Apropos of Professor Zebbler’s appearance at Boston Bitdown on March 7 (see below), I indulge in some hazy reminisces of the infamous 2007 Boston Mooninite Panic. Yes, that’s a real thing.
A brief recap for the uninitiated. Imagine yourself back in 2007, a golden age of shit. 9/11 was still within spitting distance. Police departments around the country were stockpiling military-grade equipment eagerly to fight a spectral terrorist threat. And 20-somethings were getting stoned, watching a talking carton of fries, meatball and milkshake solve mysteries on “Aqua Teen Hunger Force,” part of the Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim programming.
Enter Peter “Zebbler” Berdovsky and Sean Stevens, two foot soldiers drafted into a guerilla marketing army, promoting the upcoming feature-length film “Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters.” Their assignment was to stash colorful LED displays of the Mooninite characters (arch villains in the ATHF universe) in fun and surprising nooks around town. You know, standard guerilla art/marketing stuff.
The shit hit the fan when somebody called in one of the fixtures beneath a bridge as a terrorist threat. The whole city shut down. Boston being Boston, nobody got the joke.
Well, almost nobody got the joke. A lone, 20-something crime analyst in the Boston Police Department recognized the “threat” and alerted then-commissioner Ed Davis that what they were dealing with, in fact, were Mooninites. Two-dimensional, culturally advanced, religious zealots full of father issues, yes, but not dangerous.
Thankfully, the “bomb hoax” charges against Berdovsky and Stevens were dropped eventually, albeit in exchange for community service and a public apology. Boston got roasted for its overreaction by the national media. But we can take at least two positives out of the bizarre affair.
First, whatever the “intelligence” missteps committed by the Boston Police Department, the response still counts as an operational success. I talked with the analyst who cracked the case, and they put it this way:
“The Unified Incident Command structure got a real live test … When an incident was declared there was a clear command established, all of the stakeholders went to the command center. Activities were coordinated. It worked the way it was supposed to go. After 9/11 the department had been doing all sorts of exercises and scenario planning. The only real tests were DNC and championship events,” the analyst said, referring to Boston’s hosting of the next Democratic National Convention. “But in those cases, those were planned events. Command centers were open as part of a standing plan. This was an actual incident on an average day that involved multiple jurisdictions, and everyone did what they should have.”
Second, the Mooninite mission was the start, not the end, of Peter “Zebbler” Berdovsky’s illuminated art career. Zebbler Studios has created digital art installations for galleries, festivals, commercials, videos and more, appearing in New England and around the world. And Berdovsky, now an assistant professor at Berklee College, will bring a slew of his students to Boston Bitdown to work their visual magic in March.
On both counts, in the immortal words of Borat: “Great success!”
Hit this
Friday: Celia SmokinButts, Condition Baker, Little Hag (The Jungle, Somerville)
Is local drag star Celia SmokinButts just hosting or one of the performers too? Maybe that’s a malformed question, because hosts perform, and live music-meets-drag shows are everywhere lately. Sexfest, Show Me Your Bits, too many to list; all risqué variety hours with strong musical components. Increasingly I’m seeing a more freewheeling selection of music paired with the burlesque. We’re way past ghettoized, Gaga-driven, neo-cabaret mixes milking Weimar Republic nostalgia. There is burlesque for grunge, burlesque for emo, burlesque for chiptune – whatever your pleasure. Condition Baker is an alt-punk quartet that you might not envision on a burlesque bill. But you should. New Jersey’s Little Hag brings the bitch rock.
Tuesday: The Mythological Meditation Society (Lilypad, Cambridge)
A worried father once asked me whether his daughter had a future in the music business. Naturally I was the man to ask because I had just written 500 unpaid words about her band’s debut indie-rock album for a blog. Sounded like she wanted to take a gap year to follow her music dream and her father was worried she’d end up dead in a ditch. Drama. I had no prepared response, but here’s what I’d say now.
“Relax, pops. Let’s look at the facts. Your 18-year old daughter, who just wrote and recorded an album, is getting offers to take the act on the road. If calling her a musician makes you uncomfortable, call her a businesswoman. Because that’s what she is. Those are the kinds of lessons she’s learning. Would you rather she be getting wasted at a frat and pulling Cs in Psych 101? Most bands, like most small businesses, ‘fail.’ But the train keeps rolling, and what matters are the survival skills you bring to the next challenge. College will be there when she gets back from the tour.”
Okay, hard pivot. Jesse Gallagher’s band Apollo Sunshine never broke big. Who cares? I’m amazed constantly by the local cosmos of art, spirituality and commerce he’s embedded himself in. A booker at Lilypad, certified yoga instructor, gigging musician and wearer of many more hats, I’m sure. Some people can’t recognize business hustle when it’s put toward something other than accumulating the most coin possible, but I’m not one of those people. Go respect the hustle at this meditation bonanza with music, visuals and guided breath work by Jesse Gallagher.
March 6-8: Boston Bitdown (various, Somerville and Arlington)
A three-day chiptune and digital fusion fest. More than 50 artists will perform at five venues, none of which are in Boston. Have we internalized our oppression? It’s true that the eyes of out-of-towners roll into the back of their heads when you start giving them directions in terms of “squares.” But you’re reading Cambridge Day, so you’re a local, and you can mentally map a festival taking place in Davis Square, Union Square, plus one night up Massachusetts Avenue in Arlington. The music genre inspired by video games has been waiting patiently in the wings for its closeup. Get your ”up up down down left right left right B A start” vibe on.
Live: Tap Dance Jam at the Lilypad
Subject Matter hosted a Tap Dance Jam at Inman Square on Saturday. Think of it as an “open mic,” except it’s for dance and you won’t have to listen to a divorced 40-something strum Nirvana’s “Rape Me” on his overpriced acoustic.
Company member and choreographer Ian Berg stepped in as emcee. Reluctantly, he’d have us believe. “Someone’s gotta do it.” But the lady doth protest too much. You don’t own a pair of tap shoes because you’re bashful about getting up in front of a crowd.
Berg was joined by fellow company member and dance captain (and fiancée) Samantha Emmond. With the help of a jazz trio, the dancers kicked off the festivities with a back-and-forth tap number to the tune of Charlie Parker’s “Billie’s Bounce.”
The floodgates opened after the bounce. Tall tappers, short tappers, young tappers, old tappers. Anyone with metal plates on their shoe bottoms was invited to strut their stuff atop three adjoining stone slabs, forming a slightly raised dais above Lilypad’s standard hardwood stage.
“Had I known it was an open mic, I would have worn a type of footwear other than my heaviest, clunkiest winter boots and joined in the tap fun” is not a sentence that is remotely true. But there were plenty of vicarious thrills to be enjoyed for the permanently sedentary portion of the audience. And no wait at the beer line.
If you missed the Jam, no worries, more are on their way. Search the usual listings for Subject Matter events. And you can donate to Ian and Samantha’s registry before their August wedding. They want a house. You can buy them one. Or a $15 “bench scraper,” if you’re a real cheapskate.
Michael Gutierrez is an author, educator, activist and editor-in-chief at Hump Day News.
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