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FEATURE

MOLLY CRABAPPLE DRAWING BLOOD MUSIC

VANESSA CARLTON A THOUSAND MILES FROM A THOUSAND MILES

EATS

ARMANDO’S PIZZA THE BEST SICILIAN SLICE AROUND FILM

CHI-RAQ SPIKE LEE ANSWERS THE CALL OF BOOTY

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VOL 17 + ISSUE 48

DECEMBER 2, 2015 - DECEMBER 9, 2015 EDITORIAL

DEAR READER

EDITOR + PUBLISHER Jeff lawrence

Black Friday. Shop Local Saturday. Cyber Monday.

Giving Tuesday. And on it goes. ’Tis the season to open up our wallets and spend. Retailers of all sizes have spent the last 11 months preparing for this onslaught of commercialism by faithfully breaking even, and now’s the time to push them into the black. Complete with markdowns and special deals, everything must go. Buy one get one half off. Buy two get one free. Free shipping and next day delivery.

Layaway, no payments for 12 months and no interest.

It’s all on the table. So what does this have to do with us and this fine rag? The advertisers you’ll find inside every week—and online, and on your phone, and at any/all of our events—all sell something. Their success is closely tied to you, our readers, which is why they advertise with us. They see a demographic they want to align with. They see content they like and like those who also like it. They want you. To buy something. So as you peer into that wallet during this shopping season, consider any and all of them when it comes time to buy that new thing, or visit that place, or spend some money doing something.

They would appreciate it. We would appreciate it.

Everyone wins. Thanks in advance.

NEWS + FEATURES EDITOR Chris Faraone ASSOCIATE MUSIC EDITOR Nina Corcoran ASSOCIATE FILM EDITOR Jake Mulligan ASSOCIATE ARTS EDITOR Christopher Ehlers COPY EDITOR Mitchell Dewar CONTRIBUTORS Nate Boroyan, Renan Fontes, Bill Hayduke, Emily Hopkins, Micaela Kimball, Dave Wedge INTERN Oliver Bok, Mary Kate McGrath

DESIGN CREATIVE DIRECTOR Tak Toyoshima COMICS Tim Chamberlain Brian Connolly Pat Falco Patt Kelley INTERN Chesley Chapman

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DIGTIONARY

TERRORISH

adjective 1. To act in a manner that is very similar to terrorism; noun 2. A person who acts like a terrorist but doesn’t fit the public’s perception of one.

OH, CRUEL WORLD

ON THE COVER This week’s cover comes courtesy Molly Crabapple from her new book Drawing Blood. Read all about her work on page 10.

Dear (Newly) Ex-Boyfriend, I know you’re still in shock that you won’t be enjoying my company any longer, but you should really understand what you did to make me leave you, because if you think it’s OK to sit silently while your dumb fuck older cousin makes comment after comment implying that all women who accuse men of rape are lying bitches, then I probably won’t be the last girlfriend who sees you as the passive loser shitstain you are and moves on to find someone with a spine. Have fun fucking your mittens all winter.

Maybe your cousin will give you a hand.

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NEWS US

IT APPEARS THE OWNERS OF THIS BUILDING THEMSELVES LIVE AT THE FOUR SEASONS

EXODUS IN EASTIE NEWS TO US

In Maverick Square, a community clings to home “Thanks, first, to God.” This was the translated refrain of East Boston residents, standing before a room full of their brethren, on the night before Thanksgiving. There’s a weekly meeting on Wednesdays for City Life/Vida Urbana’s East Boston chapter at Our Saviour’s Lutheran Church, but this gathering held extra weight. Eleven families have been displaced from their building a few blocks away, and many of them took refuge in the sanctuary. Thanks to God, and to the church, but also to the community that has risen to the challenge of confronting the seemingly inescapable force of gentrification in this city.

East Boston has been making headlines lately. It’s the next frontier to become an overpriced student ghetto, in not so many words. Just like in Mission Hill and Jamaica Plain, developers have been scooping up properties and nudging out residents. Sometimes it’s done quietly. In the case of Olga Pasco, her daughter Kimberly Romero, and several other Maverick Street residents, it’s taken more than just the typical subterfuge to get these folks out of their homes.

The problems began in early spring, when several residents of 173-177 Maverick St. received notices of a drastic rent increase. The property had been recently purchased by a company called Maverick Street Realty, which was established only a few months prior. The LLC, whose owners list their addresses at the Four Seasons, has purchased a number of properties in the area, including

a Catholic church they plan to convert into condos. They bought that spot for a cool $3 million.

As for the Maverick Street residents, they were given a choice to either pay more by the next rent cycle, or get out. While some of them accepted the increase, others did not, and instead tried to mediate through legal services provided by City Life. On top of the threats of eviction, the conditions were at times unlivable.

“We had been telling [the landlord] about the conditions,” Romero says. “For two weeks, we didn’t have water.” Other days passed without electricity or gas. She continues: “There was rats, there was mold!”

Then, on August 1, the back wall collapsed.

“I was coming from work,” Romero says. “I came home, and my mom was like, ‘We heard, BOOM BOOM BOOM.’” That collapse happened four months ago, but the wall has not been repaired. A pile of tangled fire escapes sits beside a gaping facade covered with plywood. The back doors to the apartments look as if any minute Wile E. Coyote will dart out onto nothing before falling to earth.

Residents who were at work and children who were in school when the crash occurred came home to a building surrounded by firefighters and tape. They left with the clothes on their backs and few other personal items, and for the next few months bounced from motel to motel— until last week, when the property owners decided to stop paying for their stays. That’s when they came to Our

Saviour, where City Life provided bedding and collected food donations.

Boston is a city of transients and shitty landlords, so it can be difficult to understand the idea of displacement.

Young professionals, who make up a large portion of our city and get lots of media coverage, are displaced all the time. Rents go up, or they don’t; either way, many people eventually move, as do their friends.

Things are different in East Boston. Many of the tenants who were displaced on Maverick Street had called it home for upwards of two decades. They are the faces of the “displacement crisis,” as Matt Nickell, attorney for Greater Boston Legal Services, describes them. City Life organizer Maria Christina Blanco calls the families “the refugees of the gentrification crisis.” As Andres Del Castillo, City Life’s lead organizer in East Boston, explains: “These families weren’t just families living in an apartment. They were part of our community. They weren’t just part of City Life. They were part of the entire neighborhood of East Boston.”

Following their hearty Thanksgiving meal last week, it was time for the silent candlelit vigil. People filed slowly out of the church, taking lit white candlesticks in dixie cups as they departed. Outside, a man who was attempting to straighten one candle using another burned a quarter-sized hole in his jacket, but was moved enough by the moment to just smile and say, “It’s OK.” EXODUS IN EASTIE continued on pg. 6

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EXODUS IN EASTIE continued from pg. 4

FRIDAY, M A R C H 4

The procession, dozens strong, then moved quietly to Maverick Street—even children who had been excitable just moments earlier walked without making a peep. Once there, people who once called the building home gave tearful testimonies before proceeding to the Catholic church slated to become condos.

A prayer, and a declaration: “This silence is not just the absence of sound, but the absence of morality.”

Back at Our Saviour’s Lutheran, the room that 30 minutes earlier had been full of sound and food and body heat was dark. One by one, people filed back in. Still clutching his candle from the vigil, the pastor lit more candles on a cake. Finally, the doors closed, and for another 30 seconds no one spoke. Then Del Castillo walked in and to his surprise, friends were singing “Happy Birthday” for him in two languages. He began to thank all those who came to show their solidarity and the resilience of the community, and was met with a protest demand from the group: Blow out the candles. He did.

Del Castillo didn’t say what he wished for. But one can guess.

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You might say forming a so-called Special Senate Committee on Marijuana—that is staffed exclusively by politicians who mostly know little to nil about cannabis, legal or otherwise—is like having a task force on snow full of Hawaiians.

In Massachusetts though, the laws that govern how we live and die tend to be crafted not by experts, or by people who are even remotely knowledgeable about the areas they are impacting, but rather by the mediocre minds steering government. From an octogenarian judge who didn’t know the difference between a download and an upload making rulings in the case of Sony BMG v.

Tenenbaum, which set major precedents regarding online music, to our veritable surveillance state in which the largest legislative donors win the most lucrative security contracts, it’s clear that our Commonwealth is run by an incompetent confederacy of fences.

All things considered, we’re skeptical about the recently announced addition of nine new senators to said cannabis panel, which up until now has been a one man show headed by Sen. Jason Lewis of Winchester. As the State House News Service reported, this was significant because, according to Senate President Stanley Rosenberg, “senators had shied away from the panel [in the past] out of concern that studying the legalization of cannabis could draw the ire of voters opposed to legalization.”

What’s most important here is that pols want to keep an edge on the two different activist camps rallying for legalization next year on starkly different terms—even though Rosenberg now says legislators won’t tackle the cannabis question head-on. Since they may be a factor down the line, we slid some members of the Special Senate Committee on Marijuana under our microscope …

First there are the relative heroes—Sen. Michael Moore stood up against cannabis ignorance all the way back when such stances actually were less popular. The same goes for Sen. Harriette Chandler, who prudently welcomed dispensaries to Worcester, and who told reporters, “Like it or not, the people of Massachusetts voted. This is the law of the land.” Another nod goes to Sen. James Welch, co-chair of the Joint Committee on Health Care Financing, who recently told MassLive, “I do believe the voters spoke two years ago.”

Then there’s the Neanderthal contingent. Sure to dull the impact of enlightened legislators is Sen. John Keenan of Quincy, who once used a press conference soapbox to declare, “there is no such thing as medical marijuana.”

It gets worse, as Keenan once claimed to have “spoken with hundreds of voters regarding the issue of medical marijuana, many of whom voted ‘Yes’ on Question 3, all of whom now believe the law is vague and subject to exploitation.” Sure you did, buddy. Was one of the complainants Sen. Richard Ross, no relation to the Miami coke rapper, who is also serving on the panel, and who in 2009 joined thenstate Sen. Scott Brown in sponsoring a bill to recriminalize marijuana in Mass?

Having someone like Ross or Keenan on a panel that may forge the future of cannabis in the Commonwealth is like having a Klan member write Civil Rights law. But let’s say this commission really does want to be helpful—what should they do? Easy, they should join the Boston Globe editorial board in recommending the legislature pass something like the Bay State Repeal (BSR) initiative as law. Otherwise, they can expect voters to take them to task if the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol (CRMLA) passes its initiative in 2016.

It’s clear that prohibitionists on Beacon Hill don’t think about much, but if lawmakers think voters are fed up with the slow rollout of the current medical cannabis program, wait until they see what happens with the introduction of another bureaucracy—one as cumbersome as that which is proposed by the CRMLA, no less—to impede voters from safely securing cannabis.

Central Mass Power Sports 19 Mass Ave., Lunenburg, MA 01462 Phone: 978-429-3000 NEWS TO US

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We’ve been trying to do big things with Media Farm. Sure, first and foremost we report from the id and sewer of the media diaspora (sorry if we used that word wrong; like most people, we don’t actually know what it means), but in recent weeks and months we’ve focused on reporting at length out of necessity, as was the case with our extensive update on the reform of public records laws in Mass.

We’re working on some further updates on that front, so in the meantime here are two snippets—one that serves as an appropriate metaphor for all national media these past few weeks, and another meant to represent all that is currently unholy on the Boston newsscape.

TRUMP DAY

We’re afraid that if political virus Donald Trump is a pile of shit, we’re among the many flies who can’t stop jamming our eyeballs into the sludge spelunking for the foulest kernels. A bigot with no limits or shutoff valve, this past week the GOP hopeful managed to triple and quadruple down on the same absurd claims about Muslims he’s been making for months—reporters, of course, returned to Trump’s trough for his latest one-liners—while also putting down people with physical disabilities, specifically by mocking New York Times writer Serge Kovaleski’s chronic arm condition. Credit must be given where it’s due though, and this time Trump’s response to criticism hit a holy nexus of conceit and insincerity.

“Serge Kovaleski must think a lot of himself if he thinks I remember him from decades ago—if I ever met him at all, which I doubt I did,” Trump told inquiring reporters. “He should stop using his disability to grandstand and get back to reporting for a newspaper that is rapidly going down the tubes.” And here’s the icing on his dumb cake: “Despite having one of the all-time great memories I certainly do not remember him.” For that one, we pledge to avoid mentioning Trump’s name for two issues or until he positively defecates in a disabled baby’s mouth in public. Whichever comes first.

HUMP DAY

Speaking of temporary moratoriums to avoid repeating the banal and obvious … how long is too long to avoid flogging Boston.com? It’s not nice to criticize a publication during an identity crisis, and considering the speed at which things generally move on Morrissey Boulevard, Humpty Dumpty still ain’t been put back together since the purge in September. At the same time, maybe BDC needs some nudging, because this double-typo headline and kicker appeared under their logo last week: “The lines formed early for Black Friday 2015. Some savvy shoppers showed up outside retails [sic] stores on Thanksgiving afternoons [sic].”

No one needs such an article—not shoppers, not retailers, not even those of us who like watching videos of Black Friday bumpkins beating one another over flatscreens despite knowing fully well that such voyeurism constitutes shameless classism. This isn’t news, nor is it interesting, but it does provide an opportunity.

Editors, or whoever’s running BDC these days, should print out said Black Friday pooplet, and hang it on the wall for all of the reporters to see. Because if they keep churning out that level of inconsequential garbage, it will be the content farmers—not managers who represent the mothership and distance themselves when it is convenient—who end up on the unemployment line.

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INK BIG FEATURE

Review + Q+A: Molly Crabapple draws blood, writes pain in new memoir

BY CHRIS FARAONE @FARA1 I first met Molly Crabapple while having my possessions processed at a holding center in Lower Manhattan.

We had both been thrown in wagons and hauled into jail from protests marking the one-year anniversary of Occupy Wall Street, and after spending half the day into the early evening behind bars—her in a pen for women, me with the gentlemen sardine’d into a comparable halogenic nightmare—we briefly compared notes about our treatment at the hands of New York’s finest.

This is how the author draws blood in a mesmerizing, almost calming way: I thumbed through the recap of Crabapple’s arrest—and of events that have caused me physical pain and anxiety since—with a masochistic fascination that helped soothe the posttraumatic reeling I still endure all these years later. Like the moniker that she assumed to tackle insurmountable problems with key and brush strokes, Crabapple packs a bittersweet wit, an edge prone to illuminating gasoline rainbows in grey skies.

While it’s almost inconceivable now that she deservingly stands to win any number of literary awards, it wasn’t until following the aforementioned detention in September 2012 that Crabapple turned to prose—reporting for CNN, for the first time she documented her experience in writing as well as in illustrations. She grew up worshipping strong words; as a teenage loner, Crabapple often found salvation in the stacks of bookstores, and for a pair of stretches in her college years even bunked between antiquarian shelves among nomadic knowledge-seekers at the legendary Shakespeare and Company in Paris. By mining such trials and leveraging her knack for making the difficult task of spilling one’s guts look simpler than taking a leak, in Drawing Blood she proves once and for all that her reportorial chops are as sharp as her pen curls.

Like those who offered jacket quotes—Rolling Stone polemicist and noted Crabapple enthusiast Matt Taibbi says she “could be this generation’s Charles Bukowski”—I see no lid on the potential reach or impact of her work.

From the whimsical decay of splotchy sketches that warrant Magic Eye-level attention, to unpretentious travel flashbacks that address personal travails as well as the macro concerns of eroding urban authenticity and growing wealth disparity, her creations are sufficiently raw and radical to connect with sympathetic rebels, all while artistically accessible and beautiful enough to wind up on Pottery Barn bookshelves belonging to the very yuppie banker scoundrels Crabapple abhors.

Despite her working class roots and the hurdles she faced, Crabapple has been knocking on tall doors for some time. As she notes in Drawing Blood, she even managed to sell a small drawing to the New York Times 10 years ago at 22-years-old, while her relative artistic halcyon days— spent dutifully illustrating the pre-crash Manhattan party scene at the colorful nightclub the Box—had more rewards than not. Nevertheless, her ascent in the art world was also a hustle that multilaterally mimicked exploitative gigs she held down as a nude model and Suicide Girl, and herein we are granted access to the truly interesting underpinnings of an artist’s struggle that we rarely get to witness.

“America still believes that if you work hard enough, you’ll achieve your dreams,” Crabapple writes. “Go to college. Get a job. Put in the hours. The invisible hand will reward you with a home and enough money to take your kids to Disneyland. It’s a soothing lie. Any strawberry picker will tell you that hard work is a road to nowhere.”

At one point on her chosen road to somewhere—a pathway paved with grit but also on which capital and access are critical components of success—she describes 10

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“bonds formed running from cops” as “sweet with adrenaline and rage.” The same goes for Crabapple’s tales of penetrating a creative class that is as fickle as it’s superficial, and of her stories about learning about life with lovers and bohemians who she encountered from Far Rockaway to Northern Africa. As natural as her writing flows, there’s something of a metaphor in how she nursed an autobiography about hard work with such surgical rigor.

This message will hopefully be central to the book’s lasting impression—while Crabapple steers nowhere

near the kind of woe-is-me theatrics common in political stump speeches, there’s nonetheless a theme of individual empowerment driving her life story. What separates the author from a shameless rags-to-riches evangelist like Ben Carson (besides her having integrity and lacking riches, of course) is that she acknowledges non-divine external factors. In explaining how she was only able to land that breakthrough $800 Times assignment after mailing $500 worth of postcards to art directors—that she printed and shipped using burlesque bucks—Crabapple writes, “Naked-girl money was my

because I’m not an organizer. I’ve never done that heavy organizational work, I just try and support with the best skills I have, which are usually artistic. When I think of activists, I think of Mariame Kaba of Prison Culture, or Robin Jacks [of Occupy Boston and No Boston 2024]— people like that, who are hardcore organizers. I wouldn’t necessarily say fly on the wall though, because when you’re drawing people, they notice you.

escape hatch. Without it, I’d never have been able to do the work that got me noticed.”

She continues: “Talent is essential, but cash buys the opportunity for that talent to be discovered. To pretend otherwise is to spit in the face of every broke genius. I am good, but it was never about just being good. It was about getting noticed.”

Here’s to noticing …

It’s clear from your opening and from various comments throughout the book—“I was twenty-nine when I stood on that Guantanamo ferry. By that time, I had been drawing for twenty-five years.”—that you consider yourself an artist first and foremost, above all. But how much credit do you give your ability to write so passionately for your success in being able to disseminate your work so widely?

A lot of artists who who are trained through master’s programs are trained to write in this arts jargon, which is presumably meaningful to people in that world but is alienating to everyone else. So I think that being able to write in a way that is clear to people who don’t consider themselves art scenesters is helpful. I started writing professionally just a little over three years ago. I did a few one-offs, but my first real thing was about my arrest.

I really wanted to be a writer when I was in high school, and I wrote this really terrible novel about time travel that no one is ever going to see … I slogged my way through this, but I was working really hard as an artist, so I just didn’t [write] because it was really hard for me. I was surrounded by all these brilliant writers, and I didn’t think I was capable of it, but through having this one piece and by having all these amazing writer friends mentor me I just made myself do it.

You write that you “keep grudges for decades.” But there are moments in your book in which that doesn’t seem to really be the case. Is that how you describe yourself across the board? Or are there exceptions?

I still hate my middle school principal who wanted me put on Lithium because I wasn’t obedient enough. I hate people like that. There are so few things that are liberating about writing a memoir, but one thing that is liberating is that you get to fact-check your past, and while you may have thought that you were done wrong, then you’re reading the old emails, and sometimes you were just being an asshole.

You describe Shakespeare and Company in Paris as “a fortress, built from a past at once faded and imagined, when will and eccentricity were all one needed.” Are they no longer needed?

I feel like because cities are so gentrified, and there is so much law and surveillance and rules, that there is very often less space for that—especially in cities like New York and Paris. But the idea that you would just have this amazing bookstore that sells really strange books, and that people who rolled up at it could just live there for free in exchange for pretty incompetent work, and that

this wouldn’t fall apart but that it would keep going for 50-plus years, that’s an incredible thing. There are all sorts of co-ops and experiments, but in general they’re not that long lasting.

The mayhem of a place like Fez, a visit to which you recount in the book—or even in a place like New York City—seems to drive a significant part of you. How much creativity could you muster in a lifeless, culture-less hellhole? What is it you love about chaos?

Many people create great stuff in places that are quiet, but I can’t do it. [The city] is in my bones. That’s just where I am—I feel so miserable when I’m away from them. I kind of never leave my apartment anymore, but it destroys me how New York is being gutted. It’s eating itself. Not just shitting on working class people and broke artists, but now even successful businesses can’t survive in New York, because even a successful business can’t always pay $500,000 a month in rent. It’s destroying everything about this city. I know New Yorkers always say that, but I do believe we are at a particularly hideous moment for it.

How much do you see your own life—free-spirited as it is—as being defined by all these moments you walk through—9-11, gentrification of the Lower East Side of Manhattan, the crash of the economy, Occupy Wall Street? For someone who is a bit of a loner, it seems like you sure like being in the middle of things.

I think 9-11 fundamentally shaped those who went through it. That was ours, that was our tragedy, that was our neighbors getting murdered. And a lot of the country, in a lot of places where people have always hated New York, seemed to only really like us when 2,000 of us got burnt alive. 9-11 is something that I still get fucked up when I think about it. The reactions, what America did afterwards and the carnage that it unleashed, fundamentally shaped the world we live in.

With all your history with Paris and with your beloved native New York—where in 2002 some restaurants on the Upper East Side had signs posted that read “We don’t serve French wine”—how do you feel about the events of the past month, and about the reinvigorated race to war?

It’s fucking horrifying. What’s been happening in Syria has been a fucking nightmare for years, and it keeps getting worse. What makes me really angry about what happened in Paris is that these murderers who did this are EU citizens, who went to Syria probably to murder Syrian citizens, they use their first world passports to murder people in a third world country, then they take the fucking refugee route back, which was quite a deliberate thing, and then they do what they did holding fake Syrian passports, further terrorizing these people who they already terrorized.

There’s a scene in the book about your first attempt at a solo art show, in Williamsburg, which was a miserable failure. What kept you pushing through those times?

I was a fucking Fashion Institute of Technology dropout— it’s not like there’s a lucrative corporate job waiting for me. What was I going to do? Either make it as an artist, or work retail. We don’t really live in a society that presents a lot of easy comfortable ways to make a living. It’s not like in Sweden, where you can get a dignified service job. I just can’t work in an office. There’s something screwy about my brain. I can’t do that sitting down and being obedient and looking professional thing. Eventually you get too old to do naked modeling, that’s not a long-term plan. I was going to do whatever it takes, because it was this or die in my mind.

I was wondering how involved you are with sex worker activism these days. We have a new program in Boston that is essentially a just-say-no campaign for prostitution that is very top-down, essentially the sex trade equivalent of “Just Say No” to drugs. Generally speaking, how do you feel about these kinds of bureaucratic attempts to “rescue” sex workers?

Fuck top-down. It’s always the same thing—people who are making their careers claiming they are speaking for people who they say are supposedly voiceless but who are actually shouting to be heard and are still being marginalized. I think this is an amazing time for sex worker activism. I’ve never been an organizer, but I try to do my part with drawing attention to stuff … The idea that [cops] are going to be saving women—it’s disgusting.

At one point you describe an experience in 2006, in which you and another former Suicide Girl who is an artist were trying to get noticed at an underground art show, that caused you and to feel like you were “two sex worker shards washed up on the art world’s shores,” while “everyone legit was trying to kick [you] back out to sea.” But did you not see yourself as an artist first and foremost, even way back then?

The art world to me was a network of like Chelsea galleries with big cube rooms and paintings that sold for $100,000 and curators who spoke in this strange special language. It was like the difference between being a writer and feeling at home in the New York publishing industry.

In recalling your stint as the in-house artist at the Box, you write that “in New York, before the crash, this was all there was.” At the same time, you seem to be nostalgic for a time that wasn’t so great in the first place. Is that a fair characterization?

You know how it is, when you sort of break through the first time … It’s like going into a nightclub for the first time, and you’re like, “Wow,” and there are all these lights, but then after you’ve been there for a little while, you start to realize that the music is kind of crap and the people are really mean. [The Box] was dazzling, and it had its own beauty to it as well as the horror, but if you don’t explain why these things were also dazzling, then it will never make sense why it ever appealed to anyone in the first place.

Molly Crabapple will read from Drawing Blood (HarperCollins) on Tuesday, Dec. 8 at 7pm at Brookline Booksmith, 279 Harvard St., Coolidge Corner.

BrooklineBooksmith.com for more info.

What kind of a reporter would you say you are?

Participant? Fly on the wall?

Just fumbling along [laughs]. I get called an activist sometimes in the press, and I don’t identify with that, NEWS TO US

FEATURE

DEPT. OF COMMERCE

ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT

11

MAC ATTACK

EATS

ARMANDO’S

A Cambridge Pizza Place That’s a (Very) Local Fave

BY MARC HURWITZ @HIDDENBOSTON

WEDNESDAYS DECEMBER 2nd-30th 5-11pm MAC-ANCINI

Flash Fried Mac & Cheese Croquettes | Spicy Tomato Herb Gravy

DECADENCE

Crème Fraiche | Fontina Cheese | Gemelli Pasta | Bordelaise Sauce Truffle Essence

SOUTHERN STYLE Macaroni | Cheddar Cheese | Fried Chicken | Collard Greens Corn Bread Crumble

ROASTED PUMPKIN Shell Pasta | Mascarpone Cheese |

Vermont Cheddar | Maple Cured Bacon Crispy Fried Sage

BACON BOMB

Penne Pasta | Pepper Jack Cheese | Smoked Bacon | Pork Belly Pancetta | Crackling

FARMER’S MARKET Spinach Pasta | Vermont Goat Cheese |

GOT AN EVENT? LIST IT.

Roasted Local Veggies

Portobello Mushroom | Foccacia Herb Crumbs

BLUE RIBBON Macaroni | Cheddar Cheese | Buttermilk Biscuit Crust

Slow Smoked Baby Back Ribs Before placing order, please inform your food server if anyone in your party has a food allergy *Consuming raw or undercooked meat/poultry/ seafood/shellfish/eggs may increase risk of food borne illness

Use our self-serve listings page to get your event online TODAY!

digboston.com/listings We offer a free basic listing as well as enhanced and premium listings to really get you noticed.

@MAGOUNSSALOON OLDEMAGOUNSSALOON 518 Medford St Somerville

magounssaloon.com|617 - 7 76 - 2 6 0 0 12

12.2.15 - 12.9.15

|

DIGBOSTON.COM

While Cambridge probably isn’t the best place in the Boston area for pizza, it does have a number of good options, including such well-known spots as Emma’s and Area Four in Kendall Square and Otto, Cambridge 1, and Pinocchio’s in Harvard Square. A few other lesser-known places can be found hidden in other neighborhoods, including Gran Gusto in West Cambridge and Angelo’s between Harvard and Central. And then there is a really hidden pizza place in the heart of one of the city’s quietest neighborhoods—Huron Village—and while Armando’s doesn’t look like much from the outside, their pizza is among the best, if not the best, in all of Cambridge.

Huron Village is home to a number of small independent shops and restaurants with no real sign of chains along Concord Avenue or Huron Avenue, and right where these two streets intersect is where Armando’s resides, though its tiny and unassuming storefront makes it extremely easy to miss. The interior of the place has “sub shop” written all over it, with hard tables and bench seats, slightly harsh overhead lighting, and a little counter where customers place their orders. The setup may make one think that this is one of countless Greek pizza places found in the Boston area—and perhaps this is one reason why Armando’s isn’t all that well known—but the truth is that the pizza here is much, much different from your typical house of pizza.

Armando’s is actually known for two types of pizza, including a terrific foldable New York-style thin-crust pie with a rich house-made sauce, a mix of cheeses, and a slightly charred crust. Its Sicilian-style pizza is every bit as good, with the thick squares having more cheese than some of the other Sicilian/bakery slices out there, though they have about the same amount of cheese as those found at Galleria Umberto in Boston’s North End, which many believe is the best place in the entire area for this type of pizza. The thin-crust pizza at Armando’s generally seems to be the more popular choice, and in some ways it is a bit like that of Santarpio’s, though it’s not quite as heavy on the sauce as that legendary East Boston joint and the crust here has a bit more of a crunch to it. Prices are about what you would expect for a pizza place/sub shop (cheap), and the help at Armando’s can sometimes be a bit gruff when it’s busy but are more often than not friendly, and they are especially nice with young kids who come in with their parents.

The fact that the pizza at Armando’s compares favorably to both Santarpio’s and Umberto’s should tell you something about the quality of its pies, but even after so many years in business in Huron Village, Armando’s remains an underthe-radar spot. If you like pizza (and who doesn’t), definitely check out this little jewel of a place in one of Cambridge’s most laid-back neighborhoods. >> ARMANDO’S PIZZA. 163 HURON AVE., CAMBRIDGE.

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PRINCETON, MA FEATURE

DEPT. OF COMMERCE

ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT

13

ARTS ENTERTAINMENT

UH, YEAH. THE TED CON IS NEXT MONTH.

14

WED 12.02

THU 12.03

FRI 12.04

SAT 12.05

SUN 12.06

SUN 12.06

ArtScience @ Le Lab: Max Rheiner

Intro to Zen Meditation at Cambridge Zen Center

The Condescendants @ Sally O’Brien’s

SantaCon Boston 2015

Chris Botti

Return of the Winemaker: An Irish Christmas Comedy

We all have passions and that natural urge to talk about them, but there’s a time and place for everything. Le Laboratoire is hosting ArtScience, a seminar series for the general public with the goal of discussing all sorts of passions and the creativity and culture that goes into them. You can be an artist, a chef, a scientist, an engineer—it doesn’t matter; so long as you feel passionate about what you do, you’ll have an opportunity to rave about it here.

There are few better ways to clear the mind than with meditation. Meditation can be tricky, though, and life is stressful, so how could you possibly sit down and meditate peacefully? Well, here’s your opportunity to learn how. The Cambridge Zen Center is holding a free orientation class for anyone interested in getting into Zen meditation. You’ll learn the basics of meditation and hopefully take a thing or two away from the experience. A little peace of mind never hurt anyone.

Somerville’s very own Condescendants will be rocking out at Sally O’Brien’s this Friday, and if jamming out’s your thing, you’re in for a pretty good night. Featuring songs from the Who, Paul McCartney, the Cars, and more, the Condescendants will be rocking the stage all night. Feel free to grab a drink, chat it up with the locals, or just lounge back and enjoy some classic music. It’s Friday night: You’ve earned some rock and relaxation.

You’re making a list, you’re checking it twice, you’re going to SantaCon to assert your dominance as the true inheritor of Kris Kringle’s dynasty. That’s right, folks, SantaCon is back. It’s time to bust out the suit and drink like it’s Dec 26th. Bar crawl from noon to whenever Mrs. Claus calls you back home.

Bond with your fellow Santas in Fenway, Boylston, and Faneuil Hall bars like Cask ’n Flagon, Whiskey’s, and Wild Rover. ’Tis the season, after all.

Grammy award-winning trumpeter and composer Chris Botti is coming into town to serenade you with some of the smoothest jazz you’ll ever hear. Having recorded and performed with the likes of Sting, Josh Groban, Yo-Yo Ma, Paul Simon, Andrea Bocelli, Barbra Streisand, and even Frank Sinatra, Botti’s got quite the track record for quality. If innovative jazz is your thing, head on down to the Wilbur Theatre on Sunday night and let yourself relax. If you miss him on Sunday night, he’ll be there Monday and Tuesday nights as well.

The age-old question is finally being answered: What if Jesus was born in Ireland? Instead of being a carpenter, this Irish incarnation of Christ supplies local bars with free wine to sell. Disaster strikes, however, when God asks Jesus to come back to heaven. Can the village convince God to let Jesus stay? Can Jesus make more than just wine? Will you go see this Sunday afternoon?

All these questions and more will be answered at Tir Na Productions’ Return of the Winemaker.

Le Laboratoire Cambridge.

650 East Kendall St., Cambridge. 6:308:30pm/all ages/FREE. lelaboratoirecambridge. com/#!programs/c1tl

Cambridge Zen Center. 199 Auburn St., Cambridge.

7-7:30pm/all ages/FREE. cambridgezen.com/index. php?c=programs&p=for. newcomers

Sally O’Brien’s. 335 Somerville Ave., Somerville.

10pm-1am/21+/$5 cover. facebook.com/ events/1045384422175218/

Cask ’n Flagon. 62 Brookline Ave., Boston.

Noon-7pm/21+/ FREE. facebook.com/ events/916759555062691/

The Wilbur Theatre. 246 Tremont St., Boston. 7:309:30pm/all ages/$50-$65. thewilbur.com/artist/chrisbotti/

Davis Square Theatre.

255 Elm St., 3-5:30pm/ all ages/$25. winemaker. brownpapertickets.com/

12.2.15 - 12.9.15

|

DIGBOSTON.COM

NEWS TO US

FEATURE

DEPT. OF COMMERCE

ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT

15

MUSIC

A THOUSAND MILES LATER

MUSIC

BY NINA CORCORAN @NINA_CORCORAN

Central Square record store rocks the beautiful and bizarre

DEEP THOUGHTS, DEEPER CRATES

Vanessa Carlton ditches the one-hit wonder status

Vanessa Carlton was caught in the wrong moment. While that iconic opening piano line in “A Thousand Miles” will silence any 20- or 30-something today, urging them to thrust their hands in the air, grab an invisible mic, and belt out the overdramatic enunciation of Carlton’s hit, it acted as an excuse to overlook her other work, deeming the Grammy-nominated hit her crowning jewel. But Carlton, now 35 years old, has a careful discography of impressive work, from 2004’s Harmonium up to this year’s dream pop gem Liberman.

Carlton answers the phone for our interview and immediately apologizes for speaking in a hushed voice. She says she’s in a car outside a Midwest hotel waiting to check in. In the back of the car, her baby is fast asleep. Her daughter is the calm after the storm. In the last few years, Carlton’s had to set music on the side while her life took off. She came out as bisexual in 2010.

She moved from New York City to Nashville. She married John McCauley of Deer Tick (with Stevie Nicks officiating the wedding). She gave birth to her firstborn child. The girl tangled in a knot of adulthood and sexual exploits in “White Houses” finally began building her picket-fenced life.

With a few seconds of quivering strings and a muted bass drum, Liberman’s first few seconds set itself up as an all-encompassing dive into a world as possessed by poison as it is by glitter. It’s not Carlton’s darkest work, but there’s a haunting tint at its core, turning ballads into sing-alongs that soundtrack dreams.

That doesn’t mean piano is hidden here. It’s far too big a part of her life to cut out. Carlton started playing piano at age three when her mother—who works as a piano teacher—handed her pop culture medleys. “Both of our music was based in classical,” Carlton explains. “I learned a lot of Mozart and Bach, but then she and I would work on the theme song from Cheers. We loved that. She taught me Neil Young and stuff, too.” That mix of classical and modern shaped her songwriting. If anything, she has acts like Neil Young and Elton John to thank for their exemplary lyricism, craft, and aging persistence.

Despite older pop directing her piano chords, she turned to newer acts for motivation to play around. “I had listened to so much stuff,” she laughs. “It’s funny because all of my reference songs and the artists I was listening to like M83, well, none of what I wrote wound up sounding like them at all. To be honest, all it ever needed to do was satisfy our own vibe.

The minute we felt like we lost whatever the magic is, that feeling of euphoria that I love so much and chase with those tones, we stop. We need to indulge our senses.”

You can hear that breath of life in the melodies of “Willow” and “Blue Pool.” Yet despite their immediate indulgent warmth, the sound remains clean. “I’m really proud of how we all showed restraint,” she says. “The editing of the album took a minimalist route, leaving only the most essential parts of each song. That can be tough. It was cluttered in every way, so reshaping it into its final form was a real triumph.”

Even with her new material out in the world, the enormous shadow of “A Thousand Miles” still looms over her. “It’s weird,” Carlton says. “It’s like an old picture of yourself that you see all the time. You’re like, ‘I don’t look like that anymore, guys, but okay. That’s fine.’ And I get it. It’s extraordinary to have something like that happen, so I’m grateful. The nice thing about this record is that people are allowing me to move past that and are accepting my move forward, which I did and still do regardless.” She pauses to find the right words, ones that express her gratitude as well as her evolution as a musician. “People aren’t always aware of where you’re at in the moment,” she concludes. It seems now, some 15 years later, they’re finally taking note. >> VANESSA CARLTON + JOSHUA HYSLOP. MON 12.7. BRIGHTON MUSIC HALL, 158 BRIGHTON AVE., ALLSTON. 7PM/ALL AGES/$15. CROSSROADSPRESENTS.COM

ACIDIC FRENZY NEUTRAL FIXATION II + THE EPICUREANS [Out of the Blue Too, 541 Mass. Ave., Cambridge.

8pm/all ages/$5. bostonhassle.com]

16

12.2.15 - 12.9.15

|

THU 12.3

FRI 12.4

[Great Scott, 1222 Comm.

Ave., Allston. 9pm/18+/$8. greatscottboston.com]

[The Middle East Downstairs, 472 Mass. Ave., Cambridge. 8pm/18+/$16. mideastoffers.com]

RESIDENT ROCK TALENT PILE + GRACIE

DIGBOSTON.COM

PUNK ROOTS OF THE DIY DAYS PARQUET COURTS + PILL

T.T. the Bear’s caved in. Weirdo Records closed its doors. Johnny D’s is on its last breath. Right when we were about to go running through the streets of Cambridge flipping off every defunct space we found, Deep Thoughts stepped up to save the day.

Jamaica Plain’s delightfully absurd record store Deep Thoughts turned two this year, and with that birthday comes proof of a cult following. The owners open a brand new location on Norfolk Street in Central Square this week, a mere two blocks away from Mass Ave. If you’re reading this, the store is officially open. Deep Thoughts Cambridge, open daily from noon to 8 pm, sells new, used, and rare music in any format you can think of—vinyl, CD, cassette, film—as well as zines, comics, and books from around the area. If you’re looking to trade or sell wax, they have your back on that one, too. Just make sure to leave the Taylor Swift LPs and emo records at home.

They’re concerned with the oddball vinyl that makes you scratch your head, whether it was considered weird five decades ago (krautrock) or one (asian neo-soul).

What does this mean for Cambridge? Yes, there is a one-stop shop where you can find that Todd Rundgren LP your dad won’t stop asking for, a copy of Joni Mitchell’s Hejira for your mousy mom, the Prospect Hummer EP your sister wanted but never bought since she spent her birthday money on acid, and cassette tapes of local acts like Gracie and Guerilla Toss to play in your POS Subaru. It’s called Deep Thoughts.

Our only bit of advice? Make sure you leave some records for others because, trust us, you’ll be grabbing everything within reach.

Check digboston.com for an exclusive chat with Deep Thoughts’ owners about the new store, secret finds, and how to store the best deals.

>> DEEP THOUGHTS. 89 NORFOLK ST., CAMBRIDGE. DEEPTHOUGHTSJP.COM

MUSIC EVENTS WED 12.2

BY NINA CORCORAN @NINA_CORCORAN

SAT 12.5

SUN 12.6

[House of Blues, 15 Lansdowne St., Boston.

7pm/all ages/$35. crossroadspresents.com]

[Orpheum Theatre, 1 Hamilton Pl., Boston.

7:30pm/all ages/$40. crossroadspresents.com]

DEEP-BLUE EMOTIONS CITY AND COLOUR + BAHAMAS

FOLK HARPIST ROYALTY JOANNA NEWSOM + ALELA DIANE

MON 12.7

GLOSSY BREEZE ROCK DARWIN DEEZ + CHARLY [Great Scott, 1222 Comm.

Ave., Allston. 9pm/18+/$12. greatscottboston.com]

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FRI 12/4 - BOWERY PRESENTS

PARQUET COURTS

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 18

SAT 12/5

MIMOSA

VOLTRAN SUN 12/6 - LEEDZ PRESENTS: WED 12/9

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 27

THU 12/3

FRI 12/4

SATURDAY, JANUARY 16

AERONAUT DOWN UNDERSEA FRI 12/4

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SUN 12/6

RUGBY WORLD CUP SHOWN LIVE, STARTING ON SEPTEMBER 17TH

MON 12/7

WATCH EVERY SOCCER GAME!

SOULELUJAH! PRAY FOR SOUND ARMS & SLEEPERS TUES 12/8

MILO + CESCHI MEGA RAN, MR.MIRANDA WEDS 12/9

THE BLACK LILLIES

WITH ROCKET QUEEN SYGNAL TO NOISE

SUNDAY, JANUARY 24 12/4 12/4 12/13 12/13 12/31 12/31 1/9 1/9 2/13 2/13

TERROR TERROR THE THE ACACIA ACACIA STRAIN STRAIN DOPAPOD DOPAPOD ENFORCER/WARBRINGER ENFORCER/WARBRINGER FLESHGOD FLESHGOD APOCALYPSE APOCALYPSE

All shows, All ages. Tickets available in person at the Palladium Box Office, FYE Music and Video Stores, online at Ticketfly.com or by phone at 877-987-6487.

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FEATURE

DEPT. OF COMMERCE

ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT

17

FILM

HOT MESS

On the latest Spike Lee movie and the value of messiness

BY JAKE MULLIGAN @_JAKEMULLIGAN

THU Dec. 3 10PM

HOUSE OF TRAP Ramzi Nobel HIP HOP, REGGAE, DIRTY SOUTH, R&B FRI Dec. 4 9:30PM

SHAKE 1-YEAR ANNIVERSARY Todd Terry, Ali Berger, Dev/ Null, Damian Silva + Brek.One upstairs HOUSE + HIP HOP, REGGAE & PARTY JAMS

at

ONCE Lounge & Music Hall

Commercial films tend to have subjects. And they also tend to stick to them. But in the cinema of Spike Lee, a subject is just a starting point. Take Jungle Fever.

Ostensibly speaking, that’s Lee’s melodrama about interracial relationships. But that movie splits its viewpoint down eight different directions, to also consider the black experience within corporate workplaces, and the crack epidemic of the late 1980s, and the corrosive influence of religion on frayed interpersonal relationships… we could go on like that. His latest, Chi-raq, fits the same diagnosis. We could state that this is an adaptation of a Greek satire, modernized and reset on the South Side of Chicago. But since we’re being honest, we’ll just say that’s the way that it starts.

The text in question is “Lysistrata,” an Aristophanes comedy dated around 400 BC. You may not know the name, but you’ve likely heard of its primary narrative conceit—the title character is a charismatic woman who gathers the women of all Greek states and convinces them to withhold sex from their husbands. Her goal is to end the Peloponnesian War by peace treaty; her strategy is to break the men’s fighting spirit under the weight of their unsatisfied erections. Lee, working with co-writer Kevin Willmott, allows the character to keep her name. But now Lysistrata (aka Miss Biscuit) lives in Chicago’s “Sparta South” Side, where she’s dating a member of the area’s Spartan gang, Demetrius Dupree (aka Chi-Raq, aka Long D). Across the way, on the other side of Lee’s impeccably art-directed housing project, there are the rival Trojans. And in between all their gunfire rests everyone else.

One day the person stuck in that tragic middle is Patti, a girl of 11 or 12 years old. Her mother Irene (Jennifer Hudson) has to bear witness to the sight of her deceased child being taken off the street. That’s enough to set Lysistrata (Teyonah Parris) into action—soon enough she has the ladies on both sides of the war shouting, “No peace, no pussy!” So we could say that this movie is a reckoning with the deaths of innocent victims that occur in close proximity to gangland gunplay—we could say this is a movie about quote-unquote “black-on-black violence.” But Lee, as usual, takes the opportunity to branch out wider. The sex strike allows him to equate the performative sexuality common in hip-hop

156 Highland Ave. ONCEsomerville.com

HOT MESS continued on pg. 20

May The Four Courses Be With You Seating begins at 5pm $50 per person Reservations available at:

www.MilkyWayJP.com 284 Amory Street Jamaica Plain, MA 02130 617-524-6060 X12 www.MilkyWayJP.com

SAT Dec. 5 9:30PM

THE LAST

TRIPLE PLATINUM

Frank White, Evaredy & Durkin HIP HOP, REGGAE, TRAP & PARTY JAMS MON Dec. 7 7:30PM

MMMMAVEN GRADUATION

PARTY

MMMMAVEN CLASS OF 2014 OPEN FORMAT

'Tis the season for good eatin' Meal Deliveries make great Gifts Visit us at CuisineEnLocale.com 12/5 Jeffrey Foucault Album release tour for "Salt as Wolves" Special guest Caitlin Canty |$17 adv/$20 DOS| 21+ to Drink | 7pm 12/3 Guitarmy - A Celebration of Local Guitar Aces 12/8 Simpsons Trivia Night!

12/10 Resonance - New music night in the lounge 12/11 Gilt City Boston - Oyster tasting and craft cocktails!

12/13 Rockin Holiday Flea Market & Blood Mary Bash 12/17 Besatt+Drengskapur+Desolate 1/23/16 The Vikings are coming… back!

Ten courses of opulent feasting Tickets are on sale now cuisineenlocale.com

Presented by Cuisine en Locale www.enlocale.com 617-285-0167 CURRENTLY BOOKING HOLIDAY CATERING & PARTIES 18

12.2.15 - 12.9.15

|

DIGBOSTON.COM

FILM EVENTS WED 12.2

NIGHT ONE OF THE MFA’S ALFRED HITCHCOCK SERIES SUSPICION [Museum of Fine Arts.

465 Huntington Ave., Boston. 5pm/NR/$9-11.

35mm. Also screens on 12.4 and 12.5.]

THU 12.3

THE BRATTLE’S HISTORY OF FILM NOIR CONTINUES THE GLASS KEY

[Brattle Theatre.

40 Brattle St., Harvard Sq., Cambridge. 7:30pm/ NR/$9-11. 35mm. brattlefilm.org]

MORE HITCHCOCK SHADOW OF A DOUBT

[Museum of Fine Arts.

465 Huntington Ave., Boston. 8pm/NR/$9-11.

35mm. Also screens on 12.4 and 12.6.]

FRI 12.4

NIGHT ONE OF A WIM WENDERS RETROSPECTIVE THE GOALIE’S ANXIETY AT THE PENALTY KICK

[Brattle Theatre.

40 Brattle St., Harvard Sq., Cambridge. 7:15pm/ NR/$9-11. brattlefilm.org]

COOLIDGE AFTER MIDNIGHT PRESENTS NATIONAL LAMPOON’S CHRISTMAS VACATION [Coolidge Corner Theatre. 290 Harvard St., Brookline. Midnight/ PG-13/$11.25. Also screens 12.5. coolidge.org]

MON 12.7

MORE BY WIM WENDERS, STARRING DENNIS HOPPER THE AMERICAN FRIEND [Brattle Theatre.

40 Brattle St., Harvard Sq., Cambridge. 4:30, 7, and 9:30pm/NR/$9-11. brattlefilm.org]

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NEWS TO US

FEATURE

DEPT. OF COMMERCE

ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT

19

HOT MESS continued from pg. 18

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culture (Chi-Raq, played by Nick Cannon, is a rapper) with the performative violence of crime culture (Chi-Raq’s also the most prolific gunman in his crew).

The wider social implications of the strike allow Lee to satirize the callousness of government officials during times of crisis. Sometimes the commentary comes coded, within a single shot: When we see the gang member’s hangouts, they’re framed the way that a surveillance camera would frame a prison yard.

Samuel Jackson shows up as a one-man Greek chorus, and since much of the dialogue is delivered in rhyming verse—“up in that butt” is matched with “bust a nut” more than once—that makes him more like an MC. Sometimes that designation is literal, too, as Lee often lets his faux-Technicolor compositions morph into screen-stretching song-and-dance numbers. Another thing we could say is that this movie is a satire, like the source text it’s born from. But you could also call it a musical. Or you could call it an urgent call to social activism. Or you could call it a carnival with a conscience.

What’s sure is that when the film opens with statistics regarding the increasing homicide rate in Chicago—a statistical anomaly among US cities— that’s not satire. When Father Mike Corridan (a John Cusack character modeled after Chicago priest and activist Michael Pfleger) speaks for 15 minutes about how “mass incarceration is the new Jim Crow” and identifies gang violence as a form of “self-inflicted genocide” perpetuated by the prejudiced structures of American corporate culture, that’s not satire. But what about a shot that depicts a gang member and a cop shooting bullets into the frame simultaneously, all while our MC raps that there’s no difference between the two? The word “satire” suggests “exaggeration.” Maybe that image has the bite of satire, but it also has the sting of unexaggerated realism.

Chi-raq is struggling to find what it means to make a satire in 2015—when we fly the Confederate flag over government buildings in real life, what’s left to exaggerate? So Lee lapses in and out of the musical numbers, and the rhyming verse, and the humorous tone. That mixture will draw the same complaint that critics always levy: “It’s messy.” That’s by design. We and our films tend to consider our politics under separate tents—one marked “guns” and the next marked “race” and the third marked “economic” and the fourth marked “gender.” Or one marked “satire,” another “comedy,” another “drama,” another “musical.” Chi-raq is the rare film to truly respect the complexity of American politics—and American cinema—specifically because it recognizes an inextricable quality among these issues and concepts. The messiness is a virtue. >> CHI-RAQ. RATED R. OPENS FRIDAY 12.4 AT AMC BOSTON COMMONS.

FILM

BRAND NEW

On this season’s Seth-Rogen-on-drugs comedy

BY JAKE MULLIGAN @_JAKEMULLIGAN Sometimes you catch a movie apologizing for itself. The most recent case is The Night Before, the new Seth Rogen/Joseph Gordon-Levitt comedy from 50/50 director Jonathan Levine. Anthony Mackie features as the third wheel, playing a professional football player who’s more interested in public relations than in personal records. He rides in a limo plastered with the logo of an energy drink.

And he shouts, “My social media game is on point!” after each selfie posed for.

That’s metatextual commentary disguised as character-building. That’s Levine saying: “Sorry, but we’re sponsored.”

This is the Hanukkah-Christmas movie that you’d expect from this crew, if you’ve ever been bored enough to wonder what a Seth Rogen holiday movie might look like. Each of the trio gets to wear their usual persona—Levitt is the anguished romantic (Ethan), Mackie is the quick-witted playboy (Chris), Rogen is the schlubby druggy with the heart of gold (Isaac)—and the narrative is a simple, Superbadstyle night on the town. Ethan lost his parents on Christmas Eve 15 years ago, and his two best buds now accompany him, every year, for a debaucherous evening on that ugly anniversary. Their characters are pretty basic, too, so that’s how their night starts. There’s a stop at Rockefeller Center to see the tree. Then Mom’s house after-hours, a la Goodfellas, for a round of Goldeneye. Then a trip to the toy store to recreate their favorite scene from Big. These guys are supposedly native New Yorkers, but they’re spending their night on the city’s Starter Pack.

Eventually they get to a party full of the usual Hollywood-comedy standards: romantic interests, pop-star cameos, and top-40 needle drops. They arrive with thanks due to a weed dealer (Michael Shannon), who happens to be the only person in this movie selling something without a logo attached. All those other beats in The Night Before are accompanied by consumer commandments. Drink Red Bull. Use Sony phones to access your social media. Shop at FAO Schwarz. Play Nintendo consoles. Pay homage to Martin Scorsese movies. Listen to “Wrecking Ball.” There’s a lot of corporate synergy happening in these frames. That’s good business. But it’s a shame we’re the ones paying for it. >> THE NIGHT BEFORE. RATED R. NOW PLAYING. 20

12.2.15 - 12.9.15

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DEPT. OF COMMERCE

ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT

21

SAVAGE LOVE

ALL SIZE MATTERS

WHAT'S FOR BREAKFAST

BY PATT KELLEY WHATS4BREAKFAST.COM

BY DAN SAVAGE @FAKEDANSAVAGE | MAIL@SAVAGELOVE.NET I’m a 37-year-old straight male in a relationship with a slightly older woman. I have a GGG girlfriend, and I am completely GGG—until we talk about having a MMF threesome. We have great sex and have experimented together. We tried playing with a couple to give her the “two-dick experience” she wanted, but the other man was of “average” size and she was not into it. I’m of average stature, and she made such a fuss of having someone extra large join in that it threw my hang-up about my size into overdrive. It’s paralyzed me sexually. I’m afraid she’ll leave me or run off looking to fulfill her need on her own.

Average Nerdy Guy Shunning Threesomes If leaving you is the only way this woman can ever experience an above-average cock again, ANGST, then she might leave you. Depending on how important sitting on an above-average cock now and then is to her, your insecurities may create an incentive for her to leave you or cheat on you. But if she can have you and all the good times and the great GGG sex you two have together—if she can continue to enjoy your cock and the things it and you can do for her along with the occasional ride on an above-average cock—then you’ve created a massive incentive for her to stay.

How bad is chlamydia? My gynecologist left me a voice mail, and I am absolutely terrified. A quick Google search told me that it can cause infertility if left untreated— what it didn’t tell me is how long when left untreated before it causes infertility? I told my boyfriend of 10 months, and he seems very sane about it. But I am terrified that he’ll leave me. HELP! Seriously Terrified Damsel Some time has passed between your letter arriving and my response appearing in print—so here’s hoping you called your gynecologist back, STD, and got the download and the treatment you needed.

Quickly: Chlamydia is a common sexually transmitted infection (STI), men and women are equally at risk, it can be contracted through vaginal, anal, or oral intercourse.

Your Google search was accurate: Left untreated, chlamydia can cause infertility in women. But you’re not going to leave it untreated, right? Fortunately, chlamydia is easily cured. Unfortunately, most people who have chlamydia aren’t aware they’re infected, as most infected people have no symptoms. That’s why it’s extremely important for all sexually active people—adults and adolescents—to get regular STI screenings.

Is your reproductive system already harmed? You’ll have to discuss that with your gynecologist, STD, who is in a far better position than I am to have a look inside you.

As for your boyfriend: He needs to get tested and treated too, and if his last STI screening was more than a year ago, it’s possible he infected you and not the other way around.

If your boyfriend leaves you over this—if he blames you for something he may be responsible for—then he’s not someone you want in your life or in your twat.

THE STRANGERER

BY PAT FALCO ILLFALCO.COM

22

12.2.15 - 12.9.15

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BOWERY BOSTON

For show announcements, giveaways, contests, and more, follow us on:

WWW.BOWERYBOSTON.COM • • • • LIVE MUSIC IN AND AROUND BOSTON • • • •

ROYALE 279 Tremont St. Boston, MA • royaleboston.com/concerts ON SALE NOW!

ON SALE FRIDAY AT 10AM!

1 0

Y E A R S

DEERHUNTER

w

W/ ATLAS SOUND

/

J a c k ’s M a n n e q u i n 1 0

THURS. DECEMBER 10

SAT. DECEMBER 12

THURS. JANUARY 14

WED. JANUARY 20 ON SALE THURSDAY AT 10AM! 12.31 Anaheim, CA House

RON POPE + THE NIGHTHAWKS

Y E A R S w

TUES. FEBRUARY 2

T R A N S I

in

/

T R A N S I T

in

J a c k ’s M a n n e q u i n

THURS. FEBRUARY 4 12.31 Anaheim, CA House of Blues / 1.20 San Francisco, CA Regency Ballroom / 1.22 Denver, CO Ogden Theatre / 1.23 Lawrence, KS Granada Theatre / 1.24 Minneapolis, MN First Ave

ON SALE FRIDAY AT NOON!

1.26 Columbus, OH Newport Music Hall / 1.27

Washington, DC 9:30 Club / 1.30 Philadelphia, PA Electric Factor y / 2.2 New York, NY Ir ving Plaza / 2.4 Boston, MA Royale

of Blues / 1.20 San Francisco, CA Regency Ballroom / 1.22 Denver, CO Ogden Theatre / 1.23 Lawrence, KS Granada T

1.26 Columbus, OH Newport Music Hall / 1.27

Washington, DC 9:30 Club / 1.30 Philadelphia, PA Electric Factor y / 2.2 New York, NY Ir v

W/ TRUETT, JONATHAN TYLER SUN. FEBRUARY 21

THURS. FEBRUARY 25

TUESDAY, MARCH 1

SATURDAY, MARCH 12

THURSDAY, APRIL 14

BOSTON MUSIC AWARDS NIGHT #2

EVAN DANDO

W/ SEOUL

52 Church St. Cambridge, MA sinclaircambridge.com

THURS. & FRI. DECEMBER 3 & 4

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 13

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 17

SUNDAY, MAY 1

MONDAY, DECEMBER 7

W/ THESE WILD PLAINS

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 10

W/ THE POMPS, THE FEEL GOODS

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 18

PRESENTS

A TRIBUTE TO HANK WILLIAMS - LIVE W/ THE SWINGING STEAKS, DANIELLE MIRAGLIA

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 31

W/ CLOAKROOM, WILDHONEY

FRIDAY, JANUARY 1

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 20

METZ

THURSDAY, JANUARY 7

SATURDAY, JANUARY 9

TUESDAY, JANUARY 19 W/ CARDIKNOX, SOFI TUKKER

SATURDAY, JANUARY 16

WITH BULLY, SO PITTED

SATURDAY, JANUARY 23 WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 20 ON SALE FRIDAY AT NOON!

ON SALE FRIDAY AT NOON!

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 11

THURSDAY, MARCH 24

ON SALE FRIDAY AT NOON!

THU - SAT JANUARY 28, 29 & 30

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 1

ALL THEM WITCHES JESSE MARCHANT 1222 Comm. Ave. Allston, MA

W/ PHOTAY

W/ NEW MADRID

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 4

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 5

W/ EMILY WOLFE TUESDAY, DECEMBER 8

greatscottboston.com

FRIDAYS AT 7PM!

W/ ESCONDIDO, AUSTIN MANUEL

W/ CHARLY BLISS MONDAY, DECEMBER 7

W/ HEATHER WOODS BRODERICK

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 6

AND THE KIDS DES ARK W/ PWR BTTM, KID MOUNTAIN

W/ DREAMTIGERS, LONGINGS

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 9

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 11

MONDAY, DECEMBER 14

ON SALE FRIDAY AT NOON!

ON SALE FRIDAY AT NOON!

ON SALE FRIDAY AT NOON!

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 28

THURSDAY, MARCH 31

THE GAS PRESENTS

‘s S GA E TH

W/ HONDURAS

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 15

JERMAINE FOWLER

W/ SLEEPY KITTY

FRIDAY, JANUARY 8

12/3, 12/10 & 12/17 PILE RESIDENCY ≠ 12/12 MORNE ≠ 12/18 THE RATIONALES ≠ 12/19 THE FIGGS / THE UPPER CRUST ≠ 12/20 BLINDSPOT ≠ 12/21 ME IN CAPRIS

OTHER SHOWS AROUND TOWN:

PERFECT PUSSY

ON SALE FRIDAY AT NOON!

JULIEN BAKER

W/ SON LITTLE

W/ BIG UPS, PHANTOM RIDES

WED. DECEMBER 16 MIDDLE EAST UP

SAT. JANUARY 23 CAFE 939

SAT. JANUARY 23 MIDDLE EAST UP

Tickets for Royale, The Sinclair, and Great Scott can be purchased online at Ticketmaster.com or by phone at (800) 745-3000.

No fee tickets available at The Sinclair box office Wednesdays - Saturdays 12:00 - 7:00PM

SATURDAY, MARCH 5 CITI WANG THEATRE

FOR MORE INFORMATION AND A COMPLETE LIST OF SHOWS, VISIT BOWERYBOSTON.COM