Transient Authority finds a home in New Bedford

Jason Medina organizes weekly events to showcase arts, music

New Bedford's Accu-Billiards is filled with fluorescent lights, colored spotlights, intense music and a curious crowd.

By Allison Reitz

I’m always up for adventure, but when I walked into Accu-Billiards in New Bedford, I was worried. The only light in the main room came from fluorescent lights, flickering over a sea of mostly vacant pool tables. Pausing in his game, one man leaned back against a table and eyed me as I walked by. My eyes fixed on a set of glass doors in the back of the hall as I thought, “That must be it — that’s the Ruckus Room.” The lights seemed to be off inside, but I could hear a low hum, so I pushed through the doors.

A wave of sound crashed down on me as I pushed through the doors. Drums thundered and a heavy bass rumbled. Timidly looking around, I saw clusters of people as they moved in front of a small corner stage where a band played. Red and green spotlights focused on the lead singer, who wore eyeliner and a strange black turtleneck that seemed more like a straight jacket with all of its zippers and Velcro. The dark red walls of the Ruckus Room seemed to swallow all excess light, and even the wall art, strangely reminiscent of ‘80s nail salon posters, felt ominous.

I apologized my way through the crowd, taking refuge against a wall. Black leather, gauged ears, skin covered with tattoos. This was not my type of crowd. As the lead singer thrashed and screamed something about suicide, I began wondering if retreating back to the parking lot would be my best option. But before my escape route was finalized, a friendly man wearing thick-rimmed glasses, a striped shirt and paperboy cap picked up a bullhorn and yelled, “THIS IS TRANSIENT AUTHORITY!”

“That must be Jason,” I thought.

A man, a plan, the Transient Authority

Jason Medina, 33, is the driving force behind the Transient Authority, an umbrella organization designed to showcase artists from the South Coast area and beyond. For the past year, he has organized and promoted weekly events, featuring everything from the occasional open mic and a rotating bill of bands, to screenings of local directors’ films and an art gallery for his own work. And true to the organization’s nomadic name, these events have been held at three different locations in New Bedford: the night club Legacy, the dive bar City Lights and now Accu-Billiards.

Medina has a specific business plan that he always pitches to the owners of potential venues. They provide the location, and he does all the promotion, booking and DJing. “So far, no one has said no because it’s literally no loss for them. All they have to do is open their doors and serve liquor, which is what they do anyway.”

Even though he’s never been turned down, he’s especially grateful that his current venue took him in. “I walked up as a stranger to Accu-Billiards, and the owner said, ‘Either you’re full of shit, or you’re on to something. I can try this out,’” Medina recalls. “And by the second show, he offered to put over one grand into the show with sound equipment and promotion... I’ve finally got someone to pay my flyer bills.”

‘I want it to be a brand name’

The idea for Transient Authority came from a poem of the same name that Medina wrote about “reclaiming a city” and “sustaining an art scene.” But Medina says some find the concept difficult to grasp. He sips his Starbucks coffee as he lounges in the Underground Café in the Campus Center, chuckling, “Some people think I’m a band, or that I own these places where we do the shows. But they eventually get it. It’s not like Yiddish that you can’t understand it.”

But Medina feels that the nomadic-sounding name doesn’t necessarily have to be understood for people to enjoy the experience his shows offer. He says of Transient Authority, “I just want it to be a brand name. Like, you don’t know what ‘Starbucks’ means, but you know that there will be coffee there. So I want it to be that way, but with performance shows and art, whether it’s physical, whether it’s comedy....”

He doesn’t even have a requirement for the type of arts he’ll showcase during his shows. “I had someone who put condoms through his nose and pulled them out his throat. I’ve had that on stage,” Medina explains. “Whatever it is, I want it to be under the banner of Transient Authority.”

A different experience each week

For the most part, though, Transient Authority events border a bit closer to the mainstream and showcase local bands who are all too happy to be involved. Joe Touchette III, a solo artist and frontman for Taunton-based band The Seeing, says, “We’re with Jason until the end, really. He helped us out, so we’re going to do whatever we can to make these shows great.”

The bassist for the Providence indie band Cardboard Fort, Kevin Fernandes, enjoys performing in the Transient Authority atmosphere. He describes, “Playing at Transient Authority kinda feels a little bit — not exactly like an old school punk rock show in your back yard — but it feels a little bit close to that, so I like it!”

Fernandes must have different tastes than me, but to be fair, the night Cardboard Fort played was not as close to being an “old school punk rock show” as the first event I had attended. In fact, the lineup was much tamer and along the lines of acoustic indie rock. And though the audience that night had more than their fair share of piercings and tattoos, they seemed more inclined to sing along with melodic covers of Neutral Milk Hotel songs than to thrash with the hardcore kids.

The vast difference in atmosphere between the two shows — and really any two Transient Authority shows — is part of the beauty of it, as Medina sees it. He explains, “It’s like that corny quote that I’ve always hated about Massachusetts weather: if you don’t like it, wait a minute. I took that quote and applied it to my shows. If you don’t like one night, just wait until the next one.”

A modest vision of success

Having just celebrated the one-year anniversary of Transient Authority, Medina is glad that so many bands and audience members are getting behind his vision. But just because he’s found a faithful base of supporters doesn’t mean he’s out of the red quite yet. “If anyone knows business, after a year, you can’t really expect profits,” he says. “But as long as I walk out of there even, I don’t care — as phony as that sounds, and as idealistic as that sounds. Of course I want to make money, but if I can walk out and fill up my gas tank, that’s a success. And if the show is great, and the bands are happy, that’s a success for me.”

With such a modest vision of success, Medina is often surprised when people stop him on the street to compliment him on the work he’s doing. “When you think you’re doing what you think you should be doing, and you have a lot of people coming up to you saying that what you’re doing is great for the city or great for the arts, you can’t even respond to stuff like that,” he relates. “You can’t say, ‘I know.’ You can’t say that was the plan or that you knew it would work out.”

Whether it was in his plans or not, Transient Authority does seem to be working out. Perhaps that’s because Medina pours so much of himself into the events each week. He does all the booking and promoting for the bands and events, often spending over four hours a week sending out MySpace notifications about upcoming shows. He also averages about three hours a week simply making promotional flyers for each show.

With so much time put into the promotion, it’s no wonder his flyers often become extremely personal for him. On his most recent flyer designs, Medina included copies of his medical prescriptions (after removing personal information, like his medical ID). Though it may be unconventional, he believes this decision is in-keeping with his personal business beliefs. “Transient Authority is about being honest,” Medina contends. “I have my flaws — I’m on certain medications. I’ve been there and I had bad moments, but I’m not ashamed of it, and I don’t want other people to be.”

But of course it wouldn’t seem strange for Medina to display his medical information in public because the Transient Authority events are themselves a form of therapy for him. “It’s helped me more, this past year with Transient Authority, than the four or five years that I went through therapy, medication and even hospitalization,” he confides.

“I wouldn’t say anything as cliché as ‘it saved my life.’ But it gave a part of me that was buried a voice, which kind of balanced me out,” Medina continues. “If it ended tomorrow, or if I ended it tomorrow, it’s changed me forever. How can it not?”

Accu-Billiards is located at 3057 Acushnet Ave., New Bedford. Each week, doors for Transient Authority open at 9:30 p.m. and the show starts at 10 p.m. Admission is just $3 with a college ID. Admission without an ID is $4 before 10:30 and $7 after. For more information, visit Jason Medina online at www.myspace.com/transientauthority.

Angry comedian: No laughs for you

By Jeff Bogosian

On Thursday, January 31, comedian Jessi Campbell performed at UMass Dartmouth. Although she was not one of the funnier comedians who has come to campus this year, her act will stand out for one reason: her attitude towards the audience.

The show started off with her requesting the entire crowd to move to the center section of the auditorium because, as she said, it was too much work for her to look around the whole room. Even though it was an odd request, the audience did as they were told.

After this move a certain group of girls were seated in the second row. During Campbell’s first few jokes, she noticed that this group was talking amongst themselves. Campbell stopped her performance and pointedly asked them what they were talking about. The girls laughed and apologized.

She went on with her set, but clearly noticed that one of the previously mentioned girls could not stop laughing. One of the girls was particularly disruptive, bursting out in laughter at random moments. After stopping her show multiple times and telling the female audience member that she had ruined the first ten minutes of the show, Campbell finally had enough and exclaimed, “Shut the (expletive) up. Seriously.” Eventually, the girl left the auditorium.

Campbell asked what was wrong with her and when the crowd told her that the girl was intoxicated, she said, “No way, really?”

It is a wonder whether or not she realized she was performing on a college campus on Thursday night. Shouldn’t she have been prepared for the stereotypical drunk person?

After the drunken girl had abandoned the show, the comedian continued to tell jokes relating to people not washing their hands after going to the bathroom and her own driving habits. During this period of mildly amusing comedy, she also breaks to talk to students like the boy whose girlfriend she had met the day before and saracstically greeting students who snuck into the show long after the start of it.

She repeatedly went off on tangents and forgot the topic of her jokes, making the whole show seem quite unorganized. She made her exit after telling a joke about tips her police officer father told her concerning getting out of tickets. This joke was predictable and not even good for a chuckle.

In the end, her whole performance came off as angry rather than funny and left audience members feeling as though they had just wasted the last hour of their lives.

Theatre Co. announces ‘Laramie’ auditions

By Allison Reitz

On Wednesday, February 13, the UMass Dartmouth Theatre Company will hold auditions for the spring production of Moises Kaufman’s “The Laramie Project.” Students and community members between the ages of 17 and 30 are invited to try out for a role.

Auditions will begin promptly at 7 p.m. in the Theatre Company office, Room 001 in the Campus Center. Those auditioning must prepare a brief dramatic monologue of one minute or less; they will also be asked to read a passage from the script.

“The Laramie Project” follows the story of Matthew Shepard, a student at the University of Wyoming who was murdered in 1998. Shepard’s death and the subsequent trials became the center of great controversy, not only in conservative mid-America but across the country. Many believe Shepard was attacked because of his sexual orientation. For this reason, his murder is considered a hate crime.

“The Laramie Project” takes a unique look at the court proceedings that took place after Shepard’s murder. The Theatre Company’s office manager Danny Dobbins explains, “The play itself is set up in monologue style within the court scenes. Characters are stepping up, giving their perspectives, giving their ideas, and then stepping back.”

Retha Charette, Theatre Company’s president and production manager, says, “It’s a show that’s so powerful and has such an intense message that I think it will have a huge impact on campus.”

The Theatre Company is teaming up with the Pride Alliance to help spread the word about “The Laramie Project” and its implications. Mark Herber, co-chair of the Pride Alliance, explains, “It’s very important that people are aware of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender issues.”

Herber continues, “While some people would say that the Matthew Shepard incident and hate crime has been overdone, I’d honestly say that lately it hasn’t been done enough. Some people would rather just forget that it ever happened, but it still happens.”

The play has an added local importance after the 2006 murders at Puzzles Lounge, a gay bar in the North End of New Bedford.

The director for the production will be Jarrad Nunes, the Theatre Company’s advisor and the CVPA’s art events coordinator. Nunes’ unique vision for the play is creating a lot of positive buzz within the Theatre Company and Pride Alliance. His approach to “The Laramie Project” will be much more minimalist than previous stage productions, focusing heavily on the characters’ individual perspectives.

Charette will only divulge that “a lot of media is involved in the show.” She adds, “It’s something we’ve never attempted before. I’m very excited about it.”

Adam Lawrence, co-chair of the Pride Alliance, hopes that the people who audition for the show “feel they can bring an emotional truth to the role.”

“The Laramie Project” will be presented in the UMass Dartmouth Main Auditorium from April 24-27, 2008. For more information about auditions, contact the Threatre Company at 508-999-8167 or at theatreco@umassd.edu.

Temper now accepting submissions for annual edition

By Shara Sarnelli

Poetry and prose. Motivational and influential words. Creativity and emotion flowing from start to finish. Imagine seeing some of your own and greatest writing published in a literary journal.

For more than 30 years, the UMass Dartmouth annual literary journal, Temper, has published the prose and poetry of UMD students, faculty and staff. Temper is funded by Student Senate, but is run by students.

Because this is a student run organization, students are responsible for all the editing, designing and distributing efforts that are put into making this journal successful.

Temper is published every spring, with this year’s 2008 edition planned for an early April release. The deadline for the upcoming issue is Valentine’s Day, Thursday, February 14.

Everyone is encouraged to submit their original poetry or prose electronically to temper@umassd.edu. Include name and address at the top of each submission, as multiple entries can be sent in.

Erin Bowen, a graduate student who has an MA in Professional Writing, is in her second year as managing editor for Temper.

Bowen said that she has “been really impressed with the quality of the publication. Temper is a great avenue for members of the UMass Dartmouth community to display their talents as creative writers.”

One reason for Temper’s success is the fact that the team publishes a wide variety of different types, styles and genres of literature.

Each issue contains both new writers and veteran writers. Many writers have also been published in several literary journals and magazines across the nation.

Bowen hopes that “the publication will gain interest outside of the English Department” for future issues of Temper. The literary journal stresses that they are open to submissions from students enrolled in all types of majors, not exclusively English majors.

If students, , are interested in being a part of the Temper Team (editorial, marketing, distribution), contact Erin Bowen at temper@umassd.edu.

Do not forget to send in your writing by the deadline to the same e-mail address listed above!

THE BEER BARON

Southern Tier Raspberry Porter: Something sweet this February

By Gary Albert

I used to thoroughly enjoy fruit beers, especially before I started actually tasting beer. Most fruit beer has little character and is the same style, wheat beer. This is because of its lighter volume and easier to augment taste. Generally wheat beer is a spring and summer style beer, so I try to stay away from fruit beers in the winter.

So why am I reviewing a fruit beer in February? This isn’t your typical fruit beer. It reeks of winter (in a good way). I’ve always wondered if a dark fruit beer was possible, given that every fruit beer I’ve seen has been a very light style wheat. I saw a raspberry beer in a different style than wheat, so I had to jump at the chance to try it.

Porter is a very similar style to stout, as it is usually a dark, heavy beer. Porters generally have a smoky character to them not present in stouts, which can often be attributed to higher hop content or using smoked malts. They generally aren’t as thick and milky textured, though. They are a traditional fall-winter style.

Southern Tier Raspberry Porter is brewed by Southern Tier Brewing Company in New York, a brewery that I’ve been pleased with every beer of theirs that I’ve tried.

It pours a very dark brown, nearly black color, which is mostly transparent and clearly filtered. The light head dissipates after a few seconds leaving a nice film on the top. The smell is of fruit and floral hops, but the raspberry distinction isn’t noticeable, which is the biggest downside to the beer.

The first sip has coffee and a very sweet flavor with definite raspberries in the mix. The deeper flavors include chocolate, molasses hiding on the edge of the tongue underneath the raspberries.

This beer may be too sweet for some, but it is great for me. The sweetness seems to bring out the raspberry flavor without making it overwhelming, leaving fans feeling like they are drinking a porter. The flavor is well balanced in regards to hops and malts as well.

This beer is very easy on the tongue and very easy to drink. Unfortunately, I have been unable to find the alcohol percentage, but it cannot be too high. I am very pleased with this beer and I am going to pick up some more before I can’t find it anymore, as well as a few more of Southern Tier’s selections.

Appearance: 4/5

Smell: 3/5

Mouthfeel: 3.75/5

Drinkability: 4.5/5

Taste: 4.5/5

Overall 4.25/5: Great, unique and well brewed beer. It has its flaws, but they can be overlooked, given the difficulty to brew a beer of this style. I guess I’m just waiting for a brewery to come out with a Strawberry Double Chocolate Imperial Stout. I’ll have to settle for the Raspberry Porter in the mean time.

If you have a recommendation for a beer for me to review (anything goes), want to comment on or criticize my review, or just have questions regarding beer, send me an email at UMDBeerBaron@umassd.edu.

RAs host video game night

By Shara Sarnelli

RA Mary Ampong defeats residents with her Guitar Hero skills.

Community-building is a highly important aspect of residential life here at UMass Dartmouth. The Residential Life Staff looks at community building as an essential part of the college experience, especially for the First Year Experience (freshmen).

To ensure the community is brought together to the best of its potential, Resident Assistants (RAs) are in charge of hosting a number of programs each semester. These programs can occur across campus, but are typically held in the residential dorms.

Three RAs of Maple Ridge Hall recently combined forces to bring a night of video games and fun to first year residents. Shaun Harris, Doug Orgera and Spencer Rode utilized three televisions and video game systems, including Wii, Play Station 2 and Xbox 360. Games played consisted of Guitar Hero III, Call of Duty IV, Mario Tennis and much more.

Approximately 30 residents attended the night of video games, held in the Multi Purpose room of Maple Ridge Hall, all satisfied to be able to get together with friends and make new friends while playing some of their favorite games.

Resident Assistant Shaun Harris was glad that the program “got residents interacting in an environment without alcohol on a Thursday night, which is awesome from the standpoint of an RA.”

Look for future programs to attend. Fliers are usually presented, hanging on walls in all of the residential dorms, or just talk to an RA for further information.