DS:
Congratulations on hosting your 50th open mic event! How has the The Bummer City Historical Society (the events & booking arm of your group) evolved since #1??

BCHS:
Our events haven’t changed much to be honest. We are still dedicated to making fun, accessible events where a variety of weirdos and normies can come together to build community. We remain dedicated to pursuing social justice through the community building process. If anything has changed, we have become more interested in higher concept, silly kinds of events, like our occasional Great Waffle House Caper excursions.

DS:
You all are a are a “community arts and civic education organization consisting of two related but discrete groups”, of which The Bummer City Civic Engagement Coalition is the more government-ally & dare I say politically, minded entity. What are you working on and/or involved with here in 2020?

BCHS:
We’ve pared down our big dreams for BC.CEC of late but it remains basically an outlet for routinizing civic engagement. Our goal is to figure out how to model engaged citizenship when we are all busy and overcommitted haha. As happens from time to time, we are in an activity lull, but will be more active in the months leading up to the general election.

DS:
Bummer City. I use Suck City myself. How doe we fix this city and area? Is it possible?

BCHS:
In my view, the way we fix the city is through sustainable, robust community organizing, which, per my above comments, is really an issue of how to make space for community building and engagement for people whose main energies are elsewhere. This is a hurdle for political organizing, but in general we need responsive, consistently mobilizable advocacy groups and that will come ultimately from groups at develop along both political and social lines. This is to say, an art group or even an extended friend group is a building block for organizations which can be used to make government more responsive to people’s needs. More crucially, however, people need to feel a sense of their own efficacy and this comes from learning how to organize in your own way for whatever silly or serious reason you are driven to organize.

DS:
Does Bummer City dream of opening a space of its own, and what would that be like? And if so what are the hurdles to doing so in the Boston area that make it so difficult in your eyes, and through your experience?

BCHS:
I have always dreamed of a bummer city space but at this stage I can’t see it happening. We simply lack the capital and the business know-how. I think it could happen though.

DS:
What does 2020 hold for Bummer City and how can folks interested in in finding out more get in touch??

BCHS:
Our monthly open mics continue, we will be getting some civics meetings up on the schedule soon, and we have these new one hour gigs in Allston too (next one is March 7th 7:30-8:30 at Book Club). This email is where to get in touch!