By adamg on Sat., 5/7/2016 - 5:59 pm
Juliana Hatfield shares her inner monologue about making ends meet through a note from Cobain.
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Comments
Spoiler alert: she probably won’t
By BullDetector
Sat, 05/07/2016 - 6:25pm
It says just that right in the headline of this article.
I don't know if this woman is a good musician or not, but fishing for publicity using Kurt Cobain's name is probably not the best way to go about drumming up publicity for yourself.
Oh, and if you "live in one of the most expensive cities in the United States: Cambridge, Massachusetts" and can't afford the rent, maybe its time for Malden.
No escape
By Pete X
Sat, 05/07/2016 - 8:28pm
"I don't know if this woman is a good musician or not," but I have to open my ignorant mouth anyway.
People on the internet just gotta be jerks, I guess.
The music is irrelevant
By BullDetector
Sat, 05/07/2016 - 9:22pm
She is trying to promote herself on the back of somebody else, all while playing the woe is me card.
I want to live in the seaport. I can't afford it. End of conversation. I don't run to the press and complain about it. Neither should she .
How the hell do you know if
By Cynthia Levin
Sun, 12/29/2019 - 6:10pm
How the hell do you know if she's trying to "promote herself" you judgemental asshole? Do you know her?
I am surprised
By anon
Sat, 05/07/2016 - 9:32pm
You've never heard of her. She's from the Boston area and was in the Blake Babies, had some solo hits and has collaborated with Evan Dando. She is quite talented. And no, I don't know her, but I know of her and saw her perform many times in the 1990's in Boston
Evan Dando...
By anon
Sat, 05/07/2016 - 10:07pm
Another rich kid from Newton who made a small impact in the late 80s. Hatfield's time has passed and if her music money has dried up and she has run out of items from her radiologist father's art collection to sell off, she may need to consider other career options.
He's not from Newton
By anon
Sun, 05/08/2016 - 8:54am
He is from Essex.
Lol
By boo_urns
Sun, 05/08/2016 - 11:36am
Thought the exact same thing...shows how much these trash talkers really know about all of this.
They got the decade wrong too
By anon
Sun, 05/08/2016 - 7:22pm
Yes, and also it was not the 1980's it was the 1990's they were still in high school (and so was I) in the 1980's!
The Lemonheads formed in 1986
By anon
Sun, 05/08/2016 - 8:19pm
The Lemonheads formed in 1986, and that is when I first saw them. Indeed you were still in high school. Some of us weren't, and were in clubs in Boston seeing bands. If your first exposure to them was their 1992 major label debut you were way behind .
True
By boo_urns
Sun, 05/08/2016 - 9:20pm
I didn't speak to the decade they formed in because I figured it was probably in the 80s, though the 90s had their biggest mainstream success. Car Button Cloth is one of my favorite albums of theirs, personally.
Is her Dad a radiologist?
By anon
Sun, 05/08/2016 - 9:53am
I thought he worked at the Globe.
Her mother- Julie Hatfield-
By anon_wd
Sun, 05/08/2016 - 4:30pm
Her mother- Julie Hatfield- was the Globe feature writer
I don't doubt her talent
By BullDetector
Sat, 05/07/2016 - 10:16pm
I have heard the name. Just don't recognize her music.
Did she ever consider something like...
By anon
Sat, 05/07/2016 - 6:29pm
...uh, getting a JOB?
What kind of job?
By SwirlyGrrl
Sat, 05/07/2016 - 7:57pm
In 1986, my rent and utilities were $350 a month. I made $9 an hour at my co-op job.
In 2016, rent and utilities run to $1,000 a month, even in a shared apartment. My son makes $13 at his summer internship.
Do the math - living expenses have outstripped wage growth. This isn't limited to small-time musicians from wealthy backgrounds.
REAL job?
By Anon
Sat, 05/07/2016 - 8:06pm
Plenty of jobs out there that pay $50k or more right off the bat. Your choice - work for the man at a soul-sucking corporation like everyone else does and be able to pay your bills and have a good chunk of money left over, or keep whining about the lack of money while enjoying the warm fuzzy feeling of working for some albino transgender platypus-saving nonprofit.
You must be new here
By Roman
Sun, 05/08/2016 - 1:54am
Otherwise you'd have imbibed the party line enough to realize that the albino platypus is too privileged to need saving by virtue of being too white.
Not so privileged
By Irma la Douce
Sun, 05/08/2016 - 8:30am
It's the TRANSGENDER albino platypus that's endangered.
Transgendered platypus?
By Roman
Sun, 05/08/2016 - 1:11pm
Why not a trans-species platypus? You know...like a duck that thinks it's a platypus. Those are even rarer, I would surmise.
Really?
By SwirlyGrrl
Sun, 05/08/2016 - 10:46am
Care to show us some ads or links to people offering these $50K entry level jobs?
Ummm
By Anon
Sun, 05/08/2016 - 10:56am
Google it. Pretty much any IT, engineering or finance job will pay at least 50K right off the bat. The only problem is, you need a real degree from a real school, not a PhD in white guilt studies from Simmons.
Nope
By SwirlyGrrl
Sun, 05/08/2016 - 12:22pm
Those are not entry level jobs.
Also, take a look at the student loan debt that you run up getting that "real degree" from a "real school" to train for those jobs - unless you have wealthy parents, you will NOT have "gobs of money" on a $50K salary. You will be lucky to afford to live outside of your parents' house until you get some ground on the still high interest student loans. That wage qualifies you for "affordable" housing in Boston.
Sorry. I have young people in my house. I know how this reality works - and how your perception of it is complete nostalgic and simplistic uberfail.
Oh, and note that my engineering salary coming out of a "real school with a real degree" from MIT in 1988 was $32,000. I split rent and utilities with my fiance for $400 a month. I had only $10,000 in student loans, too, and all at guaranteed rates. My car payment on my $8,000 car was $125 a month, and insurance was $50. Now you leave with $12,000 in the lower interest loans and $50,000 in the higher interest loans that accumulate interest during your time in school to get that "real school real degree". The budgets for those colleges you mention are $60,000 a year! Unless you have rich parents like you obviously must have had to believe what you are saying. No car payment now though - no loans will be given with that much debt.
Just do the math - I know that's hard on your brain, but ... do the math. Salaries have not even doubled, yet the debt load has quadrupled to quintupled, rents have at least tripled.
Again, WAGES ARE NOT KEEPING PACE WITH EXPENSES. How many ways do we have to show that to make it clear to your nostalgic numbskull?
The world doesn't start and stop with MIT
By Roman
Sun, 05/08/2016 - 3:22pm
About 20 years after you got your degree, I got mine from Not-MIT and was hired with a 60k starting salary. I started with two or three damn kids out fresh out of even more Not MIT places like UW and Purdue (gasp! a public school!).
My rent and utilities was about 1350 out in one of the newer McApartments out by 128, and my new car cost about 15k (real price, sticker price was something like 18 or 19), which I paid off in a year at 1k/month, but nominal payment on my 5-year loan was 250/month. Car insurance was about 90 a month (more of that white privilege you keep talking about: alumni discount).
The only number on that list that more than doubled was rent, and only because Mass doesn't build housing in the inner belt suburbs, and I felt like I had a little money to burn. A college friend of mine moved up here the same time I did (starting salary 85k) and rented a place further out in the boonies for about 900.
Edit: Purdue in-state tuititon: ~10k/year x 4 years = 40k, not 20. So yeah: even public colleges are growing like weeds and sucking up more in tuition.
2nd edit: Purdue is 20k/year, not 10.
In-state tuition
By itchy
Sun, 05/08/2016 - 1:43pm
Currently playing $20K a year after honors scholarships at UMass.
You're full of shit.
You're right
By Roman
Sun, 05/08/2016 - 3:21pm
I read that wrong. Purdue is 20k in state too. So 4x above than inflation.
My point still holds. The only thing that's above inflation is colleges, not living expenses. And who do we blame for that...
It isn't just college tuition, fees, books, & housing inflation
By SwirlyGrrl
Sun, 05/08/2016 - 6:59pm
Living expenses are much higher.
Much much higher.
When I graduated, making 30K a year, rent and utilities were about $400 a month.
In 2016, when similar grads make $50K a year, rent and utilities are about three times that.
I know because the apartment I rented now rents out for three times as much.
The house that I bought in 1998 has more than doubled in value - and was already 50% more in cost than what it sold for ten years before that (public records are nice to see sometimes).
A $150K house is now a $450K house
A $400 a month rent is now a $1200 a month rent.
$50K now is not $90K = (3x$30K) then.
Then we have the cost of owning a car - there are no longer any $8K new cars. Same trebling.
Don't drive? A $28 pass will be close to $100 now.
That's a problem.
At least one important cost of living indicator has gone up...
By bibliotequetress
Sun, 05/08/2016 - 7:25pm
... and recent college graduate wages have stagnated. Most of them do not get close to $60,000.
First, the increased cost of food. Information from the USDA:
2006 Cost of eating at home
[url=https://flic.kr/p/G4z825][img]https://farm8.static... cost of food[/url] on Flickr
2016 Cost of eating at home
[url=https://flic.kr/p/G4zbSS][img]https://farm8.static... cost of food[/url] on Flickr
Now, regarding entry level salaries for college graduates, according to the US Department of Education, out of 70 Massachusetts colleges and universities, only the graduates of 12 were earning over $60k a year 10 years after enrolling; that would be 4-6 years after graduation-- not exactly entry level. If you walked into a $60k job right after graduation, you are rare.
The Atlantic did a good job looking at recent wage rates for graduates just a couple of years ago: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/0...
your first job out of college paid $60k??!
By bibliotequetress
Sun, 05/08/2016 - 6:27pm
I didn't reach $50k until my early forties. I work with graduating seniors who are struggling to line up $30k jobs; many aren't getting that.
Is your degree in engineering? I know that's the one field with consistently decent entry pay
Electrical engineering
By Roman
Sun, 05/08/2016 - 8:46pm
60k in late 2000's. Today that would be maybe 70 or 75 depending on how you cook the books to compute inflation over the last decade. As I said, that was on the low end, but good benefits kinda makes up for it.
Similar numbers for most of my friends that either went into technical work or tried to become investment bankers.
Many skilled machinists, technicians, and draftsmen I've worked with made about the same with 2 year degrees or just high school. I went to a place down in Stoughton a while back that did contract fabrication and charged their guys out at something like 150/hr or more, meaning they were probably getting paid more than I get paid now.
And from what I hear, out in central and western Mass, there's a shortage of people willing to do that kind of work.
Less applied training like lit or other humanities...well I don't disbelieve your numbers at all, and the real tragedy is racking up debt for something of questionable financial utility.
the loan system is a nighmare
By bibliotequetres...
Mon, 05/09/2016 - 5:35pm
Honestly, becoming a social worker for families with special needs children, or a research assistant at a pharmaceutical company, or a three-language translator in an emergency room, should not be of questionable financial utility. Yet, over the past 4 years, I've had student workers graduate & do all these jobs for under $35,000/year.
Not great under any circumstances, but absolutely bad with heavy student loan debt on top.
Agreed and disagreed
By Roman
Mon, 05/09/2016 - 8:01pm
The problem as I see it from my little island is that in a number of these jobs, the competition comes from "volunteers" and interns and you get a younger, high-turnover labor pool that doesn't always mind making under 35.
Heck, at my company, interns, even graduate students, don't make that much because...they're interns and they're getting more than the paycheck out of the experience.
I wonder: do the students you work with go that go into other translation work (ie not strictly medical) get similar starting offers? Other than the pharma research assistants (competing with high-turnover interns or people biding time until grad/med school), your list looks to me like it would skew toward jobs that are tied to government reimbursement rates or budgets in one form or another. Do you see a differential in the same jobs in more private sector areas?
Disclosure: I work in defense, so my pay is also tied to government budgets, and it's not too much lower than it might be working for a Google or Amazon, but it's lower, as I understand from my former colleagues who've jumped ship to the Dreaded, Dreaded Private Sector.
Hey, I'm a former federalista
By bibliotequtress...
Wed, 05/11/2016 - 5:35pm
Hey, I'm a former federalista myself!
I can't speak to the lab researcher, but the other two aren't impacted by volunteers, or particularly by free intern labor.
The translator is fluent in Croate, Italian, Spanish, and English, majored in criminal justice and minored in biology. She wanted to go to nursing school, but needs to work for a while, with the hope of maybe getting a job in a hospital that might assist her with more school. This lead to the ER job. Not a lot of volunteers speaking Croate and Italian. She looked at relocating somewhere she would be paid more with her language skills, but what more she would make in DC or New York, she would lose in rent-- she lives with her parents now. The combination of low pay and high cost of living has her cornered.
The young woman who works with special needs kids is now getting her masters in social work, but she couldn't afford to go straight into a graduate program. She was working either directly for the state of RI or for a contractor, I'm not sure which.
I worked in a department that, by its nature, couldn't use interns-- I'm sure you'll understand that as you're in DoD, and probably know the limits of security clearances. I was happy to be in an agency where we were GS 5-7-9, which is high compared to private, academic, or municipal library/archives work without an MLIS, and is directly related to the need to have clearances.
The City of Boston subsidizes
By Abdul Travolta
Sun, 05/08/2016 - 3:58pm
The City of Boston subsidizes programs at various universities in town for people who chose the wrong career and are no unemployed. I teach coding 50 year olds, some of whom got MS in other fields. If that's too much to ask from her, I noticed our local Target is hiring.
Out of curiosity
By lbb
Mon, 05/09/2016 - 10:29am
Just how many entry-level coding jobs do you think there are? Or could be?
If you try and tell me that every person studying in a non-IT field could switch over to IT and the economy would absorb all those entry-level devs, I'll think you flunked math. If you try and tell me that you think anything close to that could happen without affecting YOUR salary (or basic employability), I'll think you flunked more than that.
Coding program
By Irma la Douce
Mon, 05/09/2016 - 11:25am
May I ask where you teach coding? All of the job-training programs targeting older workers that I am familiar with advertise skills like MS office, posting electronic resumes, and other skills to equip someone to compete in the 1998 job market. I'd love to find a program with a more contempoary focus.
In 1986 most of Boston was a
By anon
Sun, 05/08/2016 - 9:22am
In 1986 most of Boston was a dirty, run down, crime ridden hellhole on the path to becoming a Baltimore. Very different from today's real estate market.
No it wasn't
By adamg
Sun, 05/08/2016 - 10:41am
Yes, there were parts of Boston that were like that, but large parts of the city were pretty much the same as today - just a lot less expensive to buy into.
According to you?
By SwirlyGrrl
Sun, 05/08/2016 - 11:07am
Pre embryonic you?
I lived in Boston at that time. Nope, nope, and nope.
Nope again.
By whyaduck
Sun, 05/08/2016 - 5:15pm
i, too, lived in the city then and could afford to do so.
Spent a good deal in Boston
By anon
Sun, 05/08/2016 - 6:17pm
Spent a good deal in Boston in the 1980's... you have no idea what you're talking about. Like any city, there are neighborhoods that are safer and in better shape than others depending on the decade. However, Boston proper for the most part was a well-maintained and safe place to live and visit.
Crack and less gentrifiaction
By Boston Anon
Sun, 05/08/2016 - 11:15pm
Dead wrong.
Many 'hoods weren't gentrified and crack and the violence associated with its dealing caused a lot of problems in some 'hoods but comparisons to Baltimore are laughable.
I had a blast running all over the city in the 80's. Curious what "hellhole" you were in then.
Portrait of Washington
By Cantabrigian
Sat, 05/07/2016 - 7:06pm
I have some portraits of George Washington for sale. I won't consider any offer under $0.26. There are also paper copies, signed by the Secretary of Treasury. $1.01 or best offer.
$0.99
By Roman
Sat, 05/07/2016 - 8:53pm
But I'll be generous and offer a full $20.00 for the soon-to-be-rare portraits of Jackson.
Very Little Sympathy
By John Costello
Sat, 05/07/2016 - 7:34pm
I had to sell a Gretzky rookie card to make a payment on my 84 Rabbit and took that same Rabbit at some point around that time down to Providence to see the Blake Babies on the Sunburn tour. That was 26 years ago. It was a good show but it wasn't the Zooropa tour and her output wasn't Paul Welleresque by far.
We all make sacrifices for what we need and want. She got a lot of breaks via the Globe on her way up. Might be time to see that reruns of 120 Minutes on VH1 Classic aren't going to shoot out enough royalties and move on, or move to Lewiston Auburn.
Sorry. I'd give the Ocean Blue, Jesus Jones, and Throwing Muses the same advice
So many GenX cultural
By bshep
Sun, 05/08/2016 - 12:47am
So many GenX cultural touchstones there!
Cambridge kinda sucks
By anon
Sat, 05/07/2016 - 9:39pm
If you aren't living:
*In the home your parents or grandparents paid off and willed to you
*In a student dorm or housing
*In public or subsidized housing
*Aren't making big $
*Aren't a Trustafarian
Ms. Hatfield needs:
Get a way to acquire more $ asap to finance the lifestyle she's become accustomed to
Get room-mates
Get in public or subsidized housing
Move to a location that's more affordable.
phew
By tape
Sun, 05/08/2016 - 12:06am
Thank god we have the internet so I can read all of these extremely enlightened and nuanced opinions about what Juliana Hatfield should do with her life and what she should have been doing with it for the last 30 years
If Juliana Hatfield doesnt want people commenting on her life
By JimGaffigan
Sun, 05/08/2016 - 1:23am
Maybe she should stay away from the press.
That could be difficult
By aging cynic
Sun, 05/08/2016 - 1:52am
Her parents are Tim Leland and Julie Hatfield, retired editors at the Globe. She grew up in Duxbury in a million dollar historic waterfront home on Washington St.Dry your tears, she'll be fine.
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