opened, in 1972.)

The average Boston Edison residential ratepayer, who in 1994 paid $749 for electricity, could save at least $25 annual- ly if Boston Edison got its power from sources other than the aging nuclear plant in Plymouth, figures from the re- port suggest.

So why are ratepayers being forced to pay the higher rates for electricity from nuclear power plants such as Pilgrim, when cheaper sources are available? The answer, Public Citizen concludes, is greed.

“Boston Edison has spent hundreds of million of dollars in the last several years to get Pilgrim into operating shape and keep it running,” says Bill Magavern, di- rector of Public Citizen’s Critical Mass Energy Project. “That money is recovered by Boston Edison by putting it in the rate base and making consumers pay for it,” Magavern says.

Moreover, he adds, “the utility share- holders want to keep the plant open in or- der to recover their initial investment. And by continuing to run it, they make the ratepayers bear that burden.”

Pilgrim spokeswoman Peggy Markson challenges the report’s findings, saying

SECTION ONE *

‘ »F

MAY 19,

that Public Citizen looked only at a small window of time when it examined replace- ment-power costs. “The cost of replace- ment power does fluctuate. It’s not always going to be lower,” she says.

Magavern counters that Public Citizen used the Nuclear Regulatory Commis- sion’s most recent replacement-energy cost figures. “If we had gone further back in time, Pilgrim would have fared worse,” he says.

— Tim Sandler

GLOBE'S COLLEGE OP-EDS GET 'F’

The idea wasn’t bad: give a few college students space on the op-ed page. But the Boston Globe, perhaps trying too hard to

pull in a younger crowd, went overboard Saturday by billing the page as some kind of communiqué from a “new generation.”

Under the headline THE WORLD’S PERILS FALL ON A NEW GENERATION, four students recruited from Harvard, Northeastern, Yale, and Boston University wrote about e-mail, told us what twentysomethings carry in backpacks, and offered a point- counterpoint on affirmative action. Only Harvard’s David Brown distinguished himself, with a well-written defense of af- firmative action.

In response, Northeastern’s Jay Pinson- nault starts his rant on the evils of “this government-installed system” with: “Racism actively exists as we approach the

NH'S CHANNEL 9 AND THE GOP

Look forward to more political parti- sanship from the Granite State’s largest TV station heading into next year’s New

Hampshire primary.

WMUR-Channel 9 political

reporter Carl Cameron re-

cently served as master of ceremonies for a Republican Party fundraiser, but insists it doesn’t compro- mise his journalistic credibility.

Cameron's station has long been criticized for its coziness with New Hampshire’s Republican establishment. Some have even taken to calling the sta- tion “WGOP.”

“I haven’t gotten any indication that everyone thinks that’s the case,” says Cameron about the charge of partisan- ship. He claims he has also participated in Democratic fundraisers: “In 1992, during the presidential campaign, I was involved in the Jefferson Day Dinner for the Democrats.”

Not so, says New Hampshire House Democrat Ray Buckley, who directed the state Democratic Party in 1992: “No staff member for WMUR has ever appeared on stage at any Democratic Party fundraiser or activity in the past 20 years, since I have been on the state committee. But it is not unusual for WMUR employ- ees to appear at Republican functions.

“This is the same WMUR that, in 1988, may have made the historic differ- ence in the presidential primary,” adds Buckley. “It was then-governor John Su- nunu’s close personal relationship’ with then-station manager Miles Resnick that gave Sununu the ability to come in after hours in the final weekend, when the sales office was closed, to put a new com- mercial on the air for George Bush. The ad attacked Bush’s opponent, Bob Dole, but the station gave Dole no opportunity to respond. So Channel 9’s involvement in Republican Party politics has made a tremendous impact in the past. I wouldn’t be surprised if it made equal contribu- tions in the future.”

It’s not unusual for journalists to partic- ipate with politicians in charity events, de-

bates, and nonpartisan forums. But even Cameron admits he has not heard of other political reporters appearing on stage at party fundraisers. He dismisses the sugges-

1995

21st century, and it should not.” BU’s Trevor Hughes, in defense of e-mail, of- fers up this tidbit: “Can we no longer re- member how to peel a banana because they can be bought in a restaurant?” And Yale freshman Caitlin Plunkett writes about how people her age stuff their back- packs with tools for “our protection against the world and its always-present dangers.” These include a soda-can tab, “a sexual talisman.” According to Plunkett, “Ask anyone under 25 and they’ll tell you that if you can remove a tab from a soda intact you are guaranteed to get lucky soon.” (In an unscientific Phoenix poll of two dozen twentysomethings, four of those surveyed had heard of the can thing, a handful claimed sexual power was actu- ally connected to green M&Ms, and the majority had absolutely no idea what any of this was about.)

Boston Globe op-ed editor Marjorie Pritchard dreamed up the college-themed page, and says she wants to do it again. Her assistant recruited writers though the public-relations offices and newspapers of the schools. Pritchard said the columns shouldn’t be considered anything more than the opinions of four students.

“I’m not asking them to represent the whole college generation,” she says. “It’s an opinion page.”

The well-intentioned Globies showed once again how hard it is for one genera- tion to pin down another. A few years ago, remember, an enterprising New York Times reporter was duped by a prankster who passed off such terms as “hobnob- bler” for grunge lingo. Only after the Times published the story did the reporter learn of the prank.

— Geoff Edgers

tion that he may be too close to the power- ful people he covers. He boasts, “I know all of the candidates I cover very well.”

— Al Giordano

MARI SPIRITO

UNPLUGGED: Alice K.’s e-mail adventure. Styles, page 3.

ARTS

10 11

24 HOT DOTS 31 ART LISTINGS 37 OFF THERECORD 39° FILM STRIPS GOOD, BAD, AND UGLY: Bruce witis,

THE BOSTON PHOENIX + SECTION ONE © MAY 19,

LETTERS

On Catholics in revolt, terrorism American style, Geoff Edgers’s defense of porn, and Knapp on names.

PHOENIX FLASHBACKS

FREEDOM WATCH by Tim Sandler

Despite mounting evidence of a slave trade conducted by Muslims in Sudan, the Congressional Black Caucus is disturbingly silent. Do caucus members fear alienating the Muslims in their constituencies?

DON’T QUOTE ME by Dan Kennedy The E! cable channel’s Talk Soup is the culmination of a trend: a virtual media world with no frame of reference other than itself.

CLINTON AGONISTES by Richard Reeves

A noted journalist and political biographer speaks with Bill Clinton and discovers multiple presidents: a leader one day, a self-pitier the next, and, through it all, a populist whose passion for connecting with the people reflects a desperate need to be at the center of attention. (Story continued from the cover.) STAND AND DELIVER by Robert Keough

As the Boston School Committee searches for a new superintendent, the city’s schools could be set for real, constructive reform. If, that is, the committee manages to avoid its usual comedy of errors.

CITYSCAPE by Sarah McNaught

Meet the women of St. Mary’s — strong, single, and struggling to raise their newborns in a tough urban environment. The newly renovated Wom- en and Infants Center, in Dorchester, has become a supportive home to more than 100 pregnant teens and troubled young mothers.

A 2 BEST BUYS by Molly Confer 220, Chances are, you haven’t been yearning for an egg cabinet — but you will be, once you check out this

one from Pottery Barn. Also in our roundup: scraps of rare paper, the perfect brass plant mister, and a spiral-bound cookbook that'll organize your recipe clippings. 3 OUT THERE by Caroline Knapp Alice K. is back. And she’s getting herself into major hot water with Ruth E. and Jean-Paul (. 3 THE STRAIGHT DOPE by Cecil Adams 4 LOW-PRICED DINING AT LOCAL HOT SPOTS by René Becker Boston’s restaurant scene is livelier than it’s been in years, but can be a strain on the wallet. So here’s a solution: a food connoisseur’s guide to dining inexpensively at some of the most enticing eateries around. 6 THE ZEN OF URBAN GARDENING by Jane Brown Bambery Why would a sane person expend valuable energy tilling a little patch of ground in a busy city? If you have to ask, you haven’t tuned in to the gardening Zen. 9 DINING OUT Il Panino’s bistro downtown, reports Robert Nadeau, is a many-splendored place, with fresh ingredi- ents gracefully assembled into dishes that’ll make you sigh. Plus, DJ’s Supermarket, in Dorchester, home of the hefty sandwich. And the generous Caribbean brunch at the Copley Plaza Hotel. 10 DINING GUIDE Stepping out and filling up: our expanded, neighborhood-by-neighborhood guide to local restaurants. 16 THE PUZZLE by Don Rubin 17 CLASSIFIEDS

8 DAYS A WEEK

Pay a visit to our listings before you step out. Turn to “Flicks in a Flash,” Boston’s most inven- tive film guide, and read “State of the Art” for news of the arts world. And in “Next Weekend,” Matt Ashare assures you that, yes, a descendant of Herman Melville will be appearing at Axis — the name is Moby.

FILM

All the summer movies that are fit to print, and then some, can be found in Peter Keough’s roundup. Meanwhile, Burnt by the Sun and A Little Princess get thumbs up. Plus, Crimson Tide, New Jersey Drive, and The Wooden Bride.

ART

At the ICA, sculptor Rachel Whiteread demonstrates the importance of negative space. Cate McQuaid explains.

THEATER

Carolyn Clay talks with Esther Rolle about her upcoming appearance in A Raisin in the Sun. Plus, Avner the Eccentric, The Baltimore Waltz, and Joyride.

MUSIC

The Mississippi blues are coming to the House of Blues, and Ted Drozdowski tells you all about the performers. “Cellars by Starlight” focuses on Jasper & the Prodigal Suns and Ed’s Redeeming Qualities. Plus, the Cranberries, Chris Isaak, Johnette Napolitano and Holly Vin- cent, Jad Fair of Half Japanese, John Zorn’s Cobra and Painkiller, and a report from the 26th annual Jazz & Heritage Festival, in New Orleans.

25 LISTINGS 34 PLAY BY PLAY 38 FILM LISTINGS on the big screen this summer. Arts, page 6.

NEWS PHOTO BY PAUL DRAKE; ILLUSTRATION BY DAVID SIPRESS

THE BOSTON PHOENIX + SECTION ONE *

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BOSTON + WORCESTER + PROVIDENCE

VOL. XXIV, NO. 20

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CATHOLICS IN REVOLT

The great irony of James Carroll’s tirade (“The Pope Is Wrong!,” News, April 14) is illustrated by its setting. The big banner headline and opening statement (“a nar- row-minded man obsessed with sexual is- sues and hypnotized with celebrity is squan- dering [the Church’s] future and ours”) ap- pear on the front page, beneath a picture of a rock star and above a sign referring proudly to the notion that “One in Ten” people are ho- mosexuals.

That front page graces a section of “news,” but that week’s Phoenix had five sec- tions, the other four be- ing Arts & Entertain- ment, Styles (consumer

1995

Samuel Blumenfeld, and pro-life activist Dr. Mildred Jefferson.

In early January, Chip Berlet of the Cam- bridge-based Political Research Associates wrote an article in the Boston Globe in which he blamed “the rhetoric” of those who spoke at the meeting as the motivation behind the abortion-clinic shooting in Brookline. I ex- plained to Mr. Berlet and to the Globe that there was indeed a connection: the security guard who stopped the accused gunman had a table at a similar meeting sponsored by the same company that sponsored the Burling- ton High School meeting.

In the wake of the tragedy in Oklahoma and with the need for local papers to have a local angle, the meeting in Burlington High School is once again being looked at through the jaundiced eyes of reporters who seem to have an ax to grind. No one who participated in the Burlington High School meeting advo- cated violence. Yet we are once again being denounced by the media. Our goal is to edu- cate the electorate. And with informed citi-

BRUCE GIFFIN zens, we plan to change public policy. We employ legal, moral, and tasteful means to accomplish that goal.

The militia movement in New England and around the country is a natural reaction to the ever-growing and ever- powerful federal govern- ment. However, it is the wrong approach. The militias are preparing to lose by heading for the hills with guns and gro- ceries. We are planning to win. Not through acts

come-ons, lots of peér- MILITIA: how close to home? of terrorism and vio-

sonal ads, classifieds,

and two thoughtful features), One in Ten (identity defined by sexual practices, albeit with tasteful features), and Adult Entertain- ment (almost entirely devoted to commer- cial sex). Needless to say, all five sections celebrated fame on nearly every page.

Now, who is it that is “obsessed with sex- ual issues and hypnotized with celebrity”?

The Church is doing a great deal in the world, and the rest of the world knows it, but in America we report and resent only the Pope’s pronouncements on our favorite topic: sex. A true American, Carroll obsess- es over sex throughout his article, and does not neglect to deliver the standard “What do celibates know about sexuality?” jab. If a celibate man argued for abortion rights, would Carroll taunt that man with his absti- nence? If a woman, a feminist who had chosen lifelong celibacy, argued for or against abortion, would Carroll dare conde- scend to her decision and opinion?

Critics like Carroll sometimes sound less like reformers than like shills for a culture that confuses life with “lifestyle” and liberation with mere liberalism. John Paul II may be wrong about contraception and abortion — as I think he is, though perhaps not for the same reasons as Mr. Carroll — but he is absolutely right to decry the materialist “culture of death” that is the fruit of our consumer society.

In the end, Carroll and I — and millions of other American Catholics — probably agree more than we disagree. For example, many of us wish that the frightened Church of the 19th century, intimidated by a centu- ry of revolutions, hadn’t sought comfort in dogmatic pronouncements — including the notorious and silly idea of infallibility. But Carroll’s “renewal movement” includes a few rather dogmatic parties, too, and the spiritual and social renewal of the Church will require compromises from all sides.

William Craig TERRORISM Canaan, NH AMERICAN STYLE

Tim Sandler’s “Could It Happen Here?” (News, April 28) is tantamount to throwing gasoline on a fire. Mr. Sandler reported about a meeting that took place at Burling- ton High School last November where I spoke and manned an information table. Others who participated included Bruce Chesley of Jews for the Preservation of Firearm Ownership, educator and author

lence, but through our grassroots educational program. Though I have many disagreements with the militias, I think the media are unfairly maligning a group of decent, law-abiding Americans be- cause of the actions of a handful» Boston Herald columnist and talk-show host Howie Carr was rightfully taken to task after his ra- dio program blaming Muslims in general for the bombing. He apologized. But for some reason I don’t expect the media to apologize for their feeding frenzy against all who refuse to idolize big government and wor- ship at the altar of the UN. Harold S. Shurtleff New England Coordinator The John Birch Society Hyde Park

Editor’s note: Shortly after we received this letter, police discovered the ingredients of a fertilizer bomb, weapons, 1000 rounds of ammunition, and anti-government literature in the home of a Norwood man, a member of the John Birch Society who hosted monthly meetings. Shurtleff says the man’s membership has been terminated.

I want to thank Tim Sandler for his ex- cellent report about the visit of the New Hampshire militia’s Edward Brown to the Patriot Convention last November at the Burlington High School. The convention call was to “learn to reclaim our Constitu- tional rights.” As if our rights were already lost. | know of no other country with more freedoms than we now enjoy.

At the Patriot Convention, not one of the speakers had anything good to say about our government. Two people spoke against our public-school system. One was for the return of the three R’s, and the other ranted against sex education. One of the other speakers was a defender of the Second Amendment, the right of citizens to keep and bear arms, which is not supported by the Supreme Court. The anti-abortion speaker was also against our government’s policy. The John Birch speaker comes from a long line of be- lievers who oppose the alleged control of the US by international bankers and others who support the New World Order.

The John Birch Society, the Christian Coalition, Concerned Women of America,

and their program supporters hired the hall |

in Burlington. The hall could hold about

Continued on page 8 |

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500 seats. They collectively could attract only 50 to 75 people. They did, however, record the event on video, so it could be shown to others at a later date.

The paranoia about the government may seem to be widespread, but most people seek only to reform the system. Our best defense is to make our political and eco- nomic system work.

Hollis Mosher Braintree

In a text box accompanying your “Ter- rorism American Style” articles (News, April 28), Beth Hawkins implied that jury advocates [those who say juries should be allowed to interpret and revise laws they find unfair) are dominated by the religious right. This is not true.

I am the Massachusetts coordinator for the Fully Informed Jury Association. Since age 14, I have been an atheist. I do not be- lieve in ghosts, goblins, an afterlife, or any- thing supernatural. Politically, I am a liber- tarian. I advocate self-ownership, the right to die, and drug and prostitution legaliza- tion. Just try to label me conservative!

The truth is, jury nullification [of laws] is supported by Americans of all kinds. Or- ganized groups working to spread the word about jury nullification include state chapters of the National Organization of Women as well as many conservative anti- tax associations. Jury nullification was used by informed citizens in the days of slavery to stop the fugitive-slave laws, and during alcohol prohibition to stop liquor- law prosecutions. Just because a morally conservative group supports jury nullifica- tion, it does not mean that conservatives have exclusive ownership of the practice.

Jeffrey Chase Cambridge

Just when our attention span for O.]. flags, the bombing happens. And American newscasters, including those of the Phoenix, bulk us up with a new, if shaky, kind of “patriotism,” milking the Okla-

THE BOSTON PHOENIX *

homa City moment for all it’s worth, even as truly spectacular body counts elsewhere — say, in Africa — dwarf those they feed us here at regular intervals.

Notwithstanding Barry Crimmins’s “One World” concept (“The Heartland Is Full of Hate,” News, April 28), those other body counts don’t count much, in light of Ameri- can patriotism. Unfortunately, no buried- barely-alive survivors were found in Okla- homa to supply emotional counterpoint to the eking of each dead body from the rub- ble. Just one beating pulse would warm our hearts in the-proper fashion, and spawn.a thousand spin- off stories that would keep us all “connected” for weeks.

What is it that engen- ders such emotional pan- dering? Our common English language with the victims in Oklahoma City? Or the new buzz- word, “Heartland,” which apparently is sup- posed to move us in the same way “Mom” does? The Waco incident, pre- cipitated by acts of the government, in which in- nocent children also died, was not given such bleeding-heart treatment. After all, those people, maybe even the children, were weirdos — indeed, criminals, and, at best, suspects — not like us media-pre- sumed patriots, who love and respect, if not the lives of weirdos, then law and order.

It’s unfortunate Waco was adopted by the bombers as a cause for vengeance, because the incident has never been adequately dealt with, especially by the government. Now Waco will meld with the bombing in the minds of the public. Now those who died in Waco, discounting Koresh and his officers, will be forever heaped into the’countless, murdered multitudes who don’t warrant enough of our attention simply because their stories just don’t play quite right.

John Weissman SCORN

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GUYS will be guys?

MAY 19, 1995 to his “Plea for Porn” (Styles, May 4), he actually believes that in the gender politics of pornography, men and women are equal.

Pornography is produced and consumed by men, and it is men who profit by it. Sure, the women who pose are paid (and in the case of Playboy’s “Women of the Ivy League” feature, not very much), but at the end of the day, who really receives the lion’s share of the billions of dollars in profits? Men like Hugh Hefner and Bob Guccione, that’s who.

Mr. Edgers accepts the objectification of women as normal and healthy. To support this ludicrous claim, he points to the “fact” that women’s geni- talia are more attractive than men’s. When was this handed down as a univer- sal truth? I have a sneak- ing suspicion that the same men who have a vested in- terest in pornography have a great deal to do with what images are consid- ered “sexy.” And because their profits are made at the expense of women, they are certainly not friends of women’s rights.

The real issue here is acknowledging that the objectification of women is a learned social process. Little boys are taught from a very early age that looking at (and ultimately desiring) women with little or no regard for their intellect or emotions is entirely acceptable.

As far as [Harvard student] Amanda Proctor is concerned, it is certainly true that she did have a choice in whether or not to pose for Playboy. But that she has been shunned by friends and classmates is telling of the contradictory, hypocritical American attitudes about sex. I’ve abso- lutely no doubt that the same men who would purchase Playboy to look at her nakedness condemn her as a “slut” or “whore” because of it. What’s important to remember is that a) no woman is a “slut” because she is photographed for porno- graphic magazines (the men should take a long look in the mirror and consider why they feel the need to consume pornogra-

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phy), and b) many women do not have a choice and are forced into pornography. I’m sure those women would love to dis- cuss the wonders of objectification with Mr. Edgers. Except that he would be busy ogling their breasts. Sara Bennett Boston

Geoff Edgers forgot to mention that Camille Paglia has been quoted as en- dorsing all types of pornography, includ- ing child pornography. Does Mr. | Edgers’s explanation that it is just in men’s nature carry over to that as well? Does he think that some types of pornography are harmless and others are not?

The attitude that that’s just the way things are doesn’t sit well with me because it implies that things can’t change. It is the same attitude regarding urban violence. If we really believe that degrading images don’t hurt anyone, than why stop at pornography? Would swastikas be includ- ed in his light-hearted approach? If this analogy seems extreme, we must ask our- selves why women are exempt from such consideration.

Mr. Edgers doesn’t give much credit to men at all. Yes, they have eyes, but they have minds, too.

RAP ON KNAPP

I usually turn to Caroline Knapp’s col- umn first thing on getting my copy of the Phoenix, looking forward to her wit and good writing. So I was more than a little taken aback by “Peeve Central” (“Out There,” Styles, April 7).

Knapp’s “peeves” about the names of re- porters on National Public Radio are just good old home-variety racism under the guise of humor. What kind of names are Sunni Khalid and Maria Hinojosa? Ameri- can, of course, as American as Caroline Knapp. Although not all of her readers are white Anglo-Saxons with names like hers, we are Americans all the same. And we ex- pect to be treated as such.

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Phoenix

FLASHBACKS

The Boston Phoenix has been covering the trends and events that define our times since 1966. The following selections, com- piled by Tanya Napier, were culled from our back files.

FREE WILLY

Five years ago: May 18, 1990

» Following the release of Cadillac Man, Peter Keough attempted the impossible. His effort to get a serious word out of actor Robin Williams surely created more ques- tions than it answered.

“San Fran- cisco. Robin Williams enters ; . : a small room full of journal- WILLIAMS, that ists, and before zany jokester. he’s asked a question, before he even sits down, he does the following:

“1) Leads the group as a class in jour- nalism 1-B. (‘Please bring your recorders forward. Remember to always push down the button and make sure the red light is on.’) ;

“2) Enacts the fate of Chester, Cadillac Man’s leading dog, in the paws of a couple of tough New York City street cats.

“3) Allows his penis to get the upper hand in the interview. (‘Stop, let me tell him! I know more! Help, I’m stuck in the fly! Let me out!’)”

COMPLEX CARBOHYDRATES

10 years ago: May 21, 1985

» While Boston eateries demonstrated

their “nouvelle” fondness for complex cui- | sine, Michael Gee went hunting for a sim-

ple ham ’n’ swiss.

“Unfortunately, many people have con- fused appreciation of the finer things with a concern for complexity, and, in the confusion, food has somehow become mixed up with fashion. As a result, it’s increasingly difficult to eat something without having to endure a lot of annoying complications.

“People are even out to improve on Mother Nature’s perfect food creations. The marvel of a New England summer is a fresh, ripe tomato, so what are people || serving now? Things called sun-dried tomatoes, which, as far as I can tell, are tomatoes that go past overripe, into a || world of their own. What will be the fad this August, sun-dried corn on the cob?”

| WHEELS OF FORTUNE

|| 15 years ago: May 20, 1980

|| » D.C. Denison examined the glamor- ization of the trucking industry. The word “driver” was taking on a whole new

| significance.

“Trucking instructor Wayne Lemmler is

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only too aware that the trucking business isn’t what it used to be. ‘In some places, you have to have a résumé to get a job driv- ing a truck,’ he says, shaking his head in disbelief.

“ “It’s really gotten to the point where you hear two truckers sitting in a bar talk- ing about their golf game. The rigs are get- ting more expensive, too: now they’re worth anywhere from $80,000 to $150,000; some of them have automatic transmissions — even toilets!’ ”

SIMON SAYS...

20 years ago: May 20, 1975

» As she openly admired her own cover- girl curves, Carly Simon confirmed suspi- cions that her song “You’re So Vain” is in- deed about . . . Carly Simon. David Moran was not as enamored.

“ ‘Aggressive white Jewish-American princess, good body, seeks famous males for emotional S&M, song material, and spanking.’ Is Carly Simon more than a per- sonal ad? On the basis of her new record, the answer seems to be yes.

“Playing Possum is different from Simon’s previous releases: the lyrics aren’t all self-ref- erential, the vocals aren’t all brays, and the melodies aren’t all clum- sy and forced.

“Yet the re- pellent cover brings the lis- tener back to the star: long, Swe «skinny Carly . in black neg- CARLY: who did ligee, hoes. she say is vain? bottom bare,

eyes closed, lips pursed, doing a little bump and grind on her knees. Of this photo she says, ‘If it wasn’t me, I’d probably be turned on.’”

PRAXIS MAKES PERFECT

25 years ago: May 19, 1970

» Larry Hirschhorn had some dishearten- ing words, not to mention cruel compar- isons, to offer student strikers.

“Were the students during the past week any more coordinated in their ac- tions than Nixon was in his? When the spontaneity was exhausted, and the as- tonishment gone, what in fact did the students do? Of the actions open to them, which did they take? It was pre- cisely at this point that many were stymied: it was never clearer that student consciousness still lacks a theory of praxis.”

Where are they now?

Peter Keough is film editor at the Boston Phoenix. Michael Gee is sports columnist for the Boston Herald. D.C. Denison is a columnist for the Boston Globe Magazine. David Moran is a writer and editor in the computer industry.

S\PRESS© 45

ewes

THE BOSTON PHOENIX. °

HOM Wh

peak no evil

Why are African-American leaders silent about slavery in Sudan?

by Tim Sandler

t wasn’t the first time members of the Congressional Black Caucus had heard — and done nothing about — Sudan’s dirty secret. Even before a recent House in- ternational-relations subcommittee hear- ing on human-rights violations in Sudan, they knew that kidnapping and slavery had become a barbarous byproduct of Sudan’s bloody holy war.

Reports from escaped slaves, exiles, and human-rights activists have docu- mented, in the past few years, a disturb- ing demographic feature not found in any Central Africa travel guide: the going rate for black child slaves is between $15 and $200, depending on physical condition and the region in which their Arab Mus- lim masters buy them. Sometimes they’re branded. Sometimes they’re traded for chickens or given as gifts.

But some influential Muslim leaders in the US dismiss the stories of slavery as fiction. And that’s why, critics say, the Caucus has been reluctant to speak out. Still, as Black Caucus members remain mum, accounts of Sudan’s slavery con- tinue to emerge.

For instance, two recent reports, one

by the State Department and another by the United Nations Commission on Hu- man Rights, have informed US leaders how the Sudanese militia conducts its no- torious sweeps of black Christian areas in the south and Nuba Mountain region. Women and children are kidnapped and brought north, where they are sold or given away, the reports state. Many cap- tives are used in the fields by day, and in their masters’ beds at night.

And when the Reverend Macram Max Gassis, an exiled Catholic bishop from Sudan, testified before the international- relations subcommittee on Africa last March, he gave House members what was perhaps the most vivid and com- pelling account they had yet heard.

“I was personally instrumental in the liberation of over 50 children who were abducted by the regime,” he said solemn- ly, citing a litany of recently documented instances of slavery.

At least two Black Caucus members, New Jersey Democrat Donald Payne (who is also chairman of the Caucus) and Florida Democrat Alcee Hastings, lis- tened as the bishop pleaded with them to initiate something: an arms and oil em- bargo, economic sanctions, a UN resolu- tion. Something.

See FREEDOM, page 12

RICHARD McGILL

SECTION ONE «

MAY 19,

1995

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ECTION ONE »

Freedom

Continued from page 11

“How can the international community tolerate this?” he asked. “How can your committee be satisfied to do nothing oth- er than review, annually, the horrific re- ports that come regularly . . . about the situation in Sudan?”

It was an appeal that the human-rights activists who brought Gassis to the hear- ing had hoped would resonate deeply with the legislators. At the very least, they hoped, it would set off an alarm among Black Caucus members. Who would be better to voice moral outrage about Su- danese servitude, they thought, than the descendants of American slaves?

MAY

Fear of Muslim groups?

But the most noticeable silence after the hearing came from those same Black Caucus members, who did not so much as issue a press release. And now, under fire from human-rights activists and a growing number of African-American journalists, Black Caucus members are squirming.

Payne’s foreign-affairs adviser, Frank Kiehne, offers this explanation for the chairman’s inaction: “We have limited re- sources. We’re stretched 15 different ways. We can’t solve every problem in the world. It doesn’t mean we’re not concerned.”

Georgia Democrat Cynthia McKinney, a member of the international relations committe and also a member of the Black Caucus, is similarly evasive. In Cam- bridge earlier this month to deliver the keynote address for the Massachusetts Peace Action awards ceremony, McKin- ney repeatedly declined to respond to in- quiries about slavery in Sudan.

Considering the force with which African-American leaders challenged apartheid in South Africa a decade ago, the Black Caucus’s response to slavery in

Sudan is at best curious. But critics sug- gest that slavery in Sudan isn’t as black- and-white an issue as apartheid in South Africa was.

Religion has made this a politically thorny subject, observers contend. African-American leaders, some say, fear that they will alienate and infuriate their Muslim constituency in the US (read: the Nation of Islam, which has dismissed the allegations of slavery as “propagan- da”) if they condemn slavery by Su- danese Muslims.

“I think the fear of polarizing the black community is keeping them from re- sponding to cries for help,” says the Rev- erend Steven Snyder, president of Chris- tian Solidarity International, the human- rights group that brought Gassis to Washington as part of an international delegation.

But Snyder rejects that reasoning. On the contrary, he says, “I think this would tend to galvanize the black community. And the Black Caucus would provide an extreme amount of leverage in helping the southern Sudanese people if [the Caucus] were to become vocal on this issue.”

Black leaders evasive

It’s that sort of leverage that Represen- tative Frank Wolf, a white Republican from Virginia, has not been able to apply alone. For the last few years, Wolf has been the only member of Congress who has outspokenly condemned slavery and other human-rights violations in Sudan.

And as he has railed against slavery and tried to drum up interest in the US, he has discovered that the Black Caucus is not alone among African-American lead-

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ers in evading the issue.

In 1993, for instance, Wolf wrote to then- NAACP executive director Benjamin Chavis Jr. He alerted Chavis to an alarm- ing State Department cable he had re- cently received that detailed kidnapping and slavery in Sudan. At the bottom of the letter, Wolf penned a personal plea: “Will you help?”

Chavis did not reply. Nor did Randall Robinson, executive director of the influ-

TESTIMONY

ential group TransAfrica, to whom Wolf sent a similar letter.

Charles Jacobs, research director for the Washington-based American Anti- Slavery Group, has met the same re- sponse from other black leaders, most notably, he says, Jesse Jackson. “After I sent him a package of material docu- menting Sudan’s slavery, I called Jesse Jackson’s office and his spokesman let slip, after much exacerbating debate, that Jackson wouldn’t touch the issue because it seems to be anti-Arab,” Jacobs says. (Jackson’s office declined a request from the Phoenix for comment on the slavery issue.)

“We’re at least in shock,” says Jacobs of the dispassion black leaders in the US have shown. “You could say for some time that they didn’t know. But now they know. Our office has sent to every member of the Caucus documents, letters, and photos. Zero response. I have personally spoken to three black congressmen. Their response was, ‘Good work, son. Keep in touch.’ ”

Nevertheless, Jacobs is hopeful that the rising tide of evidence will ultimately con- vince African-American leaders to take up the cause.

How well-placed Jacobs’s optimism is

| TESTIMONY

remains to be seen. But one recent devel- opment isn’t promising.

On May 21, in New York City, a coali- tion of human-rights advocates will hold the first anti-slavery conference to take place in this country in 130 years. Bishop Gassis, exiled Sudanese officials, eyewit- nesses, and prominent activists from around the world will be among those speaking. Jackson, Robinson, and Black- Caucus chairman Payne (or a caucus proxy) were all invited to attend. At press time, none had accepted the invitation. In lieu of a personal appearance, Payne has sent word that he plans to release a statement of support to be read at the conference. Q

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NATICK Filene’s Rte. 9 Natick Mall

NEWTON Filene’s Chestnut Hill Mall

NORTHBORO Video Dimensions 367 W. Main Street

NORTHAMPTON Video Home Studio 21 Locust Street

NORTH ATTLEBORO Filene’s Emerald Square Mall

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Why is there a service charge on tickets? Service charges pay for the costs incurred by Ticketmaster in bringing tickets into your neighborhood via our outlets and into your home via the telephone — seven days a week. We fulfill that responsibility with a staff of 4000 and the most sophisticated computer technolo- gy. The end result is value and convenience for customers who would otherwise be forced to travel to the box office.

How are service charges set? Ticketmaster does not unilaterally determine service charges. As a concessionaire we negotiate our fees with arena operators, promoters, and others based on our costs, which vary by event. Handling a major rock band tour that sells hundreds of thousands of tickets in one day, for instance, requires a much bigger commitment than a routine sports or family event. Ticketmaster also remits a portion of its revenue to arenas, just like other concessionaires such as Coca- Cola and Budweiser.

Do I have a choice in how much of a con- venience charge I pay? Yes. As a ticket buyer you usually have three options: You can buy your tickets at the box office and typically pay no service charge. You can travel to an outlet, where you will pay a very modest service charge. Or your can take advantage of the ulti- mate convenience and order by telephone. The telephone service carries a higher fee, but the choice among the services is yours.

Why are ticket prices so high? Ticket prices are set by the performers and their representa- tives, not Ticketmaster. But we have always been flexible in negotiating our charges. Over the past year alone, acts as wide-ranging as Eric Clapton and Green Day mounted modest- ly-priced tours in conjunction with Ticketmas- ter. Our services charges have remained flat or decreased as a percentage of ticket prices over the past five years.

Why is it so hard to get good seats? One of the biggest dilemmas for the live event industry is that demand often surpasses supply, leaving fans frustrated. Ticketmaster's job is maximizing the public’s access to events. But we do not control the number of seats that are made available for an event, or the number of con- certs that a particular act will play. Ticketmaster sells only those tickets that the arena and the attraction make available to the public. Here’s a tip, though: for major events, there's a better chance of getting good seats through the out- lets because of the speed with which transac- tions occur.

KETMASTER'’S GUIDE TO GOOD SEATS + SUMMER 1995

Who handles refunds? Ticketmaster assumes full responsibility for refunds on events that are cancelled or delayed. The recent Major League Baseball strike alone required us to refund charges on thousands of tickets. The same poli- cy applies to concerts.

What is the basis of Ticketmaster’s dispute with Pearl Jam? Roughly 45 cents. Last year Pearl Jam wanted to cap its ticket prices at $20, with Ticketmaster receiving a maximum $1.80 per ticket service charge. At that rate, we would have taken a financial loss on the tour. We offered to compromise at $2.25 for us and $17.75 for the band. Pearl Jam rejected the of- fer, even though they would have still made an enormous profit. We also offered to ticket their tour for free if Pearl Jam played for free. They did not respond.

Pearl Jam has charged that Ticketmaster’s exclusive contracts with arenas are unfair. How do you respond? Ticketmaster installs thousands of dollars worth of state-of-the-art computer equipment in venues that contract with us. It would be unfair to ask us to make that commitment without an assurance of re- ceiving the arena’s business. The arenas also benefit from the contracts, since they receive an honest and efficient manner of inventory control. The International Association of Arena Managers has urged its members to speak out on behalf of their constitutional right to contin- ue negotiating exclusive contracts.

Does Ticketmaster have a monopoly on the live event business? We have never de- nied that we are successful. But, like any busi- ness, our market share is the result of hard work and quality service. We are also open to competition. Roughly 20 percent of our con- tracts come up for renewal every year and there are some 100 companies currently in the market. They include such corporate giants as Sony Corp., Blockbuster Entertainment, and IBM, which is ticketing the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, the biggest live event of next year, with a partner.

Does Ticketmaster do business with bro- kers or scalpers? Absolutely not. Ticketmaster opposes laws that allow sellers in certain states to charge four to five times face value for tick- ets. Our system also limits block purchases to discourage sales to such agencies. As a matter of policy, Ticketmaster employees are express- ly forbidden from selling tickets to brokers and scalpers. The company recently closed four New York-area outlets where workers were found to be in violation of the policy.

OF7.0 BS 1 O) ea BD. 4

Centers «

NORTH DARTMOUTH WATERTOWN Ann & Hope Ann & Hope 55 Faunce Corner Road Arsenal Mall

615 Arsenal Street

ORANGE Music Forum WEYMOUTH New Athol Road Video To Go 646 Middle St. — PALMER Video Paradise WORCESTER 478 Main Street Record Town Greendale Mall PEABODY 7 Neponset Street Filene’s -

Rte. 114 — Andover Street

PITTSFIELD Wood Bros. Music CONCORD Allendale Shopping Center Coconuts

Fort Eddy Plaza RAYNHAM Coconuts GILFORD 270 Route 44, Shaws/Ames Plaza Coconuts

1458 Lake Shore Road

917/508) 931-2000 R.1.: (401) 331-2211 NEWPORT

Music Box 160 Thames Street

PROVIDENCE Coconuts University Heights Shaw Plaza 509-513 North Main Street WAKEFIELD Record Town 70 Tower Hill Road

WARWICK Filene’s

Rhode Island Mall WARWICK Filene’s

Warwick Mall

WARWICK Ann & Hope 1689 Post Road

SAUGUS Rich's Plaza Coconuts Hillside Plaza — 737 Broadway KEENE Coconuts SAUGUS 437 West Street Filene’s AUBURN Square One Mall MANCHESTER Coconuts Filene’s Auburn Plaza SEEKONK Rte. 93 — South Willow Street 748 Center Street, Ann & Hope Suite 1130 95 Highland Avenue NASHUA Filene’s ARUNDEL SEEKONK Pheasant Lane Mall Arundel Video Coconuts Daniel Webster Highway U.S. Route 1 Bayberry Plaza 150 Highland Avenue NASHUA AUGUSTA Coconuts Good Vibrations SOUTHBRIDGE Webster Square 102 Bangor Street Video Dimensions & More 247 Daniel Webster Highway 293 Main Street BANGOR NEWINGTON Record Town SPRINGFIELD Filene’s Airport Mall Filene’s Fox Run Mall 1129 Union Street Eastfield Mall, 1655 Boston Rd. PORTSMOUTH BRUNSWICK SPRINGFIELD Sessions Music Record Town Main Music Shop 10 Congress Street Merry Meeting Plaza 1228 Main Street 147 Bath Road SALEM STONEHAM Filene’s PORTLAND Coconuts Rockinghill Park Mall Bad Habits 115 Main St., Redstone Plaza 10 Exchange Street SALEM TAUNTON Spinout Records SOUTH PORTLAND Filene’s 154 Main Street Filene’s Galleria Mall 600 Maine Mall Road WALPOLE WATERVILLE Record Town Record Town Rte. 1 — Walpole Mall Elm Plaza Ann & Hope Upper Main Street 1 Mill Street

SUPPLEMENT TO THE BOSTON PHOENIX © TICKETMASTER'S GUIDE TO GREAT SEATS © SUMMER 1995

HARBORLIGHTS PAVILION GREAT WOODS

U2) Fan Pier, Northern Avenue, Boston U= Mansfield

COVER PHOTO OF HARBORLIGHTS PAVILION BY DAVID WOODIN

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Te get theres From N: 935 to Congress St. exit #23. Take first two left-hand turns onto Atlantic Ave. Follow Atlantic one block and turn right onto Northern Ave. Cross the bridge and Harborlights is on the left. From S$: Take 93N to the Adantic Ave. exit #22. Bear right and take the first right onto Northern Ave. Cross the bridge and Harborlights is on the left.

BOSTON POPS

KEITH LOCKHART. Conductor

A NEW ERA IN BOSTON POPS HISTORY BE SPRING AS KEITH LOCKHART TAKES O ___ LEADERSHIP OF “AMERICA’S ORCHESTRA.” ” CHESRATE "SPRING WITH THE BOSTON POPS, KEITH LOCKHART, JOHN WILUAMS, AND MANY SPECIAL GUEST ARTIS AND CONDUCTORS.

CONCERTS ON THE ESPLANADE AT THE HATCH SHELL AT 8 PM JULY 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9. ESPLANADE CONCERTS ON JULY 3, AND 6-9 ARE SPONSORED BY

CALL SYMPHONYCHARGE AT (617) 266-1200 TC ORDER TICKETS OR VISIT THE SYMPHONY HALL BOX OFFICE FROM 10AM TO 6PM MONDAY THROUGH SATURDAY.

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June 7 7:30pm '38* $305 $90°* On Sale Now

% MELISSA MELISSA ETHERIDGE

i) Hl ; - getty Gt with special guest:

PAULA COLE

June 19 & 20 7:30pm

*45°*, 33%, §21°* On Sale Now

ary Chapin Carpenter

wirn speciat cusst PMWAVERICKS

July 9 7:30pm

*33*, §25°*, §21°*, §18* On Sale Now

This Buds For You. CALL FOR TICKETS z=e@=s= (617) 931-2000

Tickets a gy ee ame ions or charge by phone. The Great Woods Box Office opens Monday. * Ticket prices include parking. All Ticketmaster orders subject to a on-refundable handling charge. Please note: Dates, artists, and ticket prices are subject to change without notice. Food or beverages, recording devices, cameras and lawn chairs are not allowed in Se ocertramancmeet, sme r more information call the Great Woods Event Line at (508) 339-2333.

WBCN The Boston Globe Ke,

6 SUPPLEMENT TO THE BOSTON PHOENIX © TICKETMASTER’'S GUIDE TO GREAT SEATS + SUMMER 1995

COLONIAL THEATRE

=; 106 Boylston Street, Boston

THEATRE LOBBY

216 Hanover Street, Boston

15] 14/13] 12/11] 10/9/8]7/6) 5] 4/3] 2] Se) ee SECTION 1 SS) Oe ———— i) Or EVEN NUMBERS EVEN NUMBERS O00 NUMBERS C00 NUMBERS | 11] 10/9] 8{7|6]/5] 4/3] 2] 1 BALCONY (overhangs row F of mezzanine) Oe I 5 2) SS eee ee Ky) Bai 2 | SS Ss OS *§ Oe) : ees : ee aiethecets et enrol ° ee) EVEN NUMBERS EVEN NUMBERS O00 NUMBERS: O00 NUMBERS Si MEZZANINE (overhongs row M of orchestra) yp RG - SS eee <——————————————_ 72>} 000 i): (ery ~ E- <>} 700 1) 2 ff ey] a et ae Set aR a na SS a a —— ee Se ee ee a © 1 —<——————————_ 27> 000 oo ff SS rr oo SS Se. SS 1 —sSSSSSESSSSS A. aaa 71 (0 ee SSS —_—ee———— Ot <2 7} « 0 1). °C ————————————— To EVEN NUMBERS SEQUENTIALLY O00 NUMBERS

SECTION 3

ENED EEIEIEIECD EGEDECORICE

SANDERS THEATRE

Harvard University, Cambridge

ORCHESTRA

ro Harborlights

—RED- Boston’s Summer Concert Pavilion W OLE Northern Avenue, Fan Pier, Boston LAGER

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THE MUSIC OF

ANDRE fe e- LLOYD WEBBER 7 a . Evening re)

SARAH BRIGHTMAN 4 . Jazz. Sones from =

Th Phantom _ June 27 & 28 je Limited cab

Seven Curtis amuse Bane Natalie Chapman Bary White Billy Bragg — a

July 2 w/ special guest Chante uly July 9 Moore July 11 7:00 PM showtime

MANILOW

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THE GREATEST HITS

Robert Cray George Benson Gipsy Kings Band w/ species quests uy special quest star August 29

Taj Mahal and Roberta Flack Charlie Musselwhite Friday, August 25 August 24 7PM showtime ,

Tickets available at the Orpheum Theatre Box Office, and all Ticketmaster locations.

mK asTe? 617-931-2000

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— The > wa rmances are at 7:30 PM unless otherwise specified. Limited free parking is available Tucker Beach at ights. No refunds or exchanges. Dates, artists and ticket prices are subject to change. Tanya Julio Iglesias Bo The Harborlights Box Office will be open only on days of shows. Ty Horaion Friday, September 8 Show Date & Sale Date For further information about Harborlights call 617-737-6100. August 31 1 Bo Announced Visit the Harborlights web site at www.ultranet.com/biz/tpc. Harborlights web service provider is — camter_— WOVBTV The Boston Globe RED W LF

BOSTON

The 1995 Bank of Boston Summer Festival

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Hamilton Place, Boston

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J e 7 For special Golden Circle seating and 138%, *30%* $90 per On Sale Now! ENCE

An Evening With...

1995 WORLD TOUR} Sian Se

Performing With His Band 6 His > Ait Very Own Symphony Orchestra | | me July 9 June 24 8:30pm ' hy *33+, *25%* $21 *18* *48*, *38*, °28* *23* On Sale Now On Sale Now

The RCOUSTIC TOUR

with special quest

t..9..4,4..

Willy Porter

Sat

Aug 5 7pm July 18 Fri Aug 4 & Aug 11 7pm =

Chicttairs Sara Wdodla— HE C ran be rrie $

S9Qe 812% '38* '28+,118* On Sale Now 38 28*, 18

*, *28*, *20"* On Sale 5/19 at noon On Sale Now

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with special guests

PJ HARVEY & VERUCA SALT

138% *28+ 123+ 818+ Sept 15 7pm On Sale 5/22 123 *18* On Sale 5/20 at Noon

THIS BUDS FOR YOU CALL FOR TICKETS =#@=== (617) 931-2000

All shows start at 7:30pm unless otherwise noted. Tickets available at all Ticketmaster locations. The Great Woods Box Office opens May 22. Please note: Dates, artists and ticket prices are subject to change without notice. Food or beverages, recording devices, cameras and lawn chairs are not allowed inside ticket gates. For more information call the Great Woods Event Line at (508) 339-2333.

«Ticket prices include parking charge. «All Ticketmaster orders subject to a non-refundable handling charge. Visit the Great Woods web site at www.ultranet.com/biz/tpc - Great Woods web service provider is le. -—'

The Boston Globe Kiso

See the Sunday Globe for weekly Great Woods updates.

10 SUPPLEMENT TO THE BOSTON PHOENIX * TICKETMASTER’S GUIDE TO GREAT SEATS + SUMMER 1995

PROVIDENCE PERFORMING ARTS CENTER

PROVIDENCE CIVIC CENTER

U = ” 220 Weybosset Street, Providence, Rhode Island

One LaSalle Square, Providence, Rhode Island

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lo get # 3 From S (or from Route 195): 1-95N to the Broadway exit. Take a — left. At next light take a left and go straight to the YMCA. Turn left onto Weybosset. - From N; 1-95S to the Atwells Ave. exit #21. Go straight to the YMCA, then turn left —

get From S: I-95N to Exit 21-Broadway. Right at stop light (Broadway) to LaSalle Square. From N: 1-958 to Exit 22 (Downtown Providence). a at light onto Sabin Street. From E: I-195W to I-95N. Follow direction “from South” above.

From W: US Rte. 6, 44, and RI Rte. 10 to RI Rte. 195E (Downtown Providence). Right at end of exit and right at light onto Sabin Street.

McCOY STADIUM (Pawtucket Red Sox)

02> Pawtucket, Rhode Island

WARWICK MUSICAL THEATRE

U2. Warwick, Rhode Island

get From 5: 1-95N to Exit 28 (School Street). Follow School St. two blocks to Pond St. Turn left on Pond St. to Columbus Ave. Stadium is in front of you. From N: I-95S to Exit 2A (Newport Ave.). Follow Ne Ave, 2 miles, then take a right on Columbus Ave. Follow Columbus for one mile, and the stadium is on your right.

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An XXX-travaganza with music fr (and a lot of dirty words)!

by Shelley Bere & Andrei Belgrader ‘ Music & lyrics by Rusty Magee a .. directed by Andrei Belgrader

i JUNE 2 “thru JULY 16

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12 SUPPLEMENT TO THE BOSTON PHOENIX © TICKETMASTER'’S GUIDE TO GREAT SEATS * SUMMER 1995

BERKLEE PERFORMANCE CENTER MULLINS CENTER

U2; 136 Massachusetts Avenue, Boston U2 ‘ Amherst, Massachusetts

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get % Mass Pike W to Exit 8-Palmer. Bear right off the exit to Rte. 20W.

Follow 20W to Rte. 181N. Follow 181N to Rte. 9W. Take Rte. 9W to 116N. Take

on — of 16, Bear right off exit. At the first light, take a left. Mullins Center sonthelehR.. . Se ;

SPRINGFIELD CIVIC CENTER SPRINGFIELD SYMPHONY HALL

C2; Springfield, Massachusetts U2: Springfield, Massachusetts

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SOMERVILLE THEATRE

U= Davis Square, Somerville

ORCHESTRA CENTER ORCH. LEFT ORCH.

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7PM Saturday, June 5 y BERKLEE PERFORMANCE CENTER ALL SEATS RESERVED es ‘

Tickets: Berklee Box Office i ©)- Ail nexatgaerer Outlets -

Call For Tix: 931-2000 | Sees |

(the creators of the Snowball) SANTA CLAUS ANONYMOUS PRESENTS

THE SECOND ANNUAL SUNDANCE

SATURDAY, MAY 20’TH 1995 9:00 P.M. TO 1:30 A.M. AT THE BOSTON ANTIQUE CENTER Live Music, CASH BAR $35 REGULAR ADMISSION * $50 FRIENDS OF THE SUNDANCE Creative Black Tie

for tickets, write to: SANTA CLAUS ANONYMOUS 304 NEWBURY STREET, BOX 332 BOSTON, MA otis

INELINE f17-333-0527

SUPPLEMENT TO THE BOSTON PHOENIX © TICKETMASTER'S GUIDE TO GREAT SEATS

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CHARLES PLAYHOUSE

<3 Warrenton Street, Boston

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3 Take Rte. 93 to the Chinatown exit. Take a left onto Kneeland Street.

To } Go Proce to Tremont Street. Take a left. Charles is behind the Shubert Theatre on Warrenton :

Street

Berklee Performance Center 136 Massachusetts Avenue, Boston

IN NTS INCLUDE: 5/30 Roger Mcguinn/Richard Thompson 6/3 Alison Krauss 6/10 George Winston 6/22 Daniel O’Donnell 6/24 Toshiko Akiyoshi Jazz Orchestra 6/27 Zap Mama 9/22 John Tesh

Also featuring Berklee College of Music special events: Encore Series, 50th Anniversary Faculty Composer Series, and nightly Student/Faculty Concerts.

The Berklee Performance Center Box Office is a TicketMaster outlet.

Box office hours are Mon.-Sat. 10AM-6PM Please call for more details

Concert Line.....(617)266-7455 Box Office (617)266-1400 Ext. 261

To charge Tickets by Phone TicketMaster.....(617)931-2000

Berklee

COLLEGE OF MUSIC

SUMMER 1995 13

14 SUPPLEMENT TO THE BOSTON PHOENIX »

| CAPE COD MELODY TENT

U< Hyannis, Massachusetts

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TICKETMASTER’S GUIDE TO GREAT SEATS

THE MUSIC HALL (Portsmouth)

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Lincoln Square, Worcester

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lo get Mass Pike W to Exit 10-Auburn, to I-290 East. Take exit 16-East Central Street. Take a left onto Worcester Center Blvd.

1 get ] onto Worcester

WORCESTER MEMORIAL AUDITORIUM

3 Same directions as those for Centrum (at left) take a RIGHT © Center Boulevard to Lincoln Square. The AUD Pipe Foon Square,

SUMMER 1995

U2; Portsmouth, New Hampshire

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SUPPLEMENT TO THE BOSTON PHOENIX © TICKETMASTER’S GUIDE TO GREAT SEATS © SUMMER 1995 15

LOWELL MEMORIAL AUDITORIUM FOXBORO STADIUM

U= SO East Merrimack Street, Lowell

U2, Route 1, Foxboro

Handicapped Seating gm Serine eoctons 12, Be ous

s fe 14 fg J =) are located Srectly b behind 3 these sections.

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et ther I ie dam 1 South. Follow 1S pproxim: oy 3 des to Foxboro Stadium (on left). From Cape Cod: Rte. 495N to Exit

righ onto Rte, IN. Follow Rte. 1N app y 4 miles to Foxboro Stadium (on ght). From W: Mass Pike to Rte. 495S. Exit 14A onto Rte. 1N. Follow Rte. a iN 4 miles to Foxboro Stadium (on right). From S$: 95N to Rte. 495N. Exit 14A onto Re 1 Follow Rte. IN Hy eppemerery © eis fo Foxboro Seactiom (on cigho)

Nominated for Best Picture

Premieres May 13

THE CUTTING EDGE OF ROCK

Don’t wait any longer to be an X-club member. We want you in the club now!

Winner of Best Supporting Actor Martin Landau Premieres May 20

FILL IT OUT—MAIL IT IN! AND THANKS FOR LISTENING TO WFENX 101.7!

Nominated for Best Picture Premieres May 20

For fast ordering information, please tune to Channel A29 or B9.

MAY PAY PER VIEW

Addressable service required.

ii CABLEVISION

@A.M.PAS.

I Mail to: X-ClubeWFNX©25 Exchange Streetelynn, MA°01901 | All information must be completed to receive your card.

THE PHONE CALL THAT COULD CHANGE YOUR LIFE

ee RRS

* o~n*

pretty much given up on finding him. For me, it was going to be career first. That’s it. Okay, so maybe I'd place one Phoenix Personal ad. One. Who would’ve thought that in the course of one week, he’d answer my ad, we'd meet for coffee and his smile would melt my heart. Oh well, guess it’s career and romance first. 7 y,

To place your free Phoenix Personal ad, call

617-859-DATE PHOENIX PERSONALS

® 1995 The TPI Group

IT QUOT Hall of mirrors

In Talk Soup’s virtual world,

THE BOSTON PHOENIX

the message is the media

by Dan Kennedy

prodigiously en- dowed exotic dancer named Pam tells trash-TV host Montel Williams why she teaches “sex secrets” to her 14-year- old daughter. Among the topics on Mom’s syllabus: how to perform fel- latio, and an introduction to sex toys.

“When she’s 16 and starts dating,” explains Pam, nearly falling out of her too-tight red satin gown, “I don’t want any guy who’s more expe- rienced pulling the wool over her eyes.”

Cut back to the studio of Talk Soup, the E! cable channel’s nightly roundup of lowlights from the pre- vious day’s talk shows. John Henson, the boyish host, adopts a mock-seri- ous expression. “In the event of an emergency,” he iatones, “Pam could be used as a flotation device.”

Henson introduces a segment on identical twins who enjoy “practical jokes” such as sleeping with each other’s boy- friends, then holds his hand to his mouth and deadpans: “Titter, titter. Giggle, giggle.”

He opens another evening’s installment by announcing, “Tonight’s show is loaded with T and A.” Whoops from the crew. “Easy, folks,” he continues. “I’m talking about transsexuals and Ar- ianna Huffington.”

media commenting on media com- menting on media. Even if one real event just happens to occur — a girl shoots the wife of a man she has slept with, a woman cuts off her husband’s penis, two brothers shoot their mil- lionaire parents, or an Olympic skater’s bodyguard attacks her rival — it soon becomes part of the overall self-reflexive pastiche of media.”

m The show presents no original material, but instead cuts from and pastes together existing images to

JOE HENSON

HOST John Henson presents a compilation of the

* SECTION ONE + MAY

and MTV’s Beavis and Butt-head. Henson, 27 and dressed in Guess slacker gear, is the equivalent of the plastic robots on Comedy Central’s Mystery Science Theatre 3000, whose running commentary is aimed at sig- naling viewers that it’s okay, even hip, to watch execrable science-fiction movies. Henson’s only shortcoming is that his enthusiasm sometimes breaks the program’s tone of ironic detach- ment, a mistake never made by his smirking predecessor, Greg Kinnear, who departed in February for his own late-night show.

Northeastern University sociologist Jack Levin is both a frequent guest on TV talk shows and a fan. He says he loves Talk Soup, which he calls “post- modern entertainment” because of its utter lack of real-world content, and was delighted when he once saw a clip of himself taken from The Joan Rivers Show.

Levin cheerfully calls the appeal of Talk Soup “dishonest,” saying it gives people who tell themselves they’d never watch talk shows a chance to do just that: “We can look down our noses at the shows without really ad- mitting that we like them.”

Or as Shannon Willis, a 25-year- old “devoted Talk Soup fan,” told the Los ‘Angeles Times in 1993: “If you watch just the talk show, it is always going to be frustrating and dumb, but with Talk Soup, it’s like watching with a friend, and you get to sit back and ridicule and mock it in a very clever, witty way.”

In fact, so intense is the aura of hipness that when Henson introduces a clip of something genuine, the ef- fect is jarring, even disori- enting, as it was in a recent Ricki Lake segment about a teenager who'd pulled a woman from her burning car. The viewer can only wonder whether he’s miss- ing something, or if he’s supposed to laugh. But be- fore those questions can be answered, Henson has al- ready moved on to the Jerry Springer clip featuring a gigolo who announces, “I love strippers. They got a lot of balls to get up on stage and dance naked.”

Just about the only shows that refuse to allow Talk Soup to use excerpts are Oprah, perhaps the most highbrow of its lowbrow genre, Geraldo, and Jenny Jones, the show that landed in hot water recently when a heterosexual guest intro- duced to his gay “secret ad- mirer” was charged with shooting him to death sev-

Moans of disappointment. most outrageous moments from daytime talk shows. ral days later.

Scratching a niche

In the three years since its debut, Talk Soup has emerged as a cultural icon and has helped E! Entertainment Television establish an identity, no mean feat for a small cable network playing to a niche audience.

Every morning and afternoon, the television airwaves are clogged -with tattooed motorcycle gangs, prostitute grandmothers competing in beauty contests, white-trash love triangles, and the other assorted human debris that appears on such shows as Jerry Springer, Rolonda, and Charles Perez. And every evening, they come back for an encore on Talk Soup, accom- panied by sarcastic commentary from Henson and assorted sound effects, visual japes, and lame jokes.

On the surface, Talk Soup is exact- ly what it purports to be: a daily com- pilation of the most outrageous mo- ments from some two dozen daytime talk shows, the trashiest of the trash, wrapped up in one neat 30-minute package.

Dig deeper, though, and you'll see three fascinating media trends at work:

w Talk Soup is perhaps the perfect example of the hermetically sealed virtual world into which the media have migrated. As Douglas Rushkoff puts it in Media Virus! Hidden Agen- das in Popular Culture (Ballantine

Books, 1994): “Most of media is the

Internet address: dkennedy@shore.net.

create a new message. This mirrors communication on the Internet, which consists largely of adding a few comments to someone else’s mes- sage, then passing it on for further modification. An even better example is rap music, which often incorpo- rates snatches of well-known record- ings. “The resulting works are some- how new but without being original in the romantic sense,” write Paul Lein- berger and Bruce Tucker in The New Individualists: The Generation After “The Organization Man” (Harper- Collins, 1991). “The music,” they add, “does not originate in some an- guished interior drama of the self; it is assembled out of the vast shared language of musical culture.” Talk Soup is the TV version of rap.

w The content of the new message created by Talk Soup is an updated version of the smug elitism that’s at the core of entertainment as diverse as David Letterman (the nasty NBC version, not the nice guy on CBS)

No one else, however, seems to mind the publicity, mock- ing though it may be. Rolonda Watts, the host of Rolonda, even did a guest stint at the Talk Soup anchor desk a couple of weeks ago. And there are oddball moments from the mainstream, too, including clips from Jay Leno’s and Conan O’Brien’s programs, even from CBS This Morning.

Media mutants

As Rushkoff points out, even the most horrific real-life events mutate rapidly into self-sustaining media phenomena that have little to do with those original events.

It’s too early, perhaps, for that to happen with the Oklahoma City bombing, although Levin notes that various white supremacists, survival- ists, and militiamen are already start- ing to make the rounds of the talk shows.

For now, though, the prime exam- ple has to be the brutal murders of Nicole Simpson and Ron Gold- man, a tragedy that has devolved into farce in- Judge Ito’s courtroom- cum-studio.

So it’s perfectly appropriate that these days John Henson and crew have to begin taping Talk Soup at 4 a.m. so that they can clear out by 8, when E!’s O.]. Simpson coverage begins.

After all, among the great and near-great who’ve done a turn as the guest host of Talk Soup is one Brian “Kato” Kaelin. Q

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surrender to Republican troops, who take no prisoners.

luck.

“You know the story about the guy who falls off the mountain, and he’s falling down into the canyon to certain death?” he told me in an interview last autumn. “And he sees this little twig coming out of the mountain and he grabs it as a last- ditch thing. He’s holding on, and the roots start coming out of the mountain, and he looks down at hundreds of feet below, and he says: ‘God, why me?’

“I’m a good man, I work hard, I follow the law. Why me?’ And this thunderous voice comes out of the heavens and says, ‘Son, there’s just something about you I don’t like!’ ”

“Do you know what that something is?” I asked.

“No,” Clinton said. “All I know is that I work hard at this job. I try to do what’s best . . . for mainstream American people.”

“Hard work” is often the last refuge of the insecure. Bill Clinton, who feels sorry for himself, emphasized three times in a 40-minute interview how hard he works. “I’m not perfect, but I work hard and get things done,” was the way he put it the first time. At his worst, about half the time, Clinton says he has been “bewildered” by the hostility of Washington, politicians and press and special interests, and talks as if he were being paid by the hour — rather than for his judgment and the democratic faith that he can somehow bring out the best in the American people.

Vice-President Albert Gore Jr., who was brought up in Washington, DC, the son of a senator, and came back as a member of Congress himself in 1977, hesitated a bit when I asked him the difference between the capital city he came to and the one Bill Clinton came to 15 years later. “The whole country is different,” said Gore. “All these body blows to the sense of national well- being. The economic transformations . . . the disorienting effect of all this electronic information.”

I must have looked blank. “Do you know Prigogine’s work?” he asked.

Ilya Prigogine is a Belgian chemist (Russian-born) who won a Nobel Prize in 1977 for his work in thermodynamics. “If you look at a system with more and more energy and matter coming in, it will spon- taneously reorganize itself into a more complicated system,” said Gore. “Some- thing different will come out, but what it is can’t be predicted beforehand.”

He drew a diagram, a pipeline leading into and out of an empty chamber. Wash- ington is the chamber. More molecules were coming in, more matter, more ener- gy, more heat, more information, new news cycles, new action-reaction, reac- tion-action, just more stuff, faster and faster. Pow! Something happens inside — Gore scrawls a new world in the chamber — and then something different comes out the other end, which in this case is what America senses beyond the Capitol Beltway. Inside there are new men, new women, new media, new money, new in- formation, new relationships, new sounds, new smells, new laws. A new Washington.

(Not able to vouch for the validity of

| Gore’s interpretation of Prigogine’s work,

I tracked down the scientist and his asso- ciates working at the University of Texas.

| “Yes, good. Quite accomplished,” was | their surprised reaction to the vice-presi-

dent’s analysis.) Pow! A Money-Information Complex

| instead of the old Military-Industrial Com- plex. Public Opinion Democracy — gov-

Richard Reaves, a former chief political

| correspondent for the New York Times and

New York magazine, is working on a biog- raphy of Richard Nixon. His most recent book, President Kennedy: Profile of a President (Simon & Schuster/Touchstone), is available in paperback.

But he seems to think it’s mostly bad

THE BOSTON PHOENIX *

SECTION ONE *

MAY 19,

Clinton Agonistes

1995

Bill Clinton has set up his administra- tion like a wheel, with the attention- hungry president at the hub. Now he complains that he feels trapped — in his own words, ‘a Buddha in chains.’

BY RICHARD REEVES

ernment of the polls, by the polls, and for the polls. Numbers make news. Money makes numbers. Three trillion dollars. Forty-eight percent. Polls are the new con- stituencies. Fame is money. Reporters get more of both than the people they cover. Everyone is the same size on CNN — the president or a marine’s wife holding her baby and crying that her husband is being shot at. One man plus a fax becomes a majority. An electronic beltway separates the city in the chamber from the nation. And the nation turns to Newt Gingrich and his Republicans, promising, above all, to punish the Congress as the symbo! of the new Washington — maybe even roll back the 1960s and make a new time, like the old days when women and blacks and the young knew their place.

Listening to Washington, you would think Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton came to town in beads and bell-bottoms. “Bitches like her” is a -phrase heard often, and I took it as shorthand for undigested revolutions beginning with civil rights and feminism, sexual tolerance and abortion. During a closed committee meeting con- sidering Hillary Clinton’s health-care plans, a Democratic senator of tenure and stature blurted out a Rip Van Winkle theo- ry: “Jesus Christ! What we’re dealing with here are two VISTA volunteers who went to Arkansas 20 years ago and came back here thinking it’s still the ’60s.”

Life speeded up and heated up in Pri- gogine Washington in those years. Deci- sion making is high speed and interactive; analysis and adjustment are reactive and continuous.

The electronic din has taken much of the greatest power presidents have: con- trolling the flow of information to the great democracy. The president and Rush Limbaugh, the New York Times, the Na- tional Enquirer, the CIA, the Pharmaceuti- cal Research and Manufacturers Associa- tion, Larry King, and you and I find out at the same time these days: all information is created equal.

“These changes,” said Gore, “are not friendly to the linear debate envisioned by the Founding Fathers.”

There is a new political language in the capital: words and names, ideas and places have been replaced by numbers. Poll num- bers and dollar figures That part of it Clin- ton got right away; he often treats polls as his real constituency. He’s as much Poll- crat as Democrat. Returning to the White House from France after elaborately staged ceremonies commemorating the 50th anniversary of D-Day, Clinton looked at the numbers, banged his desk, and said: “All that work and my approval went up just one and a half percent. Can you believe it?”

In Arkansas, Bill Clinton was a new type, a self-selected candidate from Hope, Georgetown, Yale, and Oxford. Clinton came to Washington determined to domi- nate or ignore the capital’s gigantic press corps. He had, after all, faced down the national political press corps early in 1992, when they had assumed he would quit the presidential race in shame after tabloid revelations of his sex life in Arkansas. In- stead he went on 60 Minutes with his wife, much preferring public humiliation to pri- vate life.

So, on his first day in the White House, President Clinton closed off the door be- tween the sunny ground-level offices of his press staff and the briefing room and re- porter’ cubicles, which are mostly under- ground. “Smells like a gym down there,” he told a friend. Then he spoke at an an- nual dinner of denizens of the lower world, the White House Radio and Televi- sion Correspondents Association, and said: “You know why I can stiff you on press conferences? Because Larry King liberated me from you by giving me the American people directly.”

He stiffed the regulars — learning, too late, that Larry King does not cover gov- ernment — and surveys indicated he got two negative stories for every positive one during his first 18 months in office. In the first week of his presidency, the New York Times greeted him with an amazing series of editorials complaining that he was not moving fast enough. On the first day, it was: “crab-like retreats from campaign promises.” On the third: “Perhaps by now Clinton has learned . . . he has to deliver.” On the fifth: “It is none too soon to say, ‘Show us what you’ve got in mind. ..’”

He is a modern man, sharing, more candid than truthful, and he was having obvious trouble understanding such old things as majesty of the office and the res- onance of a president’s voice. Like the rest of us, he had talked and talked; sometimes people listened, usually they did not (they tuned out the din). But people hear the president of the United States.

When I asked him about the “trans- parency of decision making” in his White House, he didn’t shout, but he was still obviously upset about the news of a day 18 months before, saying:

“Too many people leak and too many people talk . . . A teeny example of that was in this finally, fully exposed fraud about the so-called haircut story last year — about me keeping people waiting on the airplane, you know . . . It was false. It wasn’t true. there was no $200 haircut, and there was no waiting . . . The presi- dent saying that was less weighty than some mole in the FAA . . . that person had

just flat-out lied to the press . . . But all of a sudden that source had more credibility than me personally saying it wasn’t true . . . There have been a lot of other exam- ples I could give you.”

I’m sure. But you do not need Diogenes at your side to realize that some of the candid young president’s problems with the press are his own problems with the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. “Which one do you want?” — the punch line of an old courthouse joke is the way reporters describe dealing with this president and his people.

That idea is not new, but printing it is. The modern press, too, is more candid. The same things were said, after all, of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Turner Catledge, the White House correspondent for the New York Times in the 1930s, said FDR’s first instinct was always to lie, but that halfway through an answer he would real- ize he could get away with the truth and he would shift gears. Clinton does the same thing, but there is something wrong with his transmission — it sometimes takes him an hour, a day, or a year to shift subtly or grudgingly into the whole truth.

”

A lot of people hated President Roo- sevelt, and his wife, many for the very good reason that he was a great man, greatly changing the assumptions and rules of being American. He changed lives. Many hate President Clinton, and his wife, too, for reasons that are much less clear.

It seems that millions of Americans hate Clinton not because of great events of his presidency, but because of the great events of the recent past, particularly the 1960s — the anti-authoritarianism, the democra- tizing revolutions, the attacks on great in- stitutions from government to religion, the overthrow of patriotism and traditional American history.

In Washington, at least, the children of the 1990s seem to evoke the young of the °60s — particularly the “children” on Clinton’s staff. “The kids in the White House” — the phrase is a symbol of many things Washington finds threatening, par- ticularly outsiders and disorganization. A high official from those olden days of the 1970s, recruited into the administration in what seemed a constant Clinton quest for a man with the key to the city (David Ger- gen, Lloyd Cutler, Leon Panetta), reported back to Georgetown, in shock, that the kids did not stand up when the president entered a room. Some of them left their feet on the table.

The kids kept mostly to themselves, working all hours, pretty much ignoring anyone who was not in the Clinton cam- paign before them, speaking only to each other, sleeping on couches. Because of

them — or the perception of them — a new category of Washington player was conversationally created, “The Grown- ups.” The Godfather of that group was Secretary of the Treasury Lloyd Bentsen, and it included Gergen, Cutler, Panetta, and Democrats like Senator Sam Nunn of Georgia and Senator Bill Bradley of New Jersey.

In fact, the White House kids were not all as young as they seemed, and the presi- dency has always depended on the undi- vided energy of young assistants. Their symbol now is George Stephanopoulos, who was 31 when he came to the White House, one year younger than Theodore Sorensen was when he came to the White House with John F. Kennedy, two years older than Bill Moyers when he joined Lyndon Johnson’s White House in 1963. But the times have changed and so have young lifestyles. Sorensen and Moyers were really young old men, with suits and ties, wives, children, and mortgages. Also, they did not wear earrings — and they re- turned phone calls.

Margaret G. Hermann, a professor of political science at Ohio State and author of two books on the psychology of political leaders, has tried to catalogue the elements of what she calls the Clinton Factor, com- ing up with a short list that could describe many teenagers: “His perpetual lateness . . . His quick temper . . . His talking to the very last person at an event . . . His complaining about lack of free time when all those he invited actually drop by . . . His limitless energy . . . His love of poli- tics, cajoling, log-rolling, and trench fight- ing that make up consensus building . . . His desire to be in the center of everything . . . His perseverance and dedication . . . His thriving on chaos and uncertainty.”

The man at the center of the chaos, President Clinton, perhaps because he is so intelligent, does not have a “go/no go” mind of the type that serves many military men and political leaders so well. And he is not, by any measure, wise beyond his years, possibly because he has had such limited life experience. School and politics, that’s about it. He was never in the armed services or the Peace Corps; he’s never re- ally held a job in the private sector.

“If I lose, do you think I could make

THE BOSTON PHOENIX @*

$100,000 a year?” he asked a friend, Will Marshall, president of the Progressive Pol- icy Institute. “That would be good, wouldn’t it? Could I make that?” In fact, Clinton once said of himself: “I acted 40 when I was 16, and I acted 16 when I was 40.” That would make him 24 now, the biggest kid of them all.

Beyond the prolonged adolescence com- mon in politicians, there may be some- thing of a resistance to both authority and exercising it in the Clinton generation. The ’60s people seem ridden by self-distrust, a lack of confidence in themselves and their peers — generational suspicion and jeal- ousy of one another, some of it related to who served, who dodged, and who protested during the Vietnam years. “What do you think of ‘our’ president?” David Letterman asked Stevie Nicks of Fleet- wood Mac. “He’s too young to be presi- dent,” she said. “He’s my age.”

I asked Clinton about that, about how much of the anti-authoritarianism of his 1960s he still carries with him. “Quite a bit,” he answered. “I mean, I share a lot of this sort of populist skepticism about Washington, which is one of the things that is frustrating to me when I identify with it, just because I can’t cut through the fog that often surrounds us now and touch the American people.”

That must make it tough to play the great authority figure.

However that affects him, Clinton does seem ambivalent about using the power of his office. Certainly, he’s no father-figure of his country. When he spoke before the French National Assembly, he walked through a member’s library with walls of Delacroix’s bravura paintings. “Wow!” said the president of the United States. “This is terrific!”

“I wish he wouldn’t do that,” said an- other American there, the architect I.M. Pei.

Like John F. Kennedy, Clinton describes his running of the White House as being at the center of a wheel, as opposed to presi- dents like Dwight Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan, whose organizational styles were top-down structures, like a military or cor- porate organizational chart or a classic pyramid. There is a fundamental differ-

SECTION ONE *«

MAY 19,

ence between men who run things from the top and those who want to be at the center of the action. It’s lonely at the top, and Clinton does not like being alone. Like many politicians, he will never be a good executive or administrator because that kind of work has to be done at a desk, alone.

And when he is alone, he’s not. Hillary is there, the final adviser to the president. She is what Robert Kennedy was to his brother and then some. She is the last loy- alist, the only one with no other agenda than the rise of Bill Clinton. She cannot be fired, ignored, impeached, or defeated in election.

The First Lady is greatly resented by most of the president’s staff — some hate her, more try to avoid her — because they find her a cold and arrogant judge of their best efforts and because of her effect on her husband’s moods. Often, the presi- dent’s men see her as part of him, an un- predictable part of his mood and mind — more powerful in that way than Bobby Kennedy ever was. President Kennedy never came down the elevator from the family quarters in a rage or depressed be- cause of arguments with his brother — as Clinton did for weeks at the end of 1993, yelling and sulking, distracted downstairs by the reaction upstairs to a long and nasty article stringing together allega- tions, guesses, and rumors about his sex life in a conservative magazine, the Amer- ican Spectator. At the White House staff Christmas party, the Clintons left after only five minutes. They were barely look- ing at each other.

More than a few staff members dread the weekends the Clintons spend together at Camp David, leery of the arrogance and petty paranoia the two of them can feed in each other — what was called “bunker mentality” back when she was an assistant counsel to the House Watergate commit- tee. Except for Hillary and Gore, Clinton does not have a notable record of seeking out challenging contemporaries. No grown-ups, some would say — and do. The FOBs — Friends of Bill — are some- thing of a myth. He knows hundreds or thousands of people, but the folks who make it to the White House or Camp

1995

KEVIN BANKS

David or Martha’s Vineyard are interest- ing strangers. On the Vineyard, a woman asked what was the best thing about be- ing president and he answered: “I can meet anyone I want to — and visit with them.”

More than a few men in the White House, including grown-ups, see the president as a hostage to his wife — turning his palms up, shrugging slightly in a “What can I do?” gesture.

The man who lived his life trying to get to the center is there now. And much of the time he feels surrounded. He told me a sad little story about himself: “You have to live in a prison,” President Clinton said. “I went to western Pennsylvania recently, and we had 10,000 people in a little town called — what was that called? Anyway, it was wonderful . . . And I was fascinated because on the way in, it was two whole miles of nothing but auto-body shops, muffler shops, auto-repair shops, and car dealerships. I’ve never seen anything like it. And all these guys were out there, you know, not exactly my constituency.

“At any other time,” he said, “I would have stopped and had a visit with those people. You know, I couldn’t stop and have a visit with those people because the entire press corps would have stopped, and if they could have gotten two people

‘ to say something bad, then that might have

been the story on television that night in- stead of going there to talk to 10,000.

“So I had to sit there like Buddha in chains.”

It was hard for me to tell right then whether he was madder at the job or the press or the people. After the midterm elections, there was no question. Like ev- ery other politician after a losing election, he blamed “the people.” After all he want- ed to do for them, tried to do for them — this!

At a dinner of the Democratic Leader- ship Council in Washington last December 6, he deviated from a text he had written himself to say: “The very people you try hardest to help are those who turn away . . . The people who are working harder for lower wages and less security than they were 10 years ago, they’re the people I ran to help.”

years joins the committee.

and white flight from the schools

1977: first black in 60

1978 University of Mas- sachusetts presi- dent and former US cabinet secretary Robert Wood is named superinten- dent of schools. He is fired two years later.

1981

Robert Spillane is named superinten- dent of schools af- ter a nationwide search. Proposi- tion 24% soon forces severe cut- backs and teacher layoffs.

1982

The first Boston Compact is signed, marking the birth of an alliance be- ‘tween the business community, area colleges and uni- versities, and the public schools to improve the educa- tion and job prospects of Boston's inner-city youth.

MICHAEL ROMANOS

1983

First school com- mittee is elected under district rep- resentation. Spillane comes un- der increased criti- cism from the en- larged committee, now numbering 13 members.

1985

ize power in his

THE BOSTON PHOENIX *

_by Robert Keough

oston School Superin- tendent Lois Harrison- Jones did the city a fa- vor when she accepted the school committee’s decision not to renew her contract. A battle for reconfirmation would have split the city apart along its natural fault lines of class, race, and politics. And it would have delayed the realization that Boston may be in the best position in its history to woo and win a new type of leader.

On the surface, it might appear that Harrison-Jones’s termination is yet anoth- er black eye for a city that has had seven superintendents since 1972, not even counting Joseph McDonough’s three terms as interim super.

But there is an alternative view, one dis- cussed quietly among people who don’t want to rub salt in the departing superin- tendent’s wounds. This contrarian per- spective is voiced by as unlikely a pair as the business community’s school-reform guru and an official of the Boston Teach- ers Union.

“Boston is the most attractive big-city superintendency in the country right now,” says Neil Sullivan, executive di- rector of the Boston Private Industry Council.

He’s echoed by Robert Pearlman, re- search director and coordinator of educa- tion-reform initiatives for the union, who says, “This is the best opening for a re- form-minded superintendent of any place in the country.”

That may be overstating the case, if only because of the lingering reputation that Boston needs to live down — an is- sue not entirely apparent to Mayor Thomas Menino.

“I think Boston’s image on schools is very positive,” says the mayor. “We have a lot of good things happening.”

But also a lot of baggage to get rid of. Robert Peterkin, the former school ad- ministrator who is now director of the urban-superintendents program at Har- vard, recently returned from a meeting of superintendents from the nation’s largest school systems. He found those superintendents, a pool of potential can- didates for the Boston post, to be a skeptical lot.

“They know the past history” of Boston, says Peterkin. “They don’t know much about this new alignment of the stars some people are talking about.”

Past history and present challenges are enough to give any prospective superinten- dent pause.

After all, this is a city still nationally known as the site of the most confronta- tional struggle over desegregation outside of Little Rock. School enrollment shrank by one-third in busing’s bitter aftermath and never recovered. Flight from the city is no longer exclusively white. There con- tinues a slow, annual migration of middle- class families of all colors into the sub- urbs, and of their children into private schools.

With a third of its students living in public or subsidized housing, the school department can add health and social services for the children, but this spring it has had trouble marshalling the re- sources to prevent several district schools from facing the loss of accredi- tation, that most basic certificate of min- imal adequacy.

Nonetheless, the best-kept secret in the city is that Boston is better prepared to turn around its public schools than it has been in 20 years. Now it’s up to the mayor, his hand-picked school commit- tee, and their search team — headed by school-committee member Robert Git- tens and Federal Reserve Bank of Boston president Cathy Minehan — to translate

SECTION ONE *

= Stand and

Now is the ideal time to attract a first-rate superintendent. Let’s hope Boston’s school leaders don’t blow it — again.

MAY 19

the Boston public schools’ new political horoscope into an effective pitch for a school leader who can make it happen.

Overturning the hierarchy

What Boston needs is not so much a single superintendent, but a gaggle of superintendents.

“This is not about just hiring a superin- tendent,” says Hubie Jones, who chaired Mayor Flynn’s school-reform commission in 1988. “It’s about bringing in a team of seven or eight people who are very talent- ed, any one of whom could be a superin- tendent, with one who is more equal than the others.”

It’s this team concept that has spurred dis- cussion of possible “non-traditional” candi- dates for the superintendency, people who aren’t career educators. Teamwork, coopera- tion, and learning from others are concepts introduced to classrooms only recently. And in the hierarchy of schools, in which teachers rule their classrooms, principals their schools, and administrators their principals, these are alien concepts. Rarer still is the school system in which leaders lead, rather than fit into and manipulate ossified bureaucracies. Schools

: . system riddled wi ment, he had begun to siders when he was fi red

1995

don’t teach change, they resist it. But change is what is needed, change defined as something more than the sweep of a big broom. The educational watch- words of the ’90s are decentralized man- agement and centralized accountability. The concepts are so opposed to tradition — rigid central management and no ac- countability whatever — that they’ve been the watchwords for nearly a decade and they’re fully in practice almost nowhere. School-based management has been thwarted not so much by schools’ resistance as by central bureaucracies’ not knowing how to give up control. Teachers, parents, and administrators all need to learn, indeed, create from the ground up, a new way to pool their resources, experiences, and moral authority in the interest of children. The goal, says Jones, is “a system of semi-autonomous schools — enough clout at the local schools to accomplish the goals they set themselves, yet accountable to a central authority that is able to get rid of folks when it’s not working.” A new superintendent will be as much a coach as a boss, someone to show people in the field how they can do it themselves.

Spillane was only the second superinten- dent not to have risen through Boston — public-school ranks (Wood was the first), | and some people saw him as a hired gun. He gave the business - community much-needed assurance that the schools were not go- | ing to self-destruct with court-ordered busing, and acted as a buffer between the school committee and the federal judge presid- — ing over desegregation. This gave the embattled schools some re- lief from their political and judicial masters, but it also shortened Spillane’s shelf-life. The last superintendent to depart of his own volition, he left unfinished the job of removing time-marking bu- reaucrats from the department and jaded educators from the schools. He went on to the greener pastures of Fairfax County, Virginia, where he was recently named national superintendent of the year.

¢ Laval Wilson (1985-1990) An educational bureaucrat at heart, Laval Wilson appealed to a broad set of con- stituencies. Business leaders wooed him based on favorable re- MARK MORELL! ports from the industrial elite in Rochester, New York, where he’d given the school system a businesslike cast. His back-to- basics educational traditionalism won him support from white, conservative members of the school committee, while the op- portunity to name the first African-American superintendent of the Boston schools appealed to minority and liberal members. It was not long before each of his backers discovered that Wilson listened to no one. Unwilling to bend to the restora- tionist aims and patronage requests of the conservatives or the community-empow- erment agenda of the liberals and minori- ties, Wilson became politically isolated and ineffective. When a school-commit- tee coalition comprising white liberals and conservatives voted him out, four black members walked out in protest, calling it a “lynching,” but only because they thought Wilson was being treated shabbily, not because they wantec him to stay. He is now superintendent in Newark, New Jersey.

¢ Lois Harrison-Jones (1991-1995) The product of the most chaotic and embarrassing school-su-

perintendent search in the city’s history, Harrison-Jones quickly HARRISON JON clashed, in style and substance, with her new and impatient mas- -

SPILLANE

ERIC ANTONIOU

THE BOSTON PHOENIX *

deliver

A new superintendent will have to break down educators’ natural resistance to in- terference in their classrooms, schools, and administrations. He or she will have to tap into a growing number of community resources that are still kept at arm’s length. And the superintendent will have to rally the support of educators and citi- zens alike.

What’s remarkable about the present mo- ment in Boston is that, for once, a superin- tendent who’s prepared to tackle those tasks will have something to work with.

It has taken any number of power plays to do it, and not always with the purest of motives, but everything seems to be ready for the first time since the 1974 desegregation court order made the schools Boston’s racial and political flashpoint. A remarkably broad front has lined up to reform the Boston public schools, and for once all parties seem prepared to march in the same direction. These ranks include:

* Mayor Tom Menino. Former mayor Ray Flynn spent untold political capital taking over the schools, but his motives were always suspect, particularly within the minority community, which never for- gave him his past (his opposition to bus- ing, his 1983 defeat of black mayoral can- didate Mel King), and among education activists, who mistrusted his ambitions.

: ‘Flynn maintained a keen, if erratic, interest in their resu tion.

He openly backed Hispanic reformer Peter Negroni to succeed departing superintendent Robert Spillane in 1985, only to have a |. decisive, if unnatural, coalition of white conservative and liberal

In Tom Menino, Boston has its first mayor whose political fortunes are tied to the fate of the schools. He learned that lesson early, as acting mayor: his flubbing of the teachers’ contract in early 1993 could have cost him his mayoral bid. Since his election that fall, Menino has made a high-profile commitment to the schools, giving them a privileged place in his budget and forming a “blue-ribbon” commission to plan new and refurbished facilities for school and community use, chaired by former Roxbury school-com- mittee member and Freedom House di- rector Juanita Wade.

“The mayor’s stand is very positive, says Linda Wing, coordinator of Har- vard’s urban-superintendents program. “You don’t see many mayors in big cities around the country making the schools their top priority. And he doesn’t look as if he’s using the office of mayor as a step- ping stone to higher office. He’s put a stake in the ground.”

* The school committee. “This school committee is a lot brighter than the last one,” observes one parent activist. “We don’t know yet if it’s better.”

Activists still worry that the three-year- old appointed body is nothing more than a buffer between the mayor and the superin- tendent, there to do the mayor’s bidding, but also to give him political cover.

”

| Me | Minority school-committee members instead choose Laval Wil-

crusade.

son, the system’s first African-American leader.

After re-election in 1987, Flynn dove headiong into the thank- less politics of Boston’s schools, succeeding in replacing the mechanistic student-assignment process ordered by the federal court with “controlled choice” and, after a two-year battle, abol- ishing the elected school committee. But by 1992, debilitated by Harrison-Jones’s defensive and bureaucratic style and by his own waning political powers, Flynn lost interest in his educational

¢ School-committee member John Nucci (1984-1989) One of the last politicians to make the Boston School Committee a stepping stone to

higher (or at least better-paying) political office, Nucci was elected to an at-large seat on the Boston City Council in 1991 — after narrowly missing in 1987 — and was elected Suffolk County court clerk last fall. As school-committee president for four of his six years on the board, Nucci helped coax the federal court to return control of the

school department to the city.

A liberal, he spearheaded the search to replace the departing Robert Spillane in 1985, and, following the lead of the senior black committee member, threw in his lot with the board’s right wing, selecting the city’s first black super-

intendent, an educational conservative.

¢ Mayor Thomas Menino (1993- )

As acting mayor following Flynn’s appointment to the US ambassadorship at the Vatican, Menino learned an early lesson on how central to mayoral politics the Boston public schools had become. Menino miscalculated in giving the nod to an agreement with the teachers union that was such a sucker contract that the Flynn-appointed school committee rejected it outright. That could easily have cost him the election; instead, Menino regrouped. Since his election, in November 1993, he has made a high-profile commitment to the schools, giving them a privileged place in his budget and forming a “blue-rib- bon” commission, chaired by former school-committee mem-

MARK MORELLI

ber and Freedom House director Juanita Wade, to plan new school facilities that will be in use evenings as well as days. Af- ter the signing of the third Boston Compact, he called the partners back together, in- sisting on a detailed plan of action that he pledged to support. His six appointments to the seven-member school committee have loaded that body with solid reformer creden-

tials and expertise with youth.

— RK

SECTION ONE *

MAY 19,

“This is a toothless, voiceless group of people,” says King; “I say that with peo- ple I dearly love who are on it. They don’t scream. They don’t yell. And they’ve bought into a lot of shibboleths about the schoois.”

“They’re not accessible,” says Hattie McKinnis, executive director of the City- wide Parents Council. “And everything’s so rehearsed. Nobody bothers to go to school-committee meetings any more.

There’s no real discussion. They all want

to be in harmony.”

But moves Menino has made since be- coming mayor have added substance, if not exactly fierce independence, to the ap- pointed board. With the departure of chairman Paul Parks, who always seemed a man out of time, Felix Arroyo, a quiet intellectual who had been Flynn’s person- nel director, has taken the reins. New Menino appointments include Gittens, who is Suffolk County District Attorney Ralph Martin’s second-in-command; and Elizabeth Reilinger, head of a Brighton youth-services agency. Even if the busi- ness community seems over-represented — in the Federal Reserve’s Bill Spring, a Flynn appointee, and John Gould, the CEO of Associated Industries of Mas-

sachusetts — it is with people who have made a mark in school-reform efforts over the years.

And if the school committee’s apparent harmony seems a bit orchestrated and cautious, there is at least a unity of pur- pose that the fractious and self-serving elected body never had. “We have a strong unity of vision,” says Arroyo. “We are to- tally convinced that public education can be effective in Boston. Many times we vote the same way because we solve problems in a pragmatic way. We don’t create con- troversy where controversy is not needed.”

* The Boston Compact. What was once largely a commitment to providing sum- mer jobs now involves business sponsor- ship of students in the workplace and ag- gressive measures not just to admit Boston kids to local colleges, but to keep them there through graduation. The Center for Leadership Development, a Compact insti- tution recently funded by the city, will pro- vide training to teachers, administrators, and parents alike in making schools more responsive to student needs.

* Boston Teachers Union. Long con- sidered the enemy of school reform, the Boston Teachers Union has agreed, in its last two contracts, to some of the most sweeping innovations in work rules and school governance in the country. (City Journal, a publication of the free-market Manhattan Institute, lauds the 1994 con- tract as “an inspiring model of how a col- lective bargaining agreement . . . can serve as the vehicle for radically transforming public school systems,” in contrast to the New York union’s “crabbed, constricting document.”) As a result, five “pilot schools” will open this fall, the first charter schools in the country to be set up by a school district instead of by the state.

¢ Rejuvenated reformers. Longtime school-reform advocates, representing the City Wide Educational Coalition, the Mas- sachusetts Advocacy Center, Northeastern University’s Center for Innovation in Ur- ban Education, and others, have been meeting to craft education-reform propos- als to present to the school committee and, ultimately, the new superintendent. They’ve been through this superintendent- search business before, and don’t intend to sit around waiting for the new schools chief to develop an agenda.

“What always happens in the search for a superintendent is someone gets chosen, and for a year we’re wining and dining them,” says the educational coalition’s executive director, Loretta Roach. “Then we wake up and say, “What have they been doing?’ ”

Twisted politics

Boston’s last two superintendents, Har- rison-Jones and Laval Wilson, were very much products of the twisted politics of their respective moments.

“In Boston, we always pick the wrong superintendent for the wrong reason,” observes Roach, who has been active in the schools as a parent and an advocate for 20 years.

But we also get what we deserve. In 1985, superintendent Robert “Bud” Spillane saw the writing on the wall after four stormy years and got out while the getting was good. The school committee, then an elected body, was riven by racial and political factions. And it was capable of stunning embarrassments, such as South Boston school-committeeman

See DELIVER, page 18

1995

HARRY BRETT

1988 Mayor Ray Flynn appoints a school- teform commission headed by Boston University social- work dean Hubie Jones. it recom- = mends replacing the elected school committee with a board appointed by the mayor.

1989

Boston Compact Two pushes school-based man- agement. A break- through contract with the Boston Teachers Union makes reform pos- sible, but the state's fiscal crisis leaves it unfunded.

CYNTHIA R. BENJAMINS

FORTRESS: school

committee headquarters.

1990

Newly elected and staunchly anti-Wil- son school com- mittee buys out his contract to be rid of him, then stalls on search fora successor.

1991

Flynn wins his war, gaining control of the school commit- tee, but loses the key battle, as lame ducks select a new superintendent, Lois Harrison-

Jones. MICHAEL ROMANOS

Flynn's school-re- form efforts fade because of con- flicts with Harrison- Jones, weak ap- pointments to his

long-coveted school board, and loss of political clout

Asacig s mayor,

nearly blows the

Deliver

Continued from page 17

Joseph Casper’s public comment to super- intendent candidate Peter Negroni, a Puerto Rican from New York.

“You’re about as Hispanic as I am,” slurred Casper. “You’re not a tradi- tional Hispanic. You’re very smooth. You are not typical of what we have in the school system.”

The school committee’s choice of Laval Wilson as superintendent reflected per- fectly the racial politics of the time. Though African-American, Wilson drew many of his votes from white, conservative members of the school committee, includ- ing racial provocateur Casper, from neigh-

borhoods that had, by and large, aban-,

doned the public schools. These members knew an old-school type when they saw one, no matter the color of his skin.

The school committee got what they paid for: a hard-headed bureaucrat who listened to no one. And when the time came to replace Wilson — who had alien- ated his political patrons so badly that the school committee bought out, at great ex- pense, the remainder of his contract in 1990 — schoolyard politics had only got- ten worse.

True to form, the school committee first dawdled for months, then appointed a bloated, 29-member search committee that botched the screening. Among five fi- nalists was one white candidate who search-committee members had thought was black. The lone actual black candi- date had recently been dismissed by his Georgia school board, in part for poor fi- nancial management, a fact that eluded the review panel.

The Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination threatened a lawsuit over the selection process, which dropped more-qualified women and minority can- didates from the all-male list of finalists. The only nationally known candidate with- drew from the increasingly farcical scene, and the school committee was forced to Start over.

Meanwhile, Mayor Flynn launched his crusade to abolish the 13-member school

committee, whose many missteps had weakened political resistance to the idea of replacing an elected committee with an appointed one.

“We were recruiting in the middle of a war between the mayor and the school committee,” says Arnie Miller, the Boston- based search consultant who volunteered his services for round two. “We had can- didates left and right saying they’re not in- terested, just because they didn’t know who they’d be working for.”

When it came to making a selection, Lois Harrison-Jones was the class of a di- minished field. Nonetheless, she was, in different ways, every bit as much of an ed- ucational bureaucrat as Laval Wilson. A cautious incrementalist, Harrison-Jones tinkered rather than reinvented; managed, rather than led.

The vision thing is amorphous, having more to do with force of character than the perfect five-point plan. With no bold- ness in her personality, Harrison-Jones could not persuade students, teachers, principals and headmasters, administra- tors, or civic leaders that the schools were headed someplace new — nor, frankly, did she ever try.

A chance to succeed

The question now before the search committee, the school committee, and the mayor is: will Boston get the superinten- dent it deserves?

With the search committee due to pro- duce a slate of three to five finalists for the superintendent post in early June, names will soon start swirling. That so few are now in circulation is itself an encouraging political sign. No one who’s privy to the process is promoting a favorite candidate — or trying to thwart a dreaded one — by, well, talking outside of school.

Most of the potential candidates trotted out by the media to date are leftovers from past searches, such as Springfield superintendent Negroni, a progressive re- former who was a finalist in both 1981 and 1985; and public-sector turnaround artist Harry Spence, who led both the Boston Housing Authority and the city of Chelsea out of receivership. (To date, only Spence has publicly expressed interest in being a candidate.) Other pos-

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sible candidates can be deduced: the same week he was profiled in Business Week as a leading light of educational overhaul, Milwaukee superintendent Howard Fuller counted the votes on his school board and tendered his resigna- tion. Now that he’s in play, Fuller is likely to get a call, if nothing else, from the Boston search committee.

The old skid-greasing ways of Boston politics are nowhere in evidence. A few weeks ago, the Boston Tab, citing Suffolk County court clerk (and former school- committee president) John Nucci, floated the name of Robert Consalvo, Flynn’s for- mer education advisor and school-com- mittee executive secretary (and full-time thorn in Harrison-Jones’s side), now a di- rector of the Boston Redevelopment Au- thority. When told of that trial balloon, one source close to the search committee laughed out loud. “Bob Consalvo. He’s not interested,” said the source, sounding as if the feeling were mutual.

Also noteworthy is the absence of politi- cal maneuvering. “The nice thing is, there are no contending forces in this process,” says Private Industry Council director Sul- livan. “You go back to the previous searches, and you could line up the fac- tions by this stage in the process. No turf wars are going on now.”

It’s one thing to note these hopeful signs. The real trick is to make them visi- ble to potential candidates. Gittens, Mine- han, and their many emissaries are trying to get that word out. It doesn’t hurt to have a thoughtful, articulate African- American prosecutor and the boss of the region’s banks making that pitch.

But what Sullivan thinks Boston has to offer a true educational leader is that rarest of opportunities: the chance to succeed. In a time when failure is the order of the day in big-city school sys- tems, there may be no better selling point than that.

“I would love to see an experienced, big-city superintendent who almost got it done somewhere else, but was foiled by a divided school committee or mayoral abandonment” show up on Boston’s doorstep, says Sullivan. To such a candi- date, he would say, “Boy, do we have a city for you.” Q

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A better chance

THE BOSTON PHOENIX

Meet the women of St. Mary’s: strong, single, and striving

by Sarah McNaught

ll over Boston, new gradu- ates are donning caps and gowns and listening to speeches about their bright futures. But on an unusual “campus” in Dorchester, more than 100 young women must battle har- rowing pasts in order to move ahead. And their efforts are decidedly without pomp and circumstance.

Twenty-six-year-old Toyja Hodge, a mother of two who was born in Mission Hill and raised in Hyde Park, has never looked further than a few weeks into the fu- ture. She’s been too busy making difficult decisions: to have an abortion her senior year at Brookline High, to see a second pregnancy to term shortly after graduation, and then to have another child — all this without a permanent home, stable partner, or steady means of support. “I now really wish I had gone right on to college,” she says.

Hodge received some training as a medi- cal secretary and became a dietary aide in a Brookline nursing home, but the burden of career became too great when her father

| asked her to move out of the family home.

NEW DIRECTION: A penniless single mother of three when she arrived at St. Mary’s, Toyja Hodge is now in college, has career goals, and is apartment hunting.

SECTION ONE

MAY 19, 1995

Her children’s father was not reliable enough to provide for them, so Hodge went to the welfare department for help. She was referred to St. Mary’s Women and Infants Center, in Dorchester, a multi-service facili- ty whose close-knit, supportive atmosphere is reminiscent of a small school.

Hodge is one of 120 women the center has helped as it’s evolved over the past two years.

St. Mary’s is a new approach to a tradi- tional residence program. Whereas most fa- cilities for disadvantaged young mothers provide no more than food and shelter, St. Mary’s offers health care, nutrition infor- mation, continuing education, and job and residence placement. The facility, which serves pregnant and parenting teens in the custody of the Department of Social Ser- vices, helps victims of domestic violence, chronic poverty, sexual or physical abuse, mental illness, and substance abuse.

PHOTOS BY PAUL DRAKE ¢XPansion and renovation, |

19 |

“At least 90 percent of the cases here are | victims of some form of physical or sexual abuse,” says president and chief executive officer Joyce Murphy.

The women of St. Mary’s play a role in | their own destiny. Upon arrival, they partic- | ipate in designing individual “action plans.” | Of the women who use the center, about | half live on the grounds in dorm-like rooms | and eat their meals on site. Some women | receive employment training, others take vocational courses. Everyone learns parent- | ing skills.

One-stop support center The Dorchester site was once the home of St. Margaret’s Hospital — the birthplace | of generations of Bostonians, including Senator Ted Kennedy and state Represen- tative Joe Moakley. St. Mary’s took it over in 1993, when St. Margaret’s moved to Brighton, and this week, after two years of

St. Mary’s is celebrating the official opening of its 2.5-acre campus. Pink-

and-white decor, corri- dors strewn with toys, and | homemade artwork set the | tone. Even the executive | offices convey a sense of |

are covered with enor-

facility home.

In the few instances when

other options, she is re- ferred to her own health- care adviser at the Depart- ment of Social Services. CEO Joyce Murphy has

ence with troubled wom- en. From 1983 to 1987, she headed the women’s state prison in Framing- See CITYSCAPE, page 20

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Cityscape

| Continued from page 19

| Murphy invited nonprofit organizations

“I took this job in 1991 to see if I could come up with a vision and a plan,” Murphy says. “At that time, all that was here was a pre-natal program for women and children at risk.” St. Mary’s started within St. Mar- garet’s, as a small alternative center devoted to pregnant teens. After St. Margaret’s moved, a community assessment showed a need for the center’s services, as well as for expanded programs.

Funding was an enormous obstacle, so

such as United Homes for Children and the Boston Institute for Arts Therapy to lease

THE BOSTON PHOENIX

space on the site. The nonprofits offset her costs and provided an array of services that St. Mary’s could never have offered on its own. In so doing, Murphy created a unique one-stop support center.

“It’s tough to take three or four buses to different facilities,” Murphy says, “especial- ly when you have a child and need to look for a job and a home.” There are now 11 nonprofits at St. Mary’s, each enhancing the lives of the program participants.

‘| didn’t know love’

Four months after coming to live at St. Mary’s, Toyja Hodge is earnestly pursuing a degree in early-childhood education at Roxbury Community College and has en- rolled her two children in school. In fact, her five-year-old daughter, Shartel, is an honors student at New Beginning Academy in Hyde Park.

“There’s a lot of things in life that I want for my kids,” says Hodge, “and being on welfare is no way to get them.” Hodge’s

TERIECE GREENE shares a secret with St. Mary’s president | Joyce Murphy, who has built the facility into a unique support center.

fort apache

late

SECTION ONE ®

MAY 19,

1995

A CLEAN START: De’Angeila Fuller, with daughter Deanna, gets a chance to further her education and to learn parenting skilis.

ambition to run her own day-care service comes from the hope St. Mary’s has given her. “The staff is great, and I have gotten a lot of emotional support,” she says. Hodge is now looking for her own apartment and expects to find a job once she’s settled. Another St. Mary’s success story, 19- year-old Angela Taylor, was close to giving up about a year ago. She moved in with her boyfriend and his aunt, only to break up with him a short time later, never telling him he was a father-to-be. She stayed with a friend, but when that didn’t work out, she

began sleeping on the steps of apartment | buildings.

With two months to go in her pregnancy, | Taylor had never been to a doctor, and she | panicked when she started to feel pain. | Physicians at a small community clinic knew things were serious when they found that the fetus was abnormally small. Taylor | was referred by the welfare department to St. Mary’s, where she was nursed back to health. After six weeks at the center, she gave birth to seven-pound Jessica. Since

See CITYSCAPE, page 22

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| Celebrating

MAY

19,

Continued from page 20

then, she has started to take classes toward a high-school-equivalency degree and has found a home for herself and her new baby.

Taylor’s family does not respond to the numerous pictures and letters she sends, and Jessica’s father still isn’t aware that he has a daughter.

“This is my life, and I am not ashamed of it,” says Taylor, as she bounces Jessica on her knee. “I am going to get my GED in June and continue with my education in September.”

There are many things that Taylor hopes for — but, most important, she hopes her daughter does not make the same mistakes she did. “I really hated leaving here,” she says. “Jessica would not have lived, and I would probably be on drugs if I didn’t come here. I didn’t know love until I came and got it from the staff.”

Taylor is still on welfare. But a class on budgeting has given her the financial know-how to save almost $1000 and fur- nish her new apartment. She is also work- ing part-time in the food-services depart- ment at St. Mary’s.

Struggle to survive

Like Taylor, 32-year-old Janet Sproul is just beginning to turn things around.

Years ago, Sproul’s father sent her to California to live with her brother and get a college education.

“I never made it to school out there,” she says. “I got caught up in some real craziness.” Sproul took part in what she

1995

MURPHY (below) presides over a 2.5-acre campus, complete with high- tech classrooms (above), dormitories, and a smorgasbord of services.

ee Sf Ai y 4 ,

refers to as “the band scene.” Nothing was more important to her than having a good time. When she realized her life was spiral- ing downward rapidly, she returned to Massachusetts.

She enrolled in Quincy Junior College, hoping to make a fresh start. Only one semester away from graduation, she quit to move to Revere with her boyfriend and have a child. Soon her boyfriend left for the West Coast, and Sproul went on welfare.

The welfare department helped put Sproul through a bank-training program and place her in a Bank of Boston job that lasted two years before she was laid off. She received a mechanical-drawing certificate from the Women’s Technical Institute, in Kenmore Square, but was unable to find work. Finally, last year, Sproul entered the publicly funded Inner City Program, at- tending classes two hours a day and work- ing on an assembly line at Polaroid in the afternoon. She got pregnant again and spent much of her time at the Pine Street Inn, a shelter for the homeless where her boyfriend resided, until St. Mary’s took her in. Two days after arriving at St. Mary’s, she gave birth to her second child.

There is no one at St. Mary’s for whom the struggle isn’t great. “There are a few cases who have been asked to leave because they’re not ready to help themselves,” says Murphy. “And it is not uncommon for us to have a large number of cases that have failed in other places. When I first started, I actually expected non-complying women. | am amazed at how small the actual number of hard-core cases is.”

“I can’t stand being on welfare,” says Janet Sproul. “I really want to get back to work and look for day care, and they are helping me do that here.” Q

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Inside: Alice K. writhes on-line

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THE BOSTON PHOENIX @

SECTION TWO »*

Cyberwrithing

Alice K. invades Ruth E.’s space

by Caroline Knapp

lice K. (not her real initial) sits at her com- puter, writhing with panic, anxiety, and dread.

Alice K., you see, has been on-line, writing a vicious, catty on-line message. The message, addressed to Elena Z., is about Ruth E., and about the obnoxious, endless evening Alice K. spent having dinner with Ruth E. and her new boyfriend, the debonair Jean-Paul C., and about how thoroughly revolting Alice K. found Ruth E.’s behavior vis-a-vis Jean-Paul €., and . . . well, Alice K. hit the send button on her computer with a little flourish of her wrist, and just at that moment, just at that very moment, she realized, to her utmost horror, that she accidentally zapped the message not to Elena Z. at all but — oooops! — straight to Ruth E. To Ruth E.!

“Oh, shit.” Alice K. says that out loud, staring at the computer. She calls up the e-mail log on her screen, which tells her which messages have been sent at what times and to whom, praying she’s made a mistake. And there it is, in black and white:

To: RuthE@aol.com

From: AliceK@aol.com

Re: Dinnér Avec Les Worms

Mailed: 5/19/95 11:24 A.M.

Status: Unread

She shuts her eyes. “Oh, fuck!”

Five minutes later, Alice K. is on the phone with Elena Z.

“I can’t believe I did this,” she moans. “Oh my God. What am I going to do?”

Elena Z. sighs deeply. “Oh, Alice K.” Then she begins to pepper Alice K. with questions.

“Has she read the mes- sage yet?”

“Not yet. At least, not as of five minutes ago.”

“Does she check her e- mail every day?”

“I think so.”

“Did you send it to her at work or at home?”

“Home. I’m pretty sure I sent it to her home com- puter.” She checks the computer log again. “Yes — it’s her America Online address, which is home.”

Elena Z. is silent for a moment, thinking. “Home,” she says. “Alice K.: can you get over there? Can you find some way to get into Ruth E.’s comput- er before she gets home?”

Alice K. considers this, her heart racing. Could she? Is it possible?

“Oh my God, Elena,” she says.

And then, five minutes later, Alice K. finds herself standing at the door to Ruth E.’s apartment, armed with a credit card and a hairpin. She is wearing dark sunglasses. Her hands are trembling. She inserts the credit card into the side of the doorway above the front lock and slides it up and down. Nothing. She inserts the hairpin into the lock and jiggles it around. Nothing. She jiggles it some more, twists it, shoves it in and out. Nothing. She grabs the doorknob with one hand and jiggles the hairpin some more and then kicks the door with her left foot in frustration. She says, “Fuck!” And then, all of a sudden, Alice K. feels the door move. The doorknob jerks out of her hand, the door opens, and Alice K., hairpin and credit card in hand, finds herself standing in the hallway face-to-face with Jean-Paul C.

“Jean-Paul C.!” she says.

“Alice K.!” he says.

“What are you doing here?” she says.

“What are you doing here?” he says.

They stare at each other for a moment, and Alice K. feels herself blushing deeply. She begins to stammer. “I

..um... I needed something. I —”

Jean-Paul €. eyes her suspiciously.

Alice K. takes a deep breath. “I — my computer is down,” she says, her mind racing. “Something with my hard drive or something. I can’t . . . I came over here to

Heth

— and gets the surprise of her life

Wn |

see if I could use Ruth E.’s computer. Is that okay?”

Jean-Paul C. eyes her some more. “Does Ruth E. know you’re here? Is that okay with her?”

Alice K. feels a stab of irritation and contempt for Jean-Paul €. “I tried to call her at work but I couldn’t reach her,” she lies, doing her best to sound huffy and self-righteous. “So I thought I’d just come over and —”

Jean-Paul C. interrupts. “And break into her apartment?”

Alice K. looks at him. “Yes,” she says, defiantly. “I used to have a key, but I couldn’t find it.” She thinks, / cannot believe how many lies I am heaping on this man, but she doesn’t know what else to do. Plus, she hates Jean-Paul (., so she doesn’t care.

Jean-Paul C. smiles, a vague, sneering smile. “Oh,” he says. “That must be the key she gave to me.” And then he lets her in.

Alice K. marches across the living room toward Ruth E.’s study. She has no idea how she’s going to explain all this to Ruth E. later on — after all, she didn’t try to call Ruth E. at work, and she’s never had a key to Ruth E.’s apartment — but she figures she’ll deal with that later. For now, more important tasks loom.

She gets into Ruth E.’s office and boots up the com- puter. She can hear Jean-Paul C. puttering about in the next room, turning the TV on and off, then mov- ing into the kitchen and opening the refrigerator. What’s he doing here, anyway?, Alice K. wonders, and for a moment she is sidetracked by a little stab of con- cern for Ruth E., who has obviously given Jean-Paul ¢., a man she’s known for less than a month, a key to her apartment.

Ruth E.’s computer is on and Alice K. double-clicks the America Online icon, praying for a mir- acle. Mercifully, they both use the same sys- tem, but Alice K. understands that the real challenge here will be to decipher Ruth E.’s computer password. She whispers under her breath: Please, God: let it be her birth date. Please. She taps in Ruth E.’s birth date — 4 11 60. Incorrect. She taps in various combinations of that — 4 11, and 04 11, and 11 60. Incorrect; incorrect; incorrect. She closes her eyes. And then, as if by an act of God, Alice K. sees a folder on Ruth E.’s desk labeled 1994 TAX STUFF. She opens it up. She rifles through the first few pages: it’s a copy of Ruth E.’s 1994 tax return. She finds Ruth E.’s social-security number, and she enters the first four digits — 0192. Incorrect. She enters the last four digits — 9245. And then . . . amazing! To Alice K.’s profound relief, the computer begins to whir and chug, Alice K. hears the sound of the phone line con- necting, and moments later, the familiar little on-line voice rings out, “You’ve got mail!” Alice K. double-clicks the mail icon. She sees the e-mail message: Dinnér. Avec Les Worms. She highlights it and, with a great sigh, she deletes it. Message gone. Mission accomplished. Phew!

Alice K. sits back in the chair at Ruth E.’s desk and smiles. Thank you, Lord, she thinks. And then, just as she’s about to shut off the computer and get out of there, something on Ruth E.’s desk catches her eye. It’s a form of some kind, sticking out from underneath the income-tax folder. It’s from the US Department of Immigration and Naturalization, and it appears to be an application of some kind. Alice K. looks closer. Yes, it’s an application for a green card, and it’s attached with a paper clip to a manila envelope. Alice K. turns over the envelope — The application must have been in this, she thinks — and when she sees the address, her heart skips a beat.

Above the street and city address, where Alice K. expected to see Jean-Paul C.’s name, it says this:

“Mr. and Mrs. Jean-Paul C.”

To be continued. Q

DAVID SIPRESS

MAY 12,

1995

InnlGhT D0

by Cecil Adams

SLUG SIGNORINO

Recently I heard about ear candling [Straight Dope, April 14] from a friend and, ever on the prowl for novel ways to rid myself of earwax, decided to investigate. My friend’s mother and sister had tried ear candling and were enthusiastic about its virtues. One ecstatic earwax remover reported that a “gumball-sized” glob of earwax was recovered after the procedure. That was incentive enough for me. Sure enough, inserting and burning an ear candle produced yellow, stinky wax in the stub of the candle tube. However, I was suspicious of the source of said wax and demanded that a “control candle” be burned in free air, with no ear attached. Ear-candling devotees worldwide cried out in sorrow when we cut the stub open to reveal . . . another glob of stinky yellow wax! Cecil, it’s all a sham, a ruse, a hoax. Would that it were otherwise.

Bill Gribble and Tina Gessler Austin, Texas

This is what I get for cutting these new-age nostrums some slack. I decided to conduct my own experiments. Having rounded up a couple of MDs and a volunteer candlee, I went to my neighborhood new-age apothe- cary shop to buy ear candles. I discovered to my sur- prise that (1) they were 11 inches long — I'd had the idea they were the size of a birthday candle — and (2) they cost $3.50 each. This gets you a hollow cone made of wax-impregnated cloth with a raw-materials cost of maybe 10 cents, a profit margin that has to make even ballpark hot dogs look economical.

Figuring that the MDs’ medical education had proba- bly been a little light in the ear-candling department, | also bought an ear-candling manual. In the “theory and research” section I read that “the low flame of the [ear candle] wick creates a slow vacuum which softens and pulls the old wax into the base of the candle.” Slow vac- uum? I read on. “Our theory is that [various benefits] are possible because all the passages in the head are interconnected, allowing the candles to drain the entire system osmotically through the membrane of the ear... . All nerves have a thin coating of spinal fluid which can become polluted. The fluid in your body cir- culates 14 times a day in order to cleanse itself... . Our cranial bones become misaligned. . . . [Candling] cleans the lymphs within this structure as well as the cochlear hairs themselves.” Whew, too deep for me. But the manual did have pictures, so even dopes could do it right.

The medical team consisted of Keith Block, a family practitioner with an interest in alternative medicine, and Cecil’s good friend Clark Federer. Clark was a surgeon rather than an ear-nose-throat guy, but I meant to be prepared for any eventuality. Our subject was Pat, a 30- year-old male who’d had earwax removed via conven- tional medical treatment some years earlier.

First we peered into Pat’s ears with an otoscope, the familiar flashlight-type examining device. The poor guy had enough wax in there to make his own candles. We put him on the table, lit the candle and stuck it in his ear in the prescribed manner. Then we watched, struggling to suppress the thought that we should also be chanting and maybe sacrificing small animals.

When the candle had burned down to two inches, we snuffed it and examined the treated ear with the otoscope. No change, except that possibly the wax was dented where the candle had been stuck in. Upon slicing open the candle stub, however, we found a considerable quantity of brown wax and whitish pow- der. The manual had the audacity to intimate that the powder was candida yeast extracted from the ear, conceding that possibly “1% to 10%” was from the used candle. The disappointed MDs were more inclined to say it was 100 percent, but just to be sure we burned another candle in the open air. When we sliced it open we found wax and powder identical to that in the first. Conclusion: it’s a hoax, although candling devotees will probably say we just didn’t do it right. Maybe we should have sacrificed those small animals after all.

Is there something you need to get straight? Cecil Adams can deliver the Straight Dope on any topic. Write Cecil Adams, the Boston Phoenix, 126 Brookline Avenue, Boston 02215, or e-mail him at cecil@chireader.com. Q