WEEKLYDIG.COM TART OF DARKNESS FREE 1.28.09 - 2.4.09 NEWS LAWYERS SCREWED IN BROKACHUSETTS P5 DRINKS THE DRIER THE BETTER P11 A+E FUNNYMAN AZIZ ANSARI: THIS TIME IT’S IMPERSONAL P26 ETTERS L VOL 11 + ISSUE 4 EWS + FEATURES N DEAR READER, The future is now! We have a new president and whitehouse.gov boasts actual content. But all this talk of “change” extends beyond government. Change is constant; everything’s been changing since the printing press, the wheel, since the day fish grew feet (I said it, Rick Warren!). The gears never stopped churning these past eight years (though it may have felt like it) and the election of one man has not turned this nation into a “post-racial” Candyland (though we like the name … “United States of America” sounds kinda stodgy, don’t it?). The Dig is running alongside this “future” thing, adapting to it and ATS + DRINKS DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE documenting it. We’ve interviewed The Shills about their brand new E CD, and wrote up UsTrendy.com, where users vote on clothing designs. Media Farm has begun blogging daily at weeklydig.com, offering PSAs about the threat to literacy known as bad journalism. And at that same site, you’ll find longer versions of Turbovsky’s interview with Aziz Ansari and Isabelle Davis’ rap session with ?uestlove, among other websclu- TAK TOYOSHIMA TAK sives. Just don’t ask me to Tweet … that’s an evolutionary hiccup if I ever saw one. oh, cruel world! cara bAyles | [email protected] Dear 66 bus route, What the fuck?!? I don’t know LETTERS exactly what falls under your offered services but I’m pretty Send your thoughts to letters@ that is returnable; without loss of damn sure that picking up pas- weeklydig.com or 242 E. Berkeley St., human life. sengers at bus stops is fucking 2nd Flr., Boston, MA 02118. All Please make information herein one of them. Maybe you didn’t OMICS SAVAGE LOVE ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT DIG THIS letters may be edited for length, available to your friend(s). C see me freezing my ass off on clarity and accuracy. Please include the side of Huntington after all contact information. waiting there 20-plus minutes not a fan of the in 10-degree weather only so new ’do Dear Dig, you could blow by me. I guess I public service About the face-lift ... it’s not so wasn’t standing close enough to announcement: good. Three truncated music the bus stop to be considered. wizards needed Dear Dig, reviews, instead of seven. And no Did you recognize me when I EXIT POLL CROSSWORD Got this email, and it occurred jokey bad review? No full calendar, 3 caught up to you four stops later to me that it might be more your just a few items hand-picked by Dig after chasing you through half expertise than my own. staff. And where is Thinking Ape of fucking Allston? And I know it Blues?! I appreciate Laura Dargus wasn’t your fault that time you Alex ViA emAil trying to put a positive spin on the broke down in Brookline, forcing changes, but I fear they may have everyone to get off and walk to To Whom It May Concern: more to do with cost-cutting and the next stop, making me pay Germany has been secretly stealing ad sales than anything else. Maybe again to get on the second bus in Nigeria and from Nigeria, using a loyal Dig readers would prefer it if that came to get us. I reiter- satellite, since over three years. you told it to ’em straight? Kudos ate: What the fuck?!? The worst If you have a supernatural on the cover, though—you’re not part is that you and I both know power, please apply or use the going to find Jesus with stigmata that I have no choice but to supernatural power in a fair way giving Bush and Cheney the finger continue riding you no matter to suitably curse Germany to the too many other places. how shitty your service is. So effect that Germany will return mike for all the future times that you whatever Germany has secretly SomerVille will undoubtedly fuck me over ... stolen in Nigeria and from Nigeria Fuck You. Send your anonymous gripes and COVER ARTIST | Edward Monovich’s work has been exhibited grouses to letters@weeklydig. abroad in Columbia, England, Belgium, Italy and throughout com, or to Dig Department of the United States. He is the recipient of the New Jersey State Council on the Arts Fellowship. Monovich, originally from Gripes, 242 E. Berkeley St., 2nd Kalamazoo, MI, has taught at the University of Texas (Austin), Flr., Boston, MA 02118. Crybaby. Metropolitan State College (Denver, CO) and The Newark Museum (Newark, NJ). He resides in Belmont. See his original works this Friday at Space 242 in Boston’s South End. Want to be on the cover? Email Tak Toyoshima, at [email protected]. 01 28 09 – 02 04 09 WEEKLYDIG.C0M 4 ETTERS “ L “We now commit our new EWS + FEATURES president, his wife N Michelle, and his daughters, Malia and news to us Sassssha, into your loving care. I humbly LAWYERS BECOME BEGGARS ask this in the name Attorneys storm the State House to save legal aid of the one who changed my life — Yeshua, Isa, by Caitlin Wilson Jesús, Jesus.” --- Puritanical whale-of-hate Rick Nearly 800 attorneys rallied at the State to charities like MLAC. don’t have the means Warren, being creepy and over- House last Thursday for the 10th annual Since many of these to help them. ATS + DRINKS DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE pronouncing names during his Walk to the Hill for Civil Legal Aid. The funds come from real In years past, the E inaugural invocation. 1.20.09 march, sponsored by the Equal Justice estate transactions, the goal of the march was Coalition and the Massachusetts and poor housing market has to lobby for additional Boston bar associations, sends lawyers to caused IOLTA’s contribu- funding. Last year, Gov. “Come on, Laura, we’re their legislators’ offices to stress the im- tions to drop by nearly Deval Patrick approved going home.” portance of legal access for low-income 40 percent. a $1.4 million increase --- residents. In the tanking economy, many Many legislators in MLAC’s budget, Former President (!!!) George law firms have cut staff, as requests for were absent during the bringing it to a hefty Bush, telling his wife that his legal aid rise. lawyers’ scavenger hunt $11 million, so this year tenure mauling the Constitution The Massachusetts Legal Assistance for support, but their they simply asked to is over and the time has come Corporation (MLAC), the largest financial aides were “very recep- be spared from his an- to retire to that hell-on-earth supporter of civil legal aid programs, tive to information,” ticipated budget cuts. SARAH KIM cluster of strip malls, mega was established by the state Legislature according to attorney Attorney Amy Se- churches and SUVs known as 25 years ago to provide information, Jonathan Lovely. In Lovely’s four years at- nier left letters with her legislator’s aides. Dallas. (Very appropriate!)“ 1.20.09 referrals and funding for legal services to tending Walk to the Hill, he has only spo- “Legal service is not a luxury,” she said. low-income residents. The MLAC depends ken directly to a few legislators. “Being “It’s not just for the poor. It is important OMICS SAVAGE LOVE ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT DIG THIS on two sources for their entire budget: in their position is not easy,” Lovely said. for the people and the health of the state C state funding and Interest on Lawyers’ “But, the worse the economy gets, the that citizens have access to justice.” Trust Accounts (IOLTA). The trust accounts more legal aid is needed. There is a spiral Gov. Patrick’s office declined to com- temporarily hold payments lawyers effect.” Many residents battling foreclo- ment on his plans for maintaining MLAC’s receive from clients until their cases are sures in housing court have been unable funding in the pending budget cuts, say- complete, and the interest accrued goes to find legal representation because firms ing only, “It’s too soon to know.” EXIT POLL CROSSWORD 5 The Pike hike saga continues At last Thursday’s Massachusetts Turnpike three years, showed pictures of bridges the city, and the one necessary via tunnel, Authority (MTA) board meeting, execu- and tunnels in disrepair and, in a morbid all $5 each. tive director Alan LeBovidge presented a show-and-tell, brought in some pieces of Board member Judy Pagliuca balked 30-minute slideshow justifying a toll hike. the structures to prove it. “I don’t want at Angelini’s proposal. “I believe people He responded to last month’s public hear- anyone to get a misconception here. I have coming from the north have significant ings, where frustrated residents questioned no problem driving these roads. I think disadvantages,” said Pagliuca, citing socio- the need for the hike and its fairness, and they’re safe,” LeBovidge said, putting down economic factors. “I don’t know if it’s really requested broader transportation reforms. a foot-long deteriorated ceiling chunk from equitable to make it equal.” The proposal called for Allston-Brighton St. Mary’s Bridge in Brookline. “The pieces Gov. Deval Patrick’s considerations and Weston tolls to increase from $1.25 I showed you were taken off by us; they of raising the gas tax for revenue and of CHJEIDE.