SARA FAITH ALTERMAN

A gay day off

SARA FAITH ALTERMAN — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 21:03:17 GMT

Striking Out
A day without gays sounds like a Christian Right wet-dream come true, but it's actually the idea behind a 24-hour nationwide strike and economic boycott in support of gay marriage for all Americans.

Dance, Monkey: Billy Bob Neck

SARA FAITH ALTERMAN — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 17:03:30 GMT

We put a comic on the hot seat. This week's victim . . .
I was pretty sure a paper like this would ask some kinda homosexual question, being in Massachusetts and named after a Henry Potter book.

Relax? Don't do it!

SARA FAITH ALTERMAN — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 22:23:13 GMT

The latest casualty of the economic crisis? Lounges. And possibly leisure itself.
Lounge lizards, lament.

Lounge lizards, lament.

With the possible exception of sweatpants, nothing connotes "leisure" quite like the word "lounge." Yet in Boston, the outlook for lounges ain't so dandy. This month, the B-Side and the Abbey bowed their heads in defeat, while, earlier this year, the Paradise Lounge changed up its format, eliminating its intimate performance space and becoming yet another place to frantically eat nachos while the game is on.

So, as more and more local lounges close their doors for good, it begs the question: are cash-strapped Bostonians bidding adieu to our slothful sensibilities?

Contemporary cocktail lounges — those that still exist, anyway — are a glutton's paradise, patronized by young and trendy loafers who enjoy nothing more than sitting around, consuming. Reclining. Reposing. A "lounge" can also denote an intimate live-music venue, as is often the case here in Boston, where the very name suggests a cozy soundtrack to the Middle Eastern throw-pillow extravaganza nestled inside Barbara Eden's bottle in I Dream of Jeannie.

And that show, with its master-to-genie relationship, was a metaphor for lounge culture. To "lounge" — that is, to pass time idly — has long been an activity of the powers that be, the worry-free elite tended to by the underclass. Those with money can afford to lie supine, nibbling grapes from the outstretched fingers of bronzed peons, or, in modern times, sipping candy-colored martinis or organic specialty gin, chatting about loincloths and cabana boys and eyeliner and other inanities as the hours boozily meander along.

But with the Dow Jones ricocheting like an economic pinball, frets are rising and fun is plummeting. When you've lost your job, your house, your HMO, and your dignity, it isn't exactly the moment to lounge. No time for pithy blather or whiling away the evening with your feet propped up and your brain sloshing in a sea of expensive hooch. Frivolity is on the outs. Even leisurely nightlife is taking a hit. To put it bluntly, you lounge, you lose.

Thus, as victims of economic stressors, lounges — once our temples of relaxation — seem on their way to extinction. (Or at least to hibernation.) Given the staggering pressure to cut financial corners, and the increased job insecurities that many Americans are experiencing, it seems that anything that even incorporates the word "lounge" is in danger of disappearing.

Who Says Jim Gaffigan Isn't Sexy?

SARA FAITH ALTERMAN — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 22:55:04 GMT

Oops. We did.
Jim Gaffigan dubbed his latest traveling venture "The Sexy Tour," and he's bringing it to Boston this weekend.

Dance, Monkey: Rich Ceisler

SARA FAITH ALTERMAN — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 19:52:19 GMT

We put a comic on the hot seat. This week's victim...
Rather than hunting animals, she should be hunting all of the young men that are after her underage daughters.

Life on the level

SARA FAITH ALTERMAN — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 01:52:53 GMT

Laughing in the face of fear doesn't mean you're not a coward
At the tippity-top of my teetering list of irrational neurosis? Skiing, of course.

Many things frighten me; snakes, clowns, mold, cats, vampires, public speaking, tiny fish . . . all terrifying to me, a grown woman who flaunts her independence but once had a panic attack while snorkeling because what can best be described as a tropical minnow brushed up against her leg.

At the tippity-top of my teetering list of irrational neurosis? Skiing, of course. The mere thought of strapping fiberglass planks onto my feet and playing Zamboni while zooming Mach 18 down a mountain towards an uncertain icy peril makes my stomach twist itself into a cowering mass. I have enough trouble keeping myself upright on slick surfaces in the wintertime, without the added stress of having to pretend I'm enjoying myself.

I did grow up in New England, raised by non-skiing parents who share my skepticism, and possibly my fears. I remember, as a kid, being confused by how happy my friends seemed to be after spending family weekends in Maine or New Hampshire, returning to school on Monday morning with chapped faces and goggle-shaped windburns. Whenever my family went to Maine, we just bought a lot of knock-off crap at outlet stores, ate lobster rolls, and got into petty fights over things like headbands and the correct way to say the word "mischievous."

"Why can't we ski?" I would ask my mom and dad, desperate to be included in this club of yuppie kids who sported brightly-colored puffy jackets with lift tickets dangling from the zippers. My own forest-green knee-length coat with the tan lining paled in comparison to the couture on these fresh-faced preteen ski bunnies. "Caitlin and Jenny and Amy all went skiing this weekend, and they said it's really fun. Can we ski?"

"What the hell do you want to ski for?" Dad would grumble. "Skiing is for chumps with too much money. Let's go sledding."

The old man did crumble, sort of. One Christmas morning, when I was about 10, my brother and I tore down the stairs to discover that Santa had brought us each a pair of skis. "Cross country," Mom said. "So you can do it right in the backyard."

Fresh air does wonders in politics

SARA FAITH ALTERMAN — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 15:49:50 GMT

Green Grassroots Effort
Overwhelming local support for a nonbinding ballot initiative indicates that a push for a greener future may have legs.

Claws for concern

SARA FAITH ALTERMAN — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 20:55:29 GMT

Further Defying Parody
Further Defying Parody

Dance, Monkey: Baron Vaughn

SARA FAITH ALTERMAN — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 22:39:37 GMT

We put a comic on the hot seat. This week's victim...
We're not far off from a time when discontented McCain supporters will say things like, "Argh! I stubbed my toe! Damn you, Obama, and your move-around-my-furniture-while-I'm-sleeping ways!"

Dance, Monkey: Carlos Mencia

SARA FAITH ALTERMAN — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 16:57:59 GMT

We put a comic on the hot seat. This week's victim...
I want to go old-school and be that wrestler that always wears a mask: in movie theaters, restaurants — I'm ordering a steak through it.

So now what?

SARA FAITH ALTERMAN — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 21:00:16 GMT

The time for obsessive-compulsive election monitoring has come to an end. Cupcakes, anyone?
I have an election hangover.

I have an election hangover.

No, not because I was drunk with the power of voting on Tuesday, or even because I celebrated historic political victory with fistfuls of booze. Rather, I've consumed way too much election coverage for way too long and, now that it's all over, my head feels fuzzy and my stomach is churning, as I rack my reeling brain and ponder how I can possibly occupy myself with equally obsessive fervor from now on.

I liken this post-election mourning process to the same anticlimax that rocked Red Sox Nation in 2004, a few weeks after our beloved idiots shattered the curse that haunted this city for 86 years. Boston's collective inner monologue went a little something like this: "We won! We won! Holy shit, we won! I've been waiting my whole stupid life for this moment, and it finally happened! Woooo, Red Sox, woooooooo!!! WOOOOOOOOOHELLYEAHSUCKAS! . . . So . . . now what?"

Hell yeah, suckas, "so,now what?" is right.

Many of my friends and colleagues have, like myself, restructured the last year and a half of their lives around keeping up-to-the-minute on political coverage. We trolled the Internet like rabid news-junkie hyenas, searching for plump and juicy info nuggets, monitoring blogs and stats and statements. RSS feeds served us a constant stream of political morsels. Daily Kos and fivethirtyeight.com held us at rapt attention. And the TV coverage, oh, the TV coverage, ensured that, whenever we had a spare 15 minutes of couch time or were too zonked on weekend mornings to drag our asses to an overpriced brunch, we could mesmerize our gluttonous selves with more election coverage, more candidate tidbits, more Sarah Palin gaffes, more, more, more!

Now, the election is over, and I think we're all at a bit of a loss.

Whenever an entire nation collectively gears up for anything, à la China for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, or Germany for the 2005 release of the latest David Hasselhoff album, it's easy for its residents to get swept up in the frenzy. This election captivated Americans and the international community, not only because of its historic implications but, perhaps, because of the wealth of information that's at our fingertips at any given second. Our latent OCD gets rattled by the instantaneous accessibility of election information, thanks to laptops, Blackberries, Twitter. Four years is a long time for technology to develop, after all, and each presidential election sees spankin' new information-gathering and -transmitting tools.

Christian’s folly

SARA FAITH ALTERMAN — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 16:59:17 GMT

His Own Worst Enemy
Two men. One body. It sounds like the title of a squeamish sequel to “Two Girls, One Cup.” But the good news is it’s just the premise of My Own Worst Enemy , Christian Slater’s foray into the world of crappy small-screen dramas that use a lexicon of jargon in order to sound “sciency.”

WHAT HAPPENED, CHRISTIAN? You used to be so sly, so sexy. Now you keep running those possibly meaningful hands through your greasy, thinning hair.

Two men. One body. It sounds like the title of a squeamish sequel to “Two Girls, One Cup.” But the good news is it’s just the premise of My Own Worst Enemy, Christian Slater’s foray into the world of crappy small-screen dramas that use a lexicon of jargon in order to sound “sciency.”

Slater’s Henry Spivey is a regular golly-gee working man who lives a regular life with a regular wife and kids. The twist: not only does Henry have a government-operative alter ego named Edward Albright, but, through the magic of thoroughly improbable television bio-technology, he doesn’t even know that Edward exists! Turns out “Henry” is just a cover, one who is blissfully unaware of his nefarious other self. It’s like a combination of Fight Club, The Truman Show, and the Bourne trilogy, without all kinds of fussy nonsense like good acting and writing to get in the way of what Slater does best — quizzically raising his eyebrows.

When Henry morphs into Edward, and vice versa, he first experiences eye-squinting lightheadedness (indicated by a mélange of unintentionally comic wincing); that’s followed by a blackout and then total dissociation. This Jekyll-and-Hyde switcharoo is made possible through — what else — a computer chip the government planted in Henry/Edward’s brain that allows Edward (the Alpha personality) to control whose identity is front-and-center at any given time. That is, until the chip goes haywire and we get Henry becoming Edward becoming Henry becoming Edward at random intervals. Thanks to this glitch, Henry becomes aware of Edward’s existence, and the two-in-one doppelgänger begin to communicate with each other by recording video messages on a cellphone.

Which raises the question: if government-employed scientists could invent technology that allows one man to split his Freudian id/ego/superego three-fer between two personalities, why can’t they just fix the damned thing when it breaks? Or implant Henry/Edward with a new chip?

Besides plot idiosyncrasies, the show is riddled with terrible acting and bouts of amateurish cinematography that may or may not be imbrued with deeper meaning. Were any of the characters remotely likable, it might warrant reading something into repeated fleeting shots of miscellanea like, say, Henry/Edward’s hands folded in his lap. But they’re not. So it doesn’t.

Beyond the polls

SARA FAITH ALTERMAN — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 18:43:24 GMT

Electoral-entertainment guide
The presidential election got your knickers in a knot?

The presidential election got your knickers in a knot? You could spend the next few nail-biting evenings cowering beneath the couch cushions, nervously perusing pollster.com while the major news networks blather about the countdown to Election Night. Or, you could drag your anxious ass out of the house to have a little fun, while still remaining gloriously informed.

OCTOBER 30
Raise your glass to the future president-elect at the fourth annual MARTINIS ON THE AVENUE PARTY: THE DOTINI ELECTION SPECIAL. Hosted by Fields Corner Main Street and St. Mark's Area Main Street, the 7 pm party combines pre-Halloween fun and pre-election buzz, with prizes awarded to the best politician look-alike. Tickets are $30, $35 at the door. Purchase tickets at fieldscorner.org, or call 617.474.1432.

The Blarney Stone, 1505 Dorchester Avenue, Dorchester, 617.436.8223, blarneystoneboston.com.

Unreliable Narrator presents "SCHMOLITICS," a hilarious collection of satirical sketches, monologues, and 10-minute plays — including an abridged wrap-up of the past decade in American political history. The show runs through November 1; tickets are $9.

The Factory Theatre (formerly the Piano Factory Theatre), 791 Tremont Street, Boston, 617.817.6600, thefactorytheatre.org.

OCTOBER 31
Tonight's FILM FESTIVAL ON VOTING RIGHTS begins at 5:15 pm, with screenings of Iron Jawed Angels, American Blackout, and Hacking Democracy. Dress as your favorite civil-rights activist to help set the mood. Suggested donation of $20, to benefit the Center for Hand-Counted Paper Ballots.

Cambridge Friends Meeting House, 5 Longfellow Park, Cambridge, 617.876.6883, handcountedpaperballots.org.

Election-themed costume parties are a given this Halloween, and REDLINE'S BIPARTISAN BOOGIEMAN BASH is no exception. From 8 pm to 2 am, compete for two $250 grand prizes by showcasing your most original politically themed costume.

Redline, 59 JFK Street, Cambridge, 617.491.9851, redlinecambridge.com.

NOVEMBER 1
Exercise your legs and your political savvy as author Clint Richmond takes you on a WALKING TOUR OF POLITICAL PLACES OF BOSTON. The $10 trek, based on Richmond’s book of the same name, will march you along the Beantown branch of the presidential-campaign trail, as it has passed through downtown Boston since 1860.

Visit walkboston.org for registration details.

NOVEMBER 2
Sweeten up the election season with hand-iced PARTY PRIDE COOKIES FROM HARVARD SWEET BOUTIQUE. Choose from Democrat and Republican versions of this package of treats — elephant-shaped cookies for the starving McCain supporter, or two donkey-shaped ones for the Obamaniacs. Or hell, choose one of each, if you're one of those voters.

Order from harvardsweetboutique.com.

Dear Mr. President . . .

SARA FAITH ALTERMAN — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 14:40:09 GMT

Redefining ‘Road Trip’
Since March 1, Massachusetts school teacher B.J. Hill has been walking across the country in near Kerouacian fashion — though, unlike Sal Paradise, Hill has a greater mission than apple pie and Mexican trollops.

Since March 1, Massachusetts school teacher B.J. Hill, 32, has been walking across the country in near Kerouacian fashion — though, unlike Sal Paradise, Hill has a greater mission than apple pie and Mexican trollops. He’s collecting messages for the next US president, whoever that may be, from everyday American constituents. After nearly nine months on the road, Hill estimates that he’s collected a few thousand messages, long and short, positive and negative, in a variety of languages. Hill’s cross-country route, a gentle S-curve from west to east via Middle America, began in San Francisco.

“Once I got that first message, on the Golden Gate Bridge, it turned into something that was more than me; it was a responsibility,” he says. “If I was doing this just to do it, I would have quit somewhere in Nevada. But the president doesn’t want to meet the person who almost walked across the country.”

Hill’s self-imposed mission might sound like the delusional musings of a rose-colored patriot, but he’s already completed a similar one. In 2006, he walked diagonally across Massachusetts, from the tippity-top northwest corner to the top of Cape Cod, collecting hundreds of messages for the soon-to-be-governor, Deval Patrick, who accepted the book of concerns and well-wishes and subsequently added it to the government archives.

Political discussions with citizens from all parts of the country might have an influence on some voters, but Hill, who plans to cast his vote for president via absentee ballot, is a registered Independent who remains undecided.

“I can’t say that any conversation has really altered my view at all,” he says. “In Massachusetts, we see the world through a left-leaning angle, and we tend to dismiss the Red States as being too traditional and behind the times — not really understanding the big picture. But after spending so many months walking through places like Missouri and Alabama . . . I don’t want to say that I’ve become more conservative, but I definitely see where they’re coming from. [Conservatives] have a set of ideals they’re trying to live up to, that aren’t necessarily impractical or behind the times.”

Hill’s original plan was to walk the final leg of his journey on Election Day, ending in Copley Square. Unfortunately, unforeseen snafus have delayed his homecoming, and he’ll likely land in Boston closer to December. “Since I’ll be finishing after the election now, but before the inauguration, it will change the messages a little, because now people will know to whom they’re actually writing,” says Hill. “But the only way to get these messages into the Oval Office is to finish the goal. That’s really what keeps me going.”

Dance, Monkey: Jon Rineman

SARA FAITH ALTERMAN — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 13:43:48 GMT

We put a comic on the hot seat. This week’s victim . . .
I like to take my time surveying the voting booths, slowly walking past each one for about 20 minutes. Then I pick one, say, “Yes. This is the one. This will do."

Redeeming the Image

SARA FAITH ALTERMAN — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 23:02:47 GMT

My name is Sarah
Mynameissarah.net is the Web project of a small consortium of media professionals who met up in Pennsylvania a few weeks ago to travel to swing states and produce videos about “Sarahs” who support Barack Obama.

Dance, Monkey: Iliza Shlesinger

SARA FAITH ALTERMAN — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 14:07:41 GMT

We put a comic on the hot seat. This week’s victim . . .
Those pimply colorful gourds. I can’t figure them out. They’re like the ugly stepsisters for the pumpkin. Can you eat them? No. Are they pretty? No. Do you need them on your table?

Spelling lessons

SARA FAITH ALTERMAN — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 18:50:37 GMT

Campus witches have no brooms, no bleeding goats. Just cookies. Sorry.
A fair number of college students are turning to Wicca for spiritual identity.

The Boston University classroom is abuzz. A dozen students, gathered for an extracurricular meeting, bounce around, sliding in and out of the kind of archaic classroom desks that feature thin beige tabletops attached by metal bars to unbearably uncomfortable seats, sucking down takeout, giggling effervescently about Facebook and 21st birthdays. Co-president Amber Dame, a BU senior, is writing out the evening's discussion agenda on the blackboard. Items include: the full moon, dark gods and goddesses, a bake sale, Salem.

"I am not going to Salem on Halloween," exclaims senior Alex DeSimone.

"But it's a really fun way to embrace the stereotype!", Dame replies.

These students are members of Nemeton, an officially recognized religious organization for people in the BU community who practice Wicca.

Oh my Goddess!
Lots of people define Wicca as “modern witchcraft,” which is partially true. Others write Wicca off as a stigma of evil and weirdness — dirty hippies and pentacle-wearing, elf-eared, 12-sided-dice rollers. The truly clueless associate Wicca with devil worship and sadistic rituals, like goat sacrifices and Republican rallies.

In truth, modern Wicca is a peaceful, ethereal sort of belief system, loosely rooted in ancient pagan custom and ritual, and based on a reverence for nature and the Earth.

"In short, being Wiccan means seeing the divine as an equal balance of feminine and masculine forces known as the Goddess and the God," explains Emerson College sophomore Emily Robinson, 19. “[It’s] worshipping these forces in nature and within ourselves, celebrating the cycles of nature, showing respect for all living things and alternate beliefs, refraining from harm wherever possible, and believing in the power of karma to punish or reward our actions."

Not as exciting as The Craft, huh?

The religion, as Robinson describes it, is relatively young, popularized in the 1950s by a British civil servant named Gerald Gardner, who published several books on the subject and is widely regarded as a central figure in the Wicca movement.

On college campuses, where teenagers struggle to define themselves outside of preconceived boundaries, a fair number of students are searching for spiritual validity. And many find their spiritual and social needs best met by adopting a belief system that is the polar opposite of the one they were introduced to as children. After all, college is famously a time of rebellion, self-expression, exploration. No better way to stick it to Mom and Dad than to cast a circle and chant incantations over an herbal sachet, right?

Chick schtick

SARA FAITH ALTERMAN — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 14:08:43 GMT

The case of Sandra Bernhard vs. Sarah Palin begs the question: is it ever okay to use “rape” in a punch line?
Sandra Bernhard was supposed to be performing in Boston this week. But that was before she challenged whether Sarah Palin would keep the baby if she became pregnant after being violated by a group of black men in New York.

Sandra Bernhard was supposed to be performing in Boston this week.

The notoriously controversial comedian and performance artist was scheduled to headline Funny Women . . . Serious Business, a fundraiser for Rosie’s Place, on October 16 at the Hynes Convention Center, but was dropped from the show when officials from the women’s shelter got wind of some of her latest edgy political material from a performance she gave in Washington, DC. Specifically, Bernhard sarcastically predicted that when Governor Sarah Palin made a trip to Manhattan, she “would be gang-raped by my big, black brothers.” That didn’t go over so well at Rosie’s Place.

In a statement issued by e-mail earlier this week, Rosie’s Place Executive Director Sue Marsh wrote, “We just learned of Ms. Bernhard’s remarks about Sarah Palin and were shocked and deeply disturbed. We do not condone nor support her comments. Rosie’s Place provides a safe haven for poor and homeless women, some of whom have experienced violence in their lives. Therefore, we do not believe that violence against women is a joking matter and will not be including Ms. Bernhard in our upcoming fundraising event.”

Bernhard has since been replaced by Carol Leifer as the headliner for the Rosie’s Place event. When I contacted Bernhard’s publicist for comment, he referred me to a statement that Bernhard made to the Huffington Post, in which she denied making any jokes about gang rape or rape at all during the show. She further said that she’s unapologetic for outrageous material and that she’s concerned about Palin’s stance on reproductive rights. Bernhard told the AP that, in criticizing Palin for opposing abortion rights, her material “challenged whether [Palin] would keep the baby if she became pregnant after being violated by a group of black men in New York.”

Which begs the question: is it ever okay to use “rape” in a punch line? Some, like Boston comedian Bethany Van Delft, think it’s not the concept but the context that made Bernhard’s material so controversial. “Bernhardt’s words were irresponsible — not as a comedian, but as a woman,” says Van Delft. “I don’t want to say you can never joke about rape, but you have to be exceptionally funny to make it funny. Otherwise, you’re just saying it to be shocking. I do feel what Bernhard’s saying is that she hates Sarah Palin that much. If she’d wished gang rape on John McCain, I would laugh.”

Dance, Monkey: Dan Sally

SARA FAITH ALTERMAN — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 14:11:00 GMT

Is he the father of Clay Aiken’s child?