A view of Port Ferdinand’s marina (photo by Shaula Clark)
This one represents a special milestone for me: The first time I’ve ever traveled outside of New England for a story. As part of Boston magazine’s 2017 travel issue, I flew to Barbados and spent a few whirlwind touring the tiny island—while getting to experience a few other notable personal firsts, including watching a polo match and eating flying fish.
This piece was originally published in Boston Magazine’s January 2017 issue.
Tom & Jerry at No. 9 Park (courtesy photo)
Boston winters may be merciless, but at least they come with an excuse to drink copious amounts of spiked hot chocolate. Here’s a toast to the local bars that keep us toasty.
This piece was originally published via Boston Magazine on December 24, 2015.
Bread at Loyal Nine (photo courtesy of Loyal Nine)
Fun fact: December 8 has been declared “Pretend to Be a Time Traveler Day.” Since Boston is awash in living history, I decided that this obscure holiday would be a great opportunity for a roundup of Boston eateries that commune with the past—including an opportunity to feast on “Roasted Sweet Meat of Swine†at the Boston Tea Party Museum.
This piece was originally published via Boston Magazine’s blog on December 8, 2015.
Once upon a time, I helped introduce an audience of fitness fans to the concept of cricket flour. (Or at least I’d like to think so.) As an editorial manager at AMP Agency, I contributed to a blogging initiative to mark the launch of RAP Protein Gummies—fitness snacks made with whey isolate—by writing many wonky articles about protein. Eventually, this strange little writeup (along with the others I did for RAP) disappeared into the ether following a website redesign. But it remains one of my favorites of the bunch.
This piece was originally published on rapproteingummies.com, via AMP Agency, in September 2014.
I love creating theme issues. And my hands-down favorite theme issue is the Valentine’s Day issue, because it’s a great jumping off point for all kinds of fun weirdness: trashy Mad Libs, BDSM vampires, a taste-test of erotic “edibles” from sex shops, and other love-dovey stuff.
For a long time, I’d wanted to do a bad-romance-novel-cover spread above as an homage to something I’d seen in Lemon magazine — and with an assist from Uncle Walter and the Phoenix design team, my wildest dreams came true in 2011. My other V-Day bucket list article was to get a bunch of chefs to make gourmet food out of Necco hearts (partly inspired by Mario Batali’s infamous Starburst-and-Red-Bull sauce), but I was convinced that was too outlandish to pull off … until our superstar food editor Cassandra Landry took the idea and ran with it. And suddenly, Boston chefs were making high-falutin grub out of Red Hots and Nerds. I could have wept with joy. (Or maybe that was sugar rush.)
And let’s not forget the clip & send Valentine cards.
In 2011, we also started collaborating with art collective Paint Pens in Purses to make these totes-adorbs Valentines.
The art for the first batch was pretty much anything goes; but for the second installment, we went for a “Love Hurts” theme, to go with the music section’s blowout “Top 100 Emo Songs of All Time” (read more about the Emo 100 web component here).
Somewhere along the way, I got a wild hair to combine the Valentine’s Day cards with our marketing campaign for the Phoenix‘s annual Boston’s Best reader poll … and it all came together in 2013.
Behold, the Rapture Issue: yet another example of an office joke spiraling so far out of control that it becomes a full-on print issue. (As I recall, editor Carly Carioli was hesitant to green-light this … until he realized that this was his chance to do the Weekly World News cover he’s always wanted. That sold him instantly.) In addition to the brainstorming and general content wrangling, my major contribution to this package was the headline “God Hates FAQs.” (Also, I co-wrote “Rapture Pets,” which is basically Muppet Babies meets Left Behind, with a cameo appearance by Christopher Hitchens. It all kinda makes sense, promise.)
Despite this blasphemy, the entire editorial staff got raptured somehow — which someone (one of damned and earthbound, apparently) documented for posterity.