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VOL 18 + ISSUE 2

JANUARY 14, 2016 - JANUARY 21, 2016

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DEAR READER In 2003, we scored one of our biggest interviews to date—probably still one of our most important.

It was with David Bowie. With his sudden and inconceivable passing, we decided to reprint it in this issue, in its entirety. It’s an amazingly personal look into an incredible artist and what made him tick.

That’s all I have to say. Be a kook and find the stars.

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ON THE COVER This way or no way You know, I’ll be free Just like that bluebird Now ain’t that just like me -David Bowie, Lazarus ©2016 DIGBOSTON IS PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY DIG PUBLISHING LLC. NO PART OF THIS PUBLICATION CAN BE REPRODUCED WITHOUT WRITTEN CONSENT. DIG PUBLISHING LLC CANNOT BE HELD LIABLE FOR ANY TYPOGRAPHICAL ERRORS. ONE COPY OF DIGBOSTON IS AVAILABLE FREE TO MASSACHUSETTS RESIDENTS AND VISITORS EACH WEEK. ANYONE REMOVING PAPERS IN BULK WILL BE PROSECUTED ON THEFT CHARGES TO THE FULLEST EXTENT OF THE LAW.

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NEWS US

ONE YEAR LATER NEWS TO US

I sat on I-93 because police are killing black people in my name—it’s really that simple

BY NICOLE SULLIVAN “It was just selfish!”

He wasn’t yelling, but his face was red and he was leaning towards me, making sure the words hit with maximum impact. It was a cold October evening at a rally for Bernie Sanders, a space that was supposedly filled with liberals. Almost nine months earlier, along with other activists I sat down on I-93 in Milton, arms locked in barrels, in support of the Black Lives Matter movement. This man, who I only knew as a distant acquaintance, had been berating me for the past 20 minutes for this action, arguing that Boston doesn’t even have much of a race problem, and claiming even if it did, that was not the way to fix it. The man went on about traffic and ambulances and inconvenience. Meanwhile, in the background, Sanders spoke about Black Lives Matter and the 99 percent.

Neither of them mentioned the lives taken by cops in this country—a number that wound up exceeding 1,000 in 2015 alone.

Many times over the past year, I have wondered if what I did mattered. I look at the names of the deceased. Sandra Bland. Mya Hall. Alexia Christian. Bettie Jones. Meagan Hockaday. Thousands of them, disproportionately black, dead at the hands of the police. I considered using this space to list their names, but there are just too many who have lost their lives since I sat down on the highway, so many more brutalized, raped and incarcerated, and all people want to talk about is traffic and inconvenience and the people who didn’t die. How did we get to this point?

For a partial answer, I only need to look at the media response to our action. Earlier this month in Oregon, armed militiamen took over a federal building indefinitely, on land formerly reserved for the Northern Paiute indigenous peoples of the area. These occupying men made it clear that they are willing to kill or be killed for their cause. By comparison, a year ago this week, more than a dozen of us sat on the highway—one group in 4

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Medford, another in Milton where I joined 5 other white activists—with the goal of staying there for four hours in honor of Michael Brown, whose body was left on the street in Ferguson, Missouri for that long after he was killed by police. We had no intention of defending ourselves from violence, and given the whole arm-in-barrel situation, we didn’t even have that ability (even while we were physically and verbally attacked by commuters).

For months following our action, the biggest news outlets in Boston questioned whether our protest should be considered attempted murder, lamented the traffic we caused, and even called for us to be treated as domestic terrorists. The threatening comments, which eventually found their way into my personal email and home mailbox, were filled with calls for me to be beaten and executed. But my hometown newspaper of record, the Boston Globe, considers an armed, openly white supremacist takeover of a federal building a “peaceful protest,” and has made at least a cursory effort to understand the politics behind this action.

I’m not surprised to see such hypocrisy in coverage.

Prior to the I-93 protest, I had spent time marching in the streets with BLM and working with a host of groups to stop the tidal wave of police violence. During one rally, I stood in front of the South Bay House of Correction, screaming as black organizers were pulled out of the crowd, individuals tackled and beaten by multiple officers.

I woke up the next morning to find articles that simply gave the number of arrests, yet left unchallenged the narrative from law enforcement, and gave little mention of what brought us out there or of the violence inflicted on protesters. I watched as those headlines energized and agitated the white people of Boston, motivated them to attack, harass, and even stalk the black people leading this movement. No one, especially in the media, seemed interested in asking why thousands of white people wanted to kill black people for marching in the streets

and stating that their lives matter.

This bias is why so many activists now are refusing to speak to the media, and are instead creating alternative outlets for sharing news and analysis. Why would we bother talking to people who have so much more power than us yet are too cowardly to ask real questions? If the Boston media establishment had any guts, they would have put the I-93 blockade into the context of the national Black Lives Matter movement. They would ask why people took to the highways, and we would have gladly told them it’s because the very infrastructure of our city was built to maintain white supremacy, because the roads were built over black communities to allow white people ease-of-access from suburbs to city. Because the Hub and its surrounding suburbs were built through redlining, through white flight, and through busing. Because every day, the daily lives of black and brown people are disrupted by police officers enforcing stop-and-frisk policies. Because we saw disrupting the rush hour commute as a necessary sacrifice for justice. And because mass murder is being committed to keep white people safe.

Instead, journalists keep asking me about my feelings.

They want to know how I feel about causing a traffic jam, about causing ambulances to be rerouted, how I feel about my case. It’s like they’re all trying to be my therapist. The fact is that my feelings are complicated, private, and irrelevant to the action. I didn’t sit down on the highway because I felt a certain way. I did what I did because police are shooting black people in my name, and therefore it’s my responsibility to help change things. It’s really that simple.

It’s what my acquaintance at the Sanders rally didn’t understand. It’s what our politicians don’t get. It’s the story that the media is too afraid—or simply unwilling—to tell.

They ask about traffic and ambulances and the people who could have died. I know how we got to this point. The question I now ask is: What will we do to stop it?

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TOKIN TRUTH

PETITION BS

What really happened to Bay State Repeal?

BY PATRICK KEANEY Back in October 2015, still a month away from the deadline for submitting Bay State Repeal’s signed petitions to the cities and towns of Massachusetts for certification, Steve Epstein was optimistic. BSR’s “Petition B,” which the longtime activist helped draft and that would allow voters to legalize marijuana this November, seemed on track to make the ballot.

Appearing on a local radio show on October 17, Epstein stated, “We have about 35,000 to 40,000 signatures that I am confident we already have.” About a month later, however, Epstein submitted fewer than 10,000 signatures to the Secretary of State. Needing 64,750 certified signatures to get on the ballot, Petition B, which had won the endorsement of the Boston Globe and of influential pro-pot advocates like MassCANN, was stillborn.

President Kennedy, facing reporters in the aftermath of the Bay of Pigs fiasco, said that “success has a hundred fathers but defeat is an orphan.” Epstein inverts Kennedy’s wisdom, suggesting that the failure of BSR’s signature campaign has a hundred fathers—and he’s not one of them. “I’m convinced that the people of Massachusetts really don’t care about advancing their liberty,” Epstein told me in an interview.

The facts suggest otherwise.

Massachusetts voters have frequently telegraphed their desire to liberalize marijuana laws, in polls and in elections. With medical marijuana already on the books, full legalization is likely to happen this year, but it’s a flawed initiative by the Committee to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol (CRMLA), whose petition succeeded, that will be put before voters.

Epstein, a lawyer by trade, is careful about describing his role in the calamity.

Asked if he was “in charge” of the signature drive, he states that he was merely “the coordinator.” Saying he was “in charge” is “an abuse of language.”

But, in addition to drafting the proposal, Epstein was talking to the media, sending emails, making social media posts, making the case for endorsement to MassCANN, etc. His fingerprints are all over it.

Whatever skills Epstein has as an advocate for legal weed, he was not up to the task of mobilizing the hundreds of thousands of people who support an end to prohibition. When asked to describe his plan for collecting 100,000 signatures in a relatively short time frame (10 weeks), Epstein replied, “I had a hope that people would do what they said they would do.” Hope, of course, is not a strategy.

BSR’s dubious plan was on full display on the group’s Facebook page as far back as August. “Is it a false assumption to believe that if a petition blank can be posted to the internet that thousands of you will print it out double sided, follow the instruction printed on it, sign it, put your address on it, perhaps get some friends to do the same and return to our P.O. Box (the address will be printed in a box on it) and do all this by November 1?” The language is pure Epstein and the absurdity of the post (he left out the part about buying a stamp!) would be laughable if the stakes hadn’t been so high. The inquiry generated two replies.

Epstein, who turns 60 this year, seemed convinced that the internet, particularly social media, and especially Facebook, would deliver the petitions his organization needed. On the same day that he made his wildly inaccurate estimate of having tens of thousands of signatures in hand, he said, “I think we’ve had some remarkable success with Facebook ads.” He said that BSR spent $1,000 and “we’ve appeared on over 100,000 computer screens.” That number is probably cold comfort to the dozen or so hardcore volunteers (Epstein’s estimate) who actually answered BSR’s call to collect the 9,932 signatures the group submitted.

BSR didn’t have to go down in flames. The group started in 2013, which gave it plenty of time to develop a statewide organization and raise the money to pay for signatures if its volunteers came up short. Without an experienced grassroots organizer in charge of the signature drive, however, the effort was doomed from the beginning. How else to explain their obtaining only seven certified signatures from all of Berkshire County?

CRMLA, with all its flaws, is poised to appear on the ballot. Epstein, a fierce opponent of the proposal, has come out swinging, calling it a “bad law” that he will “use every skill in my power” to thwart. In light of Epstein’s failure to mobilize support for his (admittedly better) proposal, I suspect CRMLA backers are not exactly quaking in their boots.

Patrick Keaney is a political consultant, activist, and writer living in Boston. He has successfully managed campaigns (including signature drives) in Boston, Suffolk County, and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

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Last March, I attended a ceremony where DeRay McKesson and Johnetta Elzie, known to many simply as DeRay and Netta, together received the 2015 Howard Zinn Freedom to Write Award. They were honored because of their work, on social media and beyond, spreading news and updates from the frontlines of the Black Lives Matter movement, and for giving a voice to BLM on a national level.

During the question and answer period, a well-meaning white man asked the pair if tragedies like those which they’re addressing—namely, the murder and assault of black men and women at the hands of the police—were happening more often these days. It just seems, he said, like there was a time before when he had never heard of this type of thing, and now it seems to be unfolding everywhere. What gives?

For white people like me, it’s been easy to live in relative ignorance about the violence exacted on black bodies on a daily basis. At least it was before the outrage over Mike Brown’s death, and that of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin before him, ignited a movement that brought the names of several other murders to our minds and lips. Malls and airports have been taken over, streets have been blocked, and demands have been made.

A year ago this week, a group of protesters handcuffed themselves across I-93 to show solidarity with the BLM movement. They came to be known as the Somerville 18, and in the past year, Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan has moved to throw the book at them. Fourteen have ultimately walked away without jail time after accepting responsibility for trespassing, but all 18 originally faced 90 days in jail and nearly $15,000 in fines—punishments so drastic that the mayor of Somerville was prompted to publish a public letter condemning the DA’s pursuit.

It’s obvious that Ryan is looking for revenge and retribution, not justice, especially considering the fact that two of the remaining defendants were street medics who were not in the road. They still face up to 45 days in jail for their “role,” despite the fact that they weren’t on the highway. Clearly, the DA leveled charges uniformly. She’s prepared to send two street medics to jail for more than a month for standing on public property near a demonstration. That certainly sends a message to dissenters, doesn’t it.

Solidarity actions like these and, moreover, protests fronted by BLM leaders have shattered the peaceful ignorance of the white consciousness. When that bubble is pierced, the most vile slime is exposed. In the wake of the highway action, state Rep. Colleen Garry of Dracut proposed legislation that would see highway-blocking protesters charged with attempted murder. Rumors circulated about a possible pitchfork-and-torch field trip to a protester’s home. Two women even showed up (they left disappointed).

At the Zinn ceremony last March, Elzie looked at the inquisitive man with a touch of bewilderment and a large dose of exhaustion. As a black woman, she cannot escape the threat and reality of racial violence. Remember, she said, that Rodney King was beaten by the LAPD back in 1991.

All these years later, the disruption of the status quo must continue. Those who will not listen will be made to listen, be it by handcuffed chains of people on highways or by way of floods of bodies surrounding the State House. Sometimes speaking up means shutting it down. “Dissent,” as Zinn would say, “is the highest form of patriotism.”

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what shirt I was wearing.’ … It’s been 13 years now since I became a Muslim. My foundation was already there, but when I started rapping I didn’t think about music too seriously. Then I met AL [in 2005] at the Western Front.

AL-J: He was very sincere. A lot of cats can spit, but rarely do I feel their sincerity.

One of you affiliates with the Five Percent Nation. The other with the Muslim faith. What are the differences?

YUSUF: You could talk to three Five-Percenters and get three different answers. The differences have evaporated a lot over the years … The meeting place is the basics— what makes you a Muslim.

AL-J: We go to Friday prayer [Jummah] together at the Masjid Al Quran mosque in Roxbury. This was the original mosque where Malcolm X preached at one point.

YUSUF: The differences that people want to see, they aren’t there.

QURAN DMC FEATURE

Blak Madeen on Muslims, Five Percenters, hip-hop, and Marco Rubio

BY CHRIS FARAONE @FARA1 You may have noticed that Republicans aren’t hustling to win over the hip-hop demographic. In the war on black youth, they have sided with authorities. In the war on poverty, neanderthals like Texas Senator Ted Cruz side with corporations. Every time. There is, however, yet another significant way in which the GOP has alienated innumerable rap fans throughout this toxic election season, and that’s by disrespecting the Prophet Muhammad, whose influence among the country’s hiphop constituency is far greater than most people—and certainly most conservatives—may care to overstand.

“I watched the last Republican debate,” says Yusuf Abdul Mateen, a Shia Muslim and one half of the Boston duo Blak Madeen with AL-J. With his group’s most political offering to date, Supreme Aftermath, dropping amidst so much Islamophobia, Yusuf continues: “Obviously there was [Donald] Trump saying his stuff, but it was [Florida Congressman Marco] Rubio that made me angrier, because he tried to get sectarian and actually used the word “Shia.” I dare him to define the word. He sounds like ISIS now.”

Of the Republican presidential hopefuls, Rubio should know better. The youngest candidate in the main stage debates, he’s claimed to be a fan of Golden Age hiphop, and has professed affection for the Wu-Tang Clan.

Had Rubio paid more attention to the teachings of the Staten Island rap group, he would have known that his incendiary rhetoric regarding Muslims strikes at the heart of their entire essence, and at the universe in which their music lives. To quote directly from The Tao of Wu, in which The RZA offers critical background: The [Five Percent Nation] were the next generation of the Nation of Islam, whose teachings had shaped giants like Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali. The newer school was founded in 1964, by a Harlem student minister known as Clarence 13X, who we now call the Father. He was looking for a quicker and more powerful way to bring those teachings directly to America’s black youth, so he condensed the Nation’s Lost-Found Lessons into a philosophical core called the 120.

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Indeed, the line between Muhammad and boom bap may even be shorter than the rope between modern Republicans and slaveowners. As The RZA writes in another book, The Wu-Tang Manual, “About 80 percent of hip-hop comes from the Five Percent. These same brothers are the fathers of a lot of our MC styles. Rakim, Big Daddy Kane, Poor Righteous Teachers, Busta Rhymes …” “In a lot of ways,” RZA adds,” hip-hop is the Five Percent.”

Rather than leverage such information—hardly guarded trade secrets at this juncture—to attract unlikely GOP constituents, Republicans would probably instead eschew this holy matrimony. Because while most facets of American society revolve around Christianity, as Yusuf and AL-J are quick to note, hip-hop revolves around a different set of principles. More benevolent politicians, typically of the Democratic variety, have made attempts to show the humanity of Muslims in the face of reckless xenophobia. That’s honorable, though a simpler lesson may be that the beat of young America—hip-hop in virtually all its forms save for some unsavory bastard crossover spawns—is rooted deep in the Quran.

Recently, a mosque in Worcester held a Meet a Muslim Day, the idea being that some members of the public could benefit from such an introduction. GOP debate sludge considered, it seemed appropriate to take a similar approach in interviewing AL-J, a Five-Percenter, and Yusuf—both veterans of Boston’s underground rap scene—about life and their latest project.

How similar are your backgrounds?

AL-J: I started to gain some knowledge of who I was around 13. I was living in Bridgeport [Connecticut], and I was pretty much a loner, I lived an isolated existence. I was interested in hip-hop, listening to DJ Red Alert … It was an interesting journey for me. I’ve always been the one to cling on to hope and to have a big heart.

YUSUF: I grew up in Methuen and North Andover with two parents, which is rare these days. My father worked in the court system, and I was quiet. I’m a few years younger [than AL], but we both have memories of hip-hop like, ‘I remember what I was doing when that came out, and

YUSUF: I have a lot of Muslim friends from other parts of the world who might not listen to hip-hop, but they’ll listen to me. Swearing isn’t a big deal, but I know I’ll lose them quick.

You address a lot of public ignorance about Muslims in your music, but how do you deal with all the hate in your daily lives? How does it affect you?

AL-J: I’m numb to the hate. If you let it get into your soul, that’s when you’re in trouble. I’m a lot older in my age now. I’m not going to debate and argue with you. If I offended you, I will quickly repair it and say, ‘You know what, I apologize.’ I will humble myself.

YUSUF: The word apology is an interesting one. Right now we’re living in a world where at least one out of five people on the planet is a Muslim, and we’re all expected to apologize for things we had nothing to do with. So I’m not going to apologize, because I don’t know who that dude is.

But still, there are a lot of good people … As for ISIS, we’re supposed to believe a bunch of idiots driving around with long hair in Toyota trucks are taking over the world? No air force, no navy, but they’re taking over the world?

AL-J: We respond all through the album—that’s not Islam, that’s a state of barbarians.

And how do you respond on the regular?

YUSUF: I work at a group home. I was working in auto insurance before. It might sound cliche, but in calling myself a Muslim, I wanted to do something with humanity. I wanted to do something human, so I got involved and it clicked. And when you work with these kids, you count your blessings.

What should people know about Muslims, and about Muslims and hip-hop, from where you’re standing?

YUSUF: The Prophet Muhammad said a Muslim is someone who your possessions and your family are safe around. He didn’t say you have to believe A, B, and C. AL-J: Faith without works is dead. Works like if you see a person who is hungry, you ask them if they need something to eat. You treat your neighbor the way you want to be treated.

YUSUF: If there was no Five Percenters, there would be no hip-hop. So when people say it’s weird what we’re doing, they must be either young or not too bright.

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Am I right that neither of you curses on record?

AL-J: I used to think I had to be savage along with these other new guys coming up, so I had to prove myself, and I might say something a little vulgar. I’m an underground MC, but I’m an intelligent person, and an intelligent person doesn’t need to use profanity. That can go either way, and sometimes I might slip up in my daily usage, but as we grow as humans, I just try not to [swear].

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1/15 1349 (Norway), Tombs, Full of Hell & more 1/14 Resonance - ambient shoegaze dance night 1/16 LEMMYfest - Tribute to Lemmy Kilmister 1/18 Slow Coyote (American Folk musician and poet) 1/25 The Splinters (Bluegrass/Folk/Americana) 1/29 Dan Masterson+Junior Classics +Surf Vietnam 1/23/16 The Vikings are coming… back!

Ten courses of opulent feasting Live music & performances Tickets are on sale now cuisineenlocale.com

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

As any local can tell you, the Greater Boston area has restaurants and bars of all kinds, but you know what it doesn’t really have? Roadhouses. And it’s not hard to figure out why this is the case, since these types of bars tend to be roadside establishments found in the middle of nowhere, or perhaps in an area that has little else in the way of commercial or retail development. One such spot that was a classic roadhouse was the Willow Pond in Concord, which was a fraying, tired old dive in the middle of farmland. It pretty much defined the word, with cheap beer, loud music, greasy bar food, and a contingent of bikers, blue-collar workers, and yes, a smattering of middle- and upper-class suburban folk all enjoying a night out among the crickets and the stars. Sadly, the Willow Pond is long gone now, but a relatively similar place on the other side of Boston called the Village Manor also has a definite roadhouse feel to it, though it is in a slightly less rural part of the area than the Willow had been.

Unless you live near the place, the Village Manor is in what many would consider an obscure location, somewhere between the edge of a quiet residential neighborhood in Dedham and a somewhat industrial part of the Readville section of Hyde Park (including lots of railroad tracks) at the far end of Boston. Add to this the fact that just south of the bar is the vast Neponset River Reservation that connects to the even more vast Blue Hills Reservation, and you get the feeling that you are on a bit of an island as you make your way into the cracked, bumpy parking lot behind the watering hole (from which you can actually see the Blue Hills in the distance). A large deck sits out front—though it seems to be more for smoking than for outdoor dining—while the front entrance opens up to a roomy bar area with high-top tables, a mahogany bar, a stone fireplace, and a small section off to the side where live acts play music. A short walkway leads to the back of the house-like structure, where a very oldschool (and very quiet) dining area with booths and tables for larger groups can be found.

People don’t come to the Village Manor for foie gras, lamb tartare, and Belgian farmhouse ale, but its pub grub and classic American fare is a cut above what you might normally find at such a place. A few of the highlights here include a beefy and cheesy chili that comes with a nearly endless supply of tortilla chips; wings with a moderately hot buffalo sauce; a nacho plate that looks like a small mountain and includes a huge amount of beef, beans, and chips; a “colossal” burger topped with onion rings; tender steak tips and turkey tips with a house, BBQ, or teriyaki marinade; a sufficiently greasy pastrami sandwich that comes with steak fries; and a rich-tasting mac and cheese with Italian sausage mixed in. The drink menu is what you would expect from a neighborhood joint like this (basic beers and wines, a decent selection of the hard stuff), and prices for both food and drink are very reasonable overall.

Being the densely populated metropolis that it is, the metro Boston area isn’t exactly conducive to roadhouses, but if you look hard enough, you can certainly find these rural-feeling gems where you least expect them. And the Village Manor is a good one, with lots of character (and characters), solid bar food, cheap prices, a salt-of-the-earth waitstaff, and easy parking. Sure, it will never get on the annual list of local hotspots, but it seems quite comfortable in being what it is—a laid-back local joint where everyone is made to feel right at home. >> THE VILLAGE MANOR. 427 SPRAGUE ST., DEDHAM. THEVILLAGEMANOR.COM

PHOTO BY MARC HURWITZ

WEDNESDAYʼS JANUARY 6TH-27TH, 5-11PM

BY MARC HURWITZ @HIDDENBOSTON

OPEN UNTIL 2AM

NO COVER | DJ AND DANCING

$1 DRAFTS,$3 JELLO SHOTS, $5 BUFFET STARTING @ 9PM EVERY THURSDAY

WHEN YOU GIVE, YOU GET!

deals

GIVE YOUR FRIENDS & FAMILY GIFT CARDS TO THE BEST RESTAURANTS, BARS, SHOPS, & SERVICES IN TOWN

Stop waiting in line for brunch

AND YOU’LL ONLY PAY HALF PRICE!

GO TO DIGBOSTON.COM/DEALS TO SEE OUR COMPLETE INVENTORY!

Brunch served Saturday and Sunday 11 : 0 0 AM - 3 : 0 0 PM 9 2 H A M P S HIR E S T, CA M B R ID G E, M A | 6 1 7-2 5 0 - 8 4 5 4 | L O R D H O B O.C O M

NEWS TO US

FEATURE

DEPT. OF COMMERCE

ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT

13

ARTS ENTERTAINMENT

THE ORIGINAL SELFIE STICK. CATCH WOMAN IN THE MOON THIS WEEKEND AT THE AERONAUT BREWING COMPANY

14

WED 1.13

THU 1.14

FRI 1.15

SAT 1.16

SUN 1.17

TUE 1.19

Scotch & Steak Dinner

Oh Snap! ’90s Night

Bye Bye Liver: The Boston Drinking Play

Fathoms - Richie Parsons - Tsunami of Sound

Silent Film with Live Music: Woman in the Moon

Game Night

Invented in the 18th century to make life a little more interesting: scotch.

Unfortunately, scotch was deemed too wonderful to drink without a sufficiently delicious meat next to it to amplify its flavors, and thus it was locked away for centuries. That is, until tonight, where it will be brought back into the realm of humanity to be consumed alongside a tender steak. Feast to your heart’s content on fine scotch and steak. After all, it’s the new PB&J.

Put on your finest denim jacket and cabbage patch your ass down to Zuzu, ’cause the party don’t start till you walk in the door. It’s an evening filled with all your favorite ’90s classics, featuring Outdated Artist, “Song You Kind of Remember the Words to,” and Hey, Is This Guy Still Relevant?

You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll obnoxiously make outdated references that’ll annoy all your friends for at least an entire week after this event. It’s time to party like it’s 1999.

The Boston theater scene is hotter than it’s ever been, and if you’ve been refraining from checking out the local talent, then maybe this’ll convince you to finally get out there: a drinking game play. “Wait, wait, wait, a drinking game play?” you ask yourself.

Yup, that’s right. It’s a new level of theater altogether.

Bye Bye Liver combines the thrill and laughs of sketch comedy and the adrenaline of playful drinking. It’s a must-see for theater and beer lovers alike.

When was the last time you heard surf music?

I mean, real surf music, live and everything? You answered either “a long time ago” or “never.”

Which is fine, but let’s try to change that, all right?

Fathom’s going to be in town Saturday night at the Midway Café, so it’s time to take on some killer waves.

Complementing Fathoms are Richie Parsons Band and Tsunami of Sound, only amplifying that early ’60s sound that’s been long gone in mainstream music.

How do you feel about three-and-a-half-hour movies? How about threeand-a-half-hour movies from 1929? Yup, you didn’t read that wrong. Woman in the Moon is considered one of the first, if not the first, science fiction films in history. It’s a clichéd epic, but that doesn’t stop it from being a pleasurable ride. With a live band providing the film’s score, it’s bound to be an even better experience than watching it plain. It’s a time sink, but it’s one worth falling into.

You’re never too old to play some games. Whether it be a board game, a game of Mario Kart, or Settlers of Catan, there’s a part of you that comes alive when filled with that childlike wonderment you can only get from playing a game with other people.

Good Life Bar offers a free gaming experience, so come on down and mingle with other people looking to relax and get to show their competitive sides. It’s a great place to meet great people and play great games.

Blue on Highland.

882 Highland Ave., Needham. 7-11pm/21+/$85. thebostoncalendar.com/ events/scotch-steak-dinner

Zuzu. 472 Mass. Ave., Cambridge. 10pm-2am/ 21+/$5. thebostoncalendar. com/events/oh-snap-90snight--2

Hennessy’s. 25 Union St., Boston. 8-10pm/21+/$20. goldstar.com/events/ boston-ma/bye-bye-liverthe-boston-drinkingplay?aff_sub5=&modal_ signup=&test_signup=

The Midway Café.

3496 Washington St., Jamaica Plain. 4-8pm/all ages/$10. midwaycafe.com/ our/details?id=102010

Aeronaut Brewing Company. 14 Tyler St., Somerville. 7-9pm/21+/$10. eventbrite.com/e/silentfilm-with-live-musicwoman-in-the-moontickets-20492674140

Good Life Bar. 28 Kingston St., Boston. 6-11:30pm/21+/ FREE. facebook.com/ GameNightGoodLife

1.14.16 - 1.21.16

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DIGBOSTON.COM

NEWS TO US

FEATURE

DEPT. OF COMMERCE

ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT

15

MUSIC

DAVID BOWIE

(HO-LY CRAP, DAVID BOWIE!)

BY DAVID WILDMAN Reprinted from December 2003, DigBoston (formerly Weekly Dig) In addition to this reprinted interview, we are honoring David Bowie with a separate tribute piece on our website. Visit digboston.com to read it in full.

There are few musical artists still around after 25-plus years who could still be considered supremely cool by anyone. The Rolling Stones have their props, but long ago stopped breaking any new musical ground; The Beatles reign as posthumous pop icons, but half the teens you ask will hold their noses and call them pathetic dinosaurs.

Yet David Bowie has retained a hipness that still gets a knowing nod from metalheads, emo lovers, pubescent goths, rap and soul DJs, and even your gay old parents.

His two most recent releases Heathen and now Reality are a return to form with strong thoughtful songs, sonic experimentation and a welcome collaboration with Tony Visconti, the producer who helped mold Bowie’s distinctive sound on classic records as Hunky Dory and Ziggy Stardust.

The Weekly Dig spoke with Bowie by phone from London.

Were you happy to work with Tony Visconti again?

Yes, we did Heathen last year and Reality this year, and no doubt he will be working with me next year as well. We’re kind of, as much as we can, going to try to do it as a yearly thing, because that seems to be the speed that both of us work at. In our case it works out pretty good. In the old days, we used to do maybe a couple of albums a year. But, of course, the industry can’t really support that. We kind of have to restrict it to one a year, which will be OK I guess.

There’s a whole syndrome that I felt that I’d fallen into where you can only do something once every two years or so because the company has a sell off-period, then it has a factory line, like, it’s such a hard deal, the whole industry thing is hard to come to terms with, so Tony and I are pretty much going to go our own way.

At the moment I’ve got a company that is pretty open to letting me do things my own way.

“I’m grateful for any audience, you know? It’s fine; I don’t care if they’ve got two heads. As long as they are there to enjoy themselves, come listen.”

So I’m assuming that you are talking about the megaplatinum success of Let’s Dance? That it was a deterrent to you artistically?

That slowed everything down, it really did. Up until that point I’d done one, maybe two; sometimes if I was

producing an artist it would be three albums I was making a year. With Iggy, for instance I was writing three albums a year for that period. I was writing his Lust For Life and The Idiot, and then I had my own albums I was writing. I was also doing the odd other thing for another artist as well, so it was really a heavy workload. But I enjoyed the hell out of it. And I was touring at the same time.

The direction you seem to be going these days, moving away from the heavy electronica that you’ve been doing, is this a deliberate choice on your part?

It really isn’t. I love all that stuff very much indeed, so I guess I’m just writing the stuff that I feel is right for my time, where I live and what I’m doing. I can quite see myself doing ... I mean, David Torn, who I work with these days quite a bit, we’ve talked about doing something maybe a little more techy in the future.

How much are you affected by the musicians whom you play with? Do you come up with the sound and find the musicians?

Heathen was written just for me, and I didn’t have anybody in mind. I think it works that way that I get an overall idea of what the album should sound like and I tend to handpick the musicians who would make that sound come to life. This one was oriented, I guess, a little more toward my band. Reality was—it was pretty much about the personalities, Gerry Leonard and Earl Slick on guitars. Sterling Campbell on drums.

Are you playing guitar?

Yes, I’m playing quite a bit of guitar and keyboards on it.

But not like when you made Diamond Dogs. You were playing all of the guitar parts on that one, right?

Yeah! (laughs). I’m playing a lot of stuff on that if my memory serves me right, which may not be too good a guide. My memory was ... whoah!

Do you take into account the effect your being involved will have when you work with someone, for example, like when you produced Lou Reed or covered Tom Verlaine’s “Kingdom Come” on Scary Monsters?

Never at the time; it’s just a thing you’re doing, like good fun. In hindsight, obviously things change and they develop a new context. Looking back on all that now, it was, as far as Lou is concerned, Lou is still a very dear friend of mine. I wouldn’t say we’re practically neighbors, because he lives quite a long way away from me, we’re both downtown [New York City], though. We run into each other all the time, we e-mail, and we’re pretty good buddies. But looking back on the album that we did together, it’s a real good album.

That’s for sure.

I’m really pleased we did it, you know. It would have been awful had we not actually worked together while we were both comparatively young guys.

You continue to have appeal across the board, with young hipsters— —as well as old hipsters. We’ve got ’em too, you know.

This is a pretty unusual thing, though.

I’m grateful for any audience, you know? It’s fine; I don’t care if they’ve got two heads. As long as they are there to enjoy themselves, come listen. I suppose the only thing I’m fairly strong-armed about is that I really kind of require them to get involved with the new material I’m writing as well as the older things. ...But these days it is very hard to get new material known outside of a very kind of trainspotter kind of fan. But so far I’ve been extremely lucky in that way that I’ve had audiences prepared to go really the whole length and listen to not only older things, but new stuff, and that’s really quite fulfilling as a performing artist.

DAVID BOWIE continued on pg. 18

MUSIC EVENTS THU 1.14

SURFIN’ USA LE ROXY PRO + THE LIFE ELECTRIC + JUNIOR CLASSICS + JESS JACOBS (BAND WITHOUT HANDS) [Great Scott, 1222 Comm.

Ave., Allston. 9pm/18+/$10. greatscottboston.com]

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1.14.16 - 1.21.16

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FRI 1.15

HOMETOWN HEROES GUSTER + DAVID WAX MUSEUM [House of Blues, 15 Lansdowne St., Boston.

7pm/all ages/$36. houseofblues.com]

DIGBOSTON.COM

SAT 1.16

ROCK-N-ROMP WITH YR KIDS FREEZEPOP + LET’S WAIT [The Sinclair, 52 Church St., Cambridge.

11:30am/all ages/$5-10. sinclaircambridge.com]

SUN 1.17

MON 1.18

[Great Scott, 1222 Comm.

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

[The Middle East Upstairs, 472 Mass. Ave., Cambridge.

8pm/all ages/$10. mideastoffers.com]

ROCK RESIDENCY MAGIC MAGIC. + FUNERAL ADVANTAGE + FEDAVEES + CONDOR

UP DA PUNX FUNX DENT + GAMMA POPE + BAT HOUSE + BIG BOY CLUB

WED 1.20

INDIETRONICA FROM THE OUTBACK MIAMI HORROR + MOTHXR + FOREIGN AIR [Royale, 279 Tremont St., Boston. 8pm/18+/$18. royaleboston.com]

THU 1/14 8PM

COMEDY

NIGHT FRI Jan 15 - WEMF PRESENTS

GRETCHEN & THE PICKPOCKETS SAT Jan 16

BOSTOWN RAAS AFTER PARTY

THU Jan 21 - SERDAR ILHAN PRES.

YENI TURKU FRI Jan 22

GRAVEYARD SPIDERS

SUN Jan 23 - LEEDZ PRESENTS

MICKEY AVALON DIRTY NASTY

Thu Jan 14 - LEEDZ PRESENTS

LOW STEPPA

Fri Jan 15 - LEEDZ PRESENTS

MASTA ACE

BLAK MADEEN Sat Jan 16 - ILLEGALY BLIND PRES.

GUY BLAKESLEE Sat Jan 16

SOULELUJAH! Sun Jan 17

ANGEL VIVALDI

Mon Jan 18 - ILLEGALY BLIND PRES.

Comedy Hosts: Tyler Gist & Anjan Biswas FRI 1/15 9:30PM

PVRPLE DJ Kenn, Knife, Amadeezy + Reel Drama upstairs DIRTY SOUTH, CRUNK, TRAP, TRILL, CHOPPED N SCREWED, DIPSET SAT 1/16 9:30PM

SWEET

SHOP

Carl Craig, C.S. McNeill + DJ Evaredy upstairs TECHNO, HOUSE + HIP HOP, TRAP, PARTY JAMS & REGGAE UPSTAIRS THU 1/21 10PM

40 OUNCE

BOUNCE

PARTY Hosts: Where’s Nasty?

Yvng Pavl HIP HOP, TRAP, REGGAE

DENT

Tues Jan 19

THE TREWS RED RED ROCKIT

NEWS TO US

FEATURE

DEPT. OF COMMERCE

ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT

17

DAVID BOWIE continued from pg. 16 Do you care if you ever return to those huge tours of the past?

The way that I work these days, which I guess some would say is a more intimate kind of relationship with the audience, maybe I’m a lot more like my genuine self these days. I guess you would say it’s a lot friendlier in my approach to the audience. When you’re sort of a little more withdrawn, it’s easier in a way to play to a bigger audience. ...I don’t think I could go much above this [audiences of more than 12,000], not unless I was knocking out anthemic songs. Firstly, I don’t think I’ve got that many; I’ve got a couple, but on the whole, some of the newer material is getting quite intimate sounding.

“Well, I guess even I would find a way to, to escape into being somebody, wouldn’t I? If all this turned out badly and I didn’t enjoy it, I’d just have to create a character to get out of being me again, I suppose. Now there’s a story!

There’s an album there (laughs).”

Are you doing the old songs any differently now?

“Let’s Dance” starts as a waltz, so it is incredibly quiet; sometimes it’s a samba, it depends on our mood. Recently I’m not doing it (laughs). I’ve only done it about four times on this tour.

Do you like playing in Boston?

Oh yeah, you bet!

Tell me about the tour.

This leg of the tour, we’ve got about 30 dates. I know we’re coming back to the States in the spring.

Then we’ll be doing a whole bunch more when we come back, after we do New Zealand and Japan and Hong Kong and all that, you know? We’ve got Wembley, London for the next few nights, then we end up in Glasgow—that’s our very last show in Europe. It’s been a hell of a run. It’s been a great tour—really excellent tour.

Well, it’s an excellent record.

Oh, thank you. I genuinely pretty much live for the writing, that’s the top of the thing. And I’m finally starting to really enjoy performing as well.

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1.14.16 - 1.21.16

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DIGBOSTON.COM

Finally?

Yeah, I never enjoyed it. It was not something I looked forward to very much. I’ve always loved the putting together everything. I love the idea of making albums and writing albums and conceptualizing and all that side of the thing, you know? The actual going out on the road side of the thing—one, I never thought I was that good at it, and two, I just didn’t enjoy the process too much.

I don’t know, maybe because I didn’t feel competent as an artist. But over this last eight years or so, since I’ve started working the first time around with Reeves, we went through the ’90s, now I just got really comfortable on stage. Now I’m just, I’m just like a duck in water out there (laughs).

Was that why you wanted to quit after the Ziggy Stardust tour? The performing was getting to you?

No, I wanted to get out of being Ziggy Stardust! I so much wanted to move on. It seemed a kind of right-juvenile drastic way of doing it (laughs). I maybe should have told the band. When you’re young, you make these ridiculous mistakes.

But you’ve gotten to the point where you don’t have to be anybody but yourself up there.

That’s right, exactly, and now there’s really no escape.

Well, I guess even I would find a way to, to escape into being somebody, wouldn’t I? If all this turned out badly and I didn’t enjoy it, I’d just have to create a character to get out of being me again, I suppose. Now there’s a story!

There’s an album there (laughs).

Do you think you will ever collaborate with people like Eno and Fripp again?

Oh, heavens yes. I still keep in touch with those guys. I always try and go see Fripp when he comes to town in New York, and catch the show. Eno and I frequently e-mail.

What did you think of the movie Velvet Goldmine by Todd Haynes? It seemed such a not-so-thinly veiled story about you. It sounded like he’d just read a few of the biographies of you out there and tried to turn it into a movie.

Yes, it certainly had a lot of that. And I think because of his own particular sexual politics he wanted to make something that represented queer cinema in that way.

I guess he did OK, I just found all the characters very colorless; everybody kind of lacked personality, and the main thing was that if he was trying to catch an essence of glam in London in ’72, ’73, whatever, he really missed the humor. It was a very serious movie.

Good point, it was very grim.

It was hilarious in those days! A scream! It was really a riot, you know, it was a lot of fun. And this seemed like a cold world he’d painted, dry as a bone, yeah? So I don’t know, it’s not the best thing he’s ever made. I suspect he’ll make great movies, though; he’s a good filmmaker.

With all due respect, David, how long do you think you’re going to keep going?

Yeah, I know. I wonder. I wonder. I have a horrible idea that’s my answer.

Do you ever feel under pressure to keep coming up with something new?

“Under Pressure” we do in the show, and Gail Dorsey is doing the Freddie Mercury part (laughs). Boy she’s good, and I’ve got to follow that each night. She sings her tits off that thing. The only thing I can compete with is I usually follow up with “Life On Mars” and look back at her EHRAAA! [makes taunting noise and laughs heartily]. It’s the only thing that will stand up to that bugger! Under pressure to do what?

To come up with something new each time you release a record. You’ve dipped into so many styles.

No, no, it has to be what I like. It has to be, but you know it starts off from there. If I’ve gotten all fancy about something then that will probably end up somewhere in there. But usually I just try to create a nice atmosphere for the song in question.

NEWS TO US

FEATURE

DEPT. OF COMMERCE

ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT

19

FILM

DOUBLING DOWN

Charlie Kaufman returns from an eight-year absence with a 10-year-old script

BY JAKE MULLIGAN @_JAKEMULLIGAN Charlie Kaufman, 57 years old, sits on a couch across from me at the Eliot Hotel. He’s in Boston to promote his latest movie—Anomalisa—which began its life onstage.

Sitting next to Kaufman is Duke Johnson, a younger man who co-directed the picture with him. (For the record, it was animated with old-school stop-motion techniques, using new-school puppets.) Johnson has a face as clean as the hotel’s lobby. Kaufman, other hand, is wearing an oversized beard that obstructs all but his loudest expressions. Don’t get me wrong, he’s not unkempt. But he has the appearance of a man who’s been through some sort of wilderness.

To hear Kaufman tell it, Anomalisa exists as a film because it was the only available route that got him out of those woods. But let’s jump back a bit. Even when it was written for the stage, Anomalisa was born of pragmatic necessity. Composer Carter Burwell originally invited Kaufman, along with Joel and Ethan Coen, to write a “sound play,” which would be read aloud by actors seated at a table on a stage in front of a live audience. Anomalisa wasn’t on the original double-bill—it was written after the brothers Coen were forced to bow out of a second engagement. Kaufman didn’t even put his name on the text, at first. It was credited to the author “Francis Fregoli.”

“Because of the premise of the evening, I would only have three actors,” Kaufman says. He’s explaining that Anomalisa not only had to accommodate the extremely specific model of exhibition, but also a predetermined cast. “I didn’t want to be limited to having three characters in the play. So I was thinking of a way to have one actor play very many people. But I also didn’t want that actor to be changing their voice. I felt there was something interesting about that. And I had read about the Fregoli [delusion], so I latched onto that.”

Remember the reference to Fregoli, because we’ll be coming back to it later. Anyway: Given that Burwell contributed the score to the feature-film version of Anomalisa, it’s safe to say that he wasn’t upset about the loss of his audio-only conceit. But for Kaufman, that was reason enough to retire the whole text.

“I don’t think Carter was concerned, but I was concerned,” he claims—and the emphasis is his. “I wrote Anomalisa around the idea that you wouldn’t ‘see’ it.

There are ideas and imagery in there that I wanted people to come up with on their own. The piece was made for that purpose, and I didn’t want to repurpose it.

I had no ambitions for this thing [as a film] after the play.

It was done.”

What made it undone was a team of producers who approached Kaufman with the idea to adapt Anomalisa using their preferred method of animation. The writerdirector had a prolific 2000s—he wrote Adaptation, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and others, while making his directorial debut with Synecdoche, New York— but the 2010s hadn’t been so kind. Multiple projects failed to grow beyond his own notebooks, with the reason always being “financing problems.” Before Anomalisa released a few weeks ago, it had been more than seven years since a Charlie Kaufman credit was seen on a movie screen.

“We were lucky in that when we approached [Kaufman] with the idea of adapting this with stopmotion, he said, ‘See if you can get the money first, and then we’ll talk about it.’” That’s how Johnson remembers it, at least.

“No,” Kaufman interrupts him. “I said, ‘If you can get the money, then we’ll do it.’ I didn’t need much convincing. One of the reasons that I accepted the idea was that I was desperate to get something made.”

This all might serve to make Anomalisa sound like an also-ran. That is not the case. “This thing,” as Kaufman keeps calling it, is among the most provocative works of his career. Michael Stone (voiced by David Thewlis) is a retail guru weathering a Cincinnati stopover, during which he talks to both a distant wife and a furious ex.

They’re each voiced by Tom Noonan. So is everybody else. Michael keeps claiming that he has “psychological problems”—and if you accept that we’re experiencing his point-of-view, it’s hard to disagree. Everybody in his life has the same face, the same voice. But after clashes with girlfriends present and past, he meets the woman of his potential future: Lisa (Jennifer Jason Leigh), who has an unspeakably beautiful voice. Which is to say that she doesn’t sound like Tom Noonan.

Back to that aforementioned condition: It’s defined as being “a rare disorder in which a person holds a delusional belief that different people are in fact a single person.” And it’s no leap to connect that to the film directly. The name of the hotel Michael stays at throughout the narrative is “The Fregoli.”

“The impetus for using [Fregoli delusion] is just that I read about it,” Kaufman notes. He’s quick to clarify: He’s deeply invested in the psychology of his characters, but Anomalisa is not a film about a medical condition. “I’m not literally doing a movie about the Fregoli delusion. It’s just interesting to me as a metaphor. If there’s a reference to it in the text, it’s because I think it’s amusing to throw that in—not because the character is actually suffering from the condition.”

Then Kaufman adds another observation, one that implicitly offers an insight into every project he’s done to date. He tells me that, if this movie were “just” about a character suffering from the Fregoli delusion, then Anomalisa would be completely bereft of mystery. Which is probably connected to the reason why we’ve spent this whole interview discussing process and production.

Kaufman hates—refuses, actually—to talk about anything under the surface of his own work. On the fact that the story, set in 2005, features some jarring references to American foreign politics, he has this to say: “I have reasons that those are there, which I won’t ever explain.”

There’s Kaufman’s literary side showing—we thank him for it—he expects his audience to do some of the thinking themselves. The central auditory conceit of Anomalisa is just mystical enough to provoke us all into having personal readings of the material. To some, it’s a Kafkaesque comedy about the pure terror of having your psychological software misprogrammed.

To this writer, it’s a movie about a specifically male psychological flaw—the inescapable connection between sexual excitement and the sensation that comes with encountering an unknown. (In other words: Nothing old becomes new again.) To others, it may well just be a character drama about a schlubby man who seems to be a rather lousy lay. However you read it, the movie’s existence—so random and unlikely, at every step of its creation—strikes us as a blessing.

“I wasn’t expecting it to happen.” Kaufman is talking, once more, about the scenario that led to this text becoming his second feature film as a director.“If I had been in the midst of a more successful streak, I might have said no.” He stops himself wryly, then gestures toward Johnson again. “But they caught me in a down decade.”

>> ANOMALISA. NOW PLAYING. RATED R.

FILM EVENTS THU 1.14

ONE MORE FILM FOR ’90S NOIR DEVIL IN A BLUE DRESS

[Brattle Theatre. 40 Brattle St., Harvard Sq., Cambridge. 5:15, 7:30, and 9:45pm/R/$9-11. 35mm. brattlefilm.org]

20

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MFA PRESENTS “GRAHAM GREENE AS SCREENWRITER”

OUR MAN IN HAVANA [Museum of Fine Arts. 465 Huntington Ave., Boston.

5:30pm/NR/$9-11. Also screens on 1.15 and 1.16.]

DIGBOSTON.COM

THE FIRST FILM IN MIGUEL GOMES’ EPIC-SIZED ADAPTATION ARABIAN NIGHTS: VOLUME ONE - THE RESTLESS ONE

[Harvard Film Archive. 24 Quincy St., Harvard Sq., Cambridge. 7pm/NR/$7-9.

See hcl.harvard.edu/hfa for all volume showtimes.]

FRI 1.15

THE BRATTLE’S “BEST OF ’15” REVS UP MAD MAX: FURY ROAD [Brattle Theatre. 40 Brattle St., Harvard Sq., Cambridge. 7:15pm/R/$911. 35mm. Also screens 1.16. brattlefilm.org]

COOLIDGE AFTER MIDNIGHT PRESENTS QUENTIN TARANTINO’S DJANGO UNCHAINED

[Coolidge Corner Theatre.

290 Harvard St., Brookline.

Midnight/R/$11.25. 35mm. coolidge.org]

SUN 1.17

VITTORIO DE SICA’S TERMINAL STATION

[Harvard Film Archive. 24 Quincy St., Harvard Sq., Cambridge. 7pm/NR/$7-9.

35mm. hcl.harvard.edu/ hfa]

ARTS

A CONVERSATION WITH MARK RYLANCE And some ice fishing in Cambridge

BY CHRISTOPHER EHLERS @_CHRISEHLERS Mark Rylance is having one hell of a year. He’s already a 3-time Tony Awardwinning actor, but this year he has achieved more mainstream success than ever before in his career.

Nice Fish is a play that Rylance has written with poet Louis Jenkins made up of some of Jenkins’ prose poems. As he readies Nice Fish for its Jan 17th opening, Rylance chatted with me about his uncommonly good year, the beauty of Jenkins’ poems, and the unique gifts of American actors.

What was it about Louis Jenkins’ poems that made such an impact on you?

Oh, they made me laugh. For me, since I lived in the Midwest for 10 years, there were recognizable, mundane aspects of life there. They’re very beautifully structured. It just reminded me of the kind of imaginative energy required to live through the long, white, cold winters of Wisconsin and Minnesota.

If you were inviting a friend to go see Nice Fish with you, how would you describe the play?

If I hadn’t seen this play, I would say, “Wow, this crazy play set on a frozen lake with these guys ice fishing and these wild things they say and things that happen. Strange. Funny and strange.” [laughs] Do you think it’s harder to create a new play if you’re also in the show, or does it give you more perspective into what’s working?

It is probably harder, in some ways, but the best thing that I can bring to the table is my acting, so I’m like a kind of a captain on a sports team. I’m not the coach; I’m not so good at coaching. In this play what I’ve also cleverly done is stolen from a brilliant man who’s written all his life, so I’ve got this lovely language that I’m weaving together. All I’ve brought to it is my love and understanding of what makes a 90-minute play, what curves and shapes will keep an audience intrigued for 90 minutes.

GOT AN EVENT? LIST IT.

Film-wise, you’ve had quite a year.

Yeah! Mr. Spielberg has become a good friend of mine. That whole side of my career is taking off in a way that it never has before.

>> NICE FISH. 1.17-2.7 AT THE AMERICAN REPERTORY THEATRE, 64 BRATTLE ST, CAMBRIDGE. AMERICANREPERTORYTHEATER.ORG

ACADEMY AWARDS®

ONE OF THE BEST FILMS OF THE YEAR.” ”

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1/11/16 5:48 PM

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PHOTO BY RICHARD TERMINE

Best of luck with awards season! I really hope you get that Oscar nomination!

Thanks, Chris! Lovely to talk with you!

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM

Stephanie Zacharek, TIME MAGAZINE

Your character in Bridge of Spies really gives the movie its heart, I think.

It’s a lucky part to play because he’s the central question, isn’t he? Your image of it being the heart of the film makes me think of all the curiosity we have about our own heart. Our mind can die and we can keep on going; it’s when the heart stops pumping that it stops. So in that way, he is the heart of the story.

Also, I can’t really separate myself from Tom [Hanks]. There aren’t English actors who can do what certain American actors can do. Tom and George Clooney, people like Gregory Peck, Mitchum, Jimmy Stewart: There’s a thing that certain American actors can do, being the everyman actor, being the person who takes you as an audience member through the story. We English actors tend to play the characters, the people with some kind of an oddness in them.

You’re right, the flashier performances usually get the attention.

The woman who has the disability, or like Eddie’s scientist [Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything] who had the disease: Those are great, great performances, but the acting is a little bit more obvious. A lot of people think of that as acting, but to me, Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, Bette Davis, the people who use themselves. They weren’t that different all the time, but they gave of themselves and were very present. That’s great, great acting, I think.

O F F I C I A L E N T RY

FRANCE

digboston.com NEWS TO US

FEATURE

DEPT. OF COMMERCE

ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT

21

SAVAGE LOVE

NOW THAT’S AMORE!

WHAT'S FOR BREAKFAST

BY PATT KELLEY WHATS4BREAKFAST.COM

BY DAN SAVAGE @FAKEDANSAVAGE | MAIL@SAVAGELOVE.NET I am an Italian bisexual 25-year-old guy. I’m in love with a great guy, but he lives far away, and we see each other only one time per month and sometimes less. A few weeks ago, I had sex with a female university colleague. It wasn’t anything special: She was somewhat drunk and hurt me with her teeth during petting, so I didn’t have a good erection and I didn’t come.

But I liked having sex with a woman. I want to do it again, but I love my boyfriend and I don’t want to hurt him. Am I destined to be unfaithful?

More Or Less Italians pet with their teeth? Good to know.

Also good to know: yourself. Now, I would never suggest that bi guys can’t honor monogamous commitments—even though I routinely say just that about straight guys, gay guys, straight women, and lesbians— but it would be foolish for you to make a monogamous commitment. Not because you’re “destined to be unfaithful,” MOL, but because you’ve already been unfaithful.

Here’s what you know about yourself: You’re bisexual, you want to have sex with women and men, and you don’t want to cheat. Which means you’ll have to either renegotiate the terms of the relationship you’re in now—get your boyfriend’s okay to have sex with a woman once in a while—or end the relationship and find a boyfriend (or girlfriend) who will give you their okay.

OUR VALUED CUSTOMERS

BY TIM CHAMBERLAIN OURVC.NET

Listen to the Savage Lovecast every week at savagelovecast.com.

THE STRANGERER

BY PAT FALCO ILLFALCO.COM

22

1.14.16 - 1.21.16

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DIGBOSTON.COM

NEWS TO US

FEATURE

DEPT. OF COMMERCE

ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT

23

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

W/ MOTHXR, FOREIGN AIR

ON SALE FRIDAY AT NOON!

ON SALE NOW!

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DUE TO DEMAND, SECOND SHOW ADDED

KYLE KINANE

SAT. FEBRUARY 20

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WED. FEBRUARY 3

ON SALE FRIDAY AT NOON!

ON SALE FRIDAY AT NOON!

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FRI. FEBRUARY 19 - SOLD OUT

THURS. FEBRUARY 25

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M. WARD W/ PURE BATHING CULTURE

TUESDAY, MARCH 29

FRIDAY, APRIL 1

SATURDAY, APRIL 23

THURSDAY, APRIL 14

SUNDAY, MAY 1

TUESDAY, JANUARY 19

52 Church St. Cambridge, MA

W/ THE RECORD COMPANY

sinclaircambridge.com

W/ CARDIKNOX, SOFI TUKKER

SATURDAY, JANUARY 16

SATURDAY, JANUARY 23

W/ GLOCKABELLE

della mae

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 27

w/ The Macrotones

& The Expressions SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 6

THU - SAT JANUARY 28, 29 & 30 ON SALE NOW!

Lee Fields

W/ BAD BAD HATS

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 12

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 25

ON SALE FRIDAY AT 10AM!

FRIDAY, MARCH 4 ON SALE FRIDAY AT NOON!

THURSDAY, MARCH 31

ANDRA DAY

ON SALE FRIDAY AT NOON!

SUNDAY, MARCH 20

ON SALE FRIDAY AT NOON!

THURSDAY, JANUARY 21

W / T U C K E R B E AT H A R D

FRIDAY, JANUARY 22

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SATURDAY, MAY 7

ON SALE FRIDAY AT NOON!

ON SALE NOW!

YUCK

MONDAY, APRIL 11 ON SALE FRIDAY AT NOON!

ON SALE FRIDAY AT 10AM!

AN EVENING WITH

w/ Sam Cohen FRIDAY, APRIL 22

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 27

THU, FRI & SAT APRIL 28, 29 & 30

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 31

MAGIC MAGIC. EMILY WELLS CATE Y S H AW 1222 Comm. Ave. Allston, MA

// RESIDENCY //

W/ LORNA DUNE

W/ FLORIO

SUNDAYS: 1/17, 1/24, 1/31

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 3

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 4

ON SALE NOW!

ON SALE NOW!

W/ FLORIST

greatscottboston.com

FRIDAYS AT 7PM!

‘s S GA E TH

NAP EYES MONDAY, MARCH 7

ON SALE NOW!

ON SALE NOW!

W/ NO PARENTS FRIDAY, APRIL 15

ON SALE FRIDAY AT 10AM!

W/ CIAN NUGENT

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 24

BLEACHED

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 30

W/ MAX FROST TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 9

ON SALE NOW!

PRINCE RAMA THURSDAY, APRIL 14

ON SALE FRIDAY AT NOON!

CULLEN OMORI JOSEPH THURSDAY, APRIL 21

SUNDAY, MAY 1

W/ LIZA ANNE

ON SALE FRIDAY AT 2PM!

SATURDAY, APRIL 23

≠ 1/16 THE SHILLS ≠ 1/19 MIDRIFFS ≠ 1/20 STEEP LEANS ≠ 1/21 CITY RIVALS ≠ 1/25 TELELECTRIX ≠ 1/27 SMALL TALK ≠ 1/28 KID MOUNTAIN ≠ 1/29 VHS COLLECTION

OTHER SHOWS AROUND TOWN:

ON SALE NOW!

GREG HOLDEN SAT. JAN. 16 RED ROOM @ CAFE 939

FRI. JAN. 22 RED ROOM @ CAFE 939

THU. MARCH 3 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

ON SALE NOW!

ON SALE NOW!

OPERATORS

ELEANOR FRIEDBERGER

SAT. APRIL 23 MIDDLE EAST UP

FRIDAY, MAY 6 MIDDLE EAST UP

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