ongoing – Mon. Sept. 6

 Seventeen years ago, Ed Hardy gave Dr. Lakra three tattoos – Jesus Christ, a pirate gal and a prawn. Ten years ago, Dr. Lakra – no more a Dr. than Dre or Demento, but a well-respected Mexican tattoo artist - reciprocated by inking an image on Hardy of a demon pissing on Christ. (More piss Christ art! Remember Andres Serrano?)
      The 38-year-old Mexican tattoo artist’s real name is Jeronimo cqLopez Ramirez. He said it translates to Dr. Scumbag. (Our interview was done via e-mail and translated from Spanish; this is an expanded version of a Q/A that ran in the Boston Phoenix, www.thephoenix.com.– check it out). The name “Dr, Lakra” was bestowed upon him. It started because bag he used to carry his tattoo gear looked like a doctor’s travel bag. So Lakra inks on skin and many other inanimate surfaces. His first US solo exhibition – 60-plus pieces, mostly from American collectors - is up at the Institute of Contemporary Art and runs through Sept. 6.  Lakra, who started tattoing in the early ‘90s,  acknowledges how in this culture, tattoos have become prevalent and, certainly, less of an “outlaw” badge. In America, 36% of the people 18-35 have them. Once it was verboten, forbidden. There was a day when tattoos seemed to be primarily inked on sailors from the World War II era, bikers,gang-bangers and convicts. Things started to change with the punk rock movement of the mid-1970s and has only grown since. Here in Massachusetts it was illegal until 10 years ago. 
    Tattoos, he said, have less infiltrated the mainstream thatn the mainstream has absorbed it. “In a way,” he added, “it’s all about money.”
    His inspiration was the punk-skate-metal culture in Mexico City. That and reading Hardy’s “Tattootime.”  The questions and answers below are out-takes from the Phoenix interview.
What tattoos do you sport? Did you do them yourself?
When I started tattooing, I practiced a little on my legs to try out needles or different dyes. And I made a couple of tattoos on my left arm but I haven’t tattooed myself in a while. I have figurative tattoos.

Tues. Aug. 31 – Fri. Oct. 29

 Amanda Palmer in the role she was born to play? The MC in “Cabaret.” It just maybe. Palmer – who came to local fame as half of the Dresden Dolls and then went onto a solo career and, well, another career as half of the fictional conjoined twins group Evelyn Evelyn – will take to the stage at Oberon last summer-early fall for “Cabaret.” Palmer told us: “We’re using a really fantastic director, Steven Bogart, one of my artistic mentors with whom I worked together last year in ‘The Needle That Sings in My Heart.’ [It was a play staged at Palmer’s high school in Lexington; Bogart is the drama teacher there.] Also we’ve got a really wonderful choreographer named Stephen Mitchell Wright, whose specialty is physical theater, in particular Japanese butoh style. So there are going to be really interesting creative movement elements in the production.”
   “The dream we have for the production is to create an entire, living breathing space and the show will begin the moment you open the front door. We’re hoping to make the thing a giant installation. I think I picked up my love of immersive theater from Steve Bogart. This experience will be a culmination of a lot of different things. I’m hoping to create an experience for people who attend, that’s just really emotional and unforgettable. We’re pretty much sticking with the script, but we’re adding a lot on top, inside and outside the space.

ongoing

Don't know about you, but when I was in high school my history courses concerned the US and Western Civilization. There was almost the unspoken agreement that nothing else mattered and, as a kid, I didn't really question it. Didn't all that matter concern these areas? Hopelessly naive and stupid, I know. But I'll also confess I didn't get much more world history in college - that's when we specialize, y'know - and what I've picked up I've done on my own. I'm kind of enjoying Newsweeks new, more worldly focus - even if the articles are brief, there's acknowledgment that in this self-absorbed land of ours, other places and people matter. I bring this up because I went to the opening party/screening at the Museum of Science for the film "Arabia," where 2000 years of Arabian history is compressed into a 45-minute film.

ongoing, Fridays and Saturdays

 Sure, it's out of town - about 40 minutes from Boston - but so is Comcast Center and that can be a headache and a half when you consider traffic/parking/etc. If you like quality music outdoors and on a slightly smaller scale, we heartily recommend the Lowell Summer Music Series. We've seen Richard Thompson, Los Lobos, and recently Amos Lee and have yet to be disappointed by the music or the vibe. It's a bring-your-lawnchairs/bring-your-kids type of place and can seat several thousand folks. It's a summer with Lyle Lovett, the B-52s (in photo) and the Indigo Girls. Not bad at all. It takes place at Boarding House Park in the center of Lowell. JSInk spoke with programming director Peter Aucella about the series, past and present.

JSInk: How has the Lowell Summer Music Series evolved over time?
PA: I started the Series in 1990 as Boarding House Park construction was completed.  The trees have certainly grown much larger, but the venue is still in great shape as we proceed with our 21st season.  Our initial concept was to do ethnic music similar to the Lowell Folk Festival, but onegenre per night, since the immigrant story is part of the historyinterpreted by the Lowell National Historical Park.  We had a limited budget and free admission, so it was a modest affair.  We realized that it takes just as much work to do this for a smaller audience as it does for a bigger one, so we began to grow the series and the number of name performers steadily each year since then.  I don't think we ever envisioned having acts like the B-52s, Lyle Lovett, Indigo Girls, Jimmy Cliff and Herbie Hancock but people really love seeing these shows in such anintimate venue.

ongoing 

Would you pay $350 to watch each and every Patriots game? Whoa, sounds like a good deal, huh. You say, "Thank you Bob Kraft, see you in Foxboro." But this $350 isn't going to Bob and the family. It would be to gain entrance into Jerry Remy’s Sports Bar & Grill and access their Season Pass Program. This mean, you can eat food, drink alcohol and watch flat-screen hi-def TV, something you might also be able to do at home but without the surcharge. Now, the $350 doesn't get you free food and drink or anything; it gets you in the door, just like the inaugural Red Sox Season Pass did. And it sold out. (I still find it somewhat curious that if you're not inside Fenway Park - which I am, often - some fans feel the desire to be at a bar near Fenway. It enhances the experience somehow, the same experience you get, say, in Orono Maine where I grew up. Same broadcasat, just in closer proximity to where the action is. Now, Foxboro is a ways from Kenmore Square, but what the hey, Kenmore Square has been established as a Boston sports bar mecca, right, so the opportunity to cheer on all the athletes who wear Boston uniforms is extremely available at many fine eateries and drinkeries. Generally, you just don't pay for that "specialness" of being allowed in. But, heck, the House of Blues Foundation Room has this kind of deal and country clubs all over the world succeeded on this semi-exclusivity and so, I guess, the philosophy spills over to something as mundane and widely available as watching football on TV.

Saturdays

First, there is the smell.Familiar. Intoxicating. Some say ED-preventing.Then, just when you can barely take anymore, a smiling head pops through the door - “Anybody want some chocolate?”
 
Welcome to two-and-a-half hours of educational heaven, aka the Taste of Chocolate Workshop.
 
Run by the folks who have been bringing the legendary Mystery Café to Boston and beyond for years and hosted in the Elephant and Castle Pub in Downtown Boston (the same site as one of the most popular Mystery Café dinners), the Workshop tells you perhaps more than you ever wanted to know about chocolate (pretty much right down to the molecular level) and then lets you get into it up to your wrists (at least) through a hands-on truffle-making party.

Mondays

Remember "The Gong Show?" That Chuck Barris monstrosity that showcased untalented people trying get famous on TV by doing embarrassing crap that we sometimes watched, revolted by the acts and that fact that we were watching ... Oh, wait, that's TV today, too. Yes, folks, "The Gong Show" was just ahead of its time. Maybe it was avant-garde performance art and we didn't even know it. Well, TT the Bear's is taking what traditionally is a slow night in clubland - Monday - and turning it into "Gong Show Karaoke."
"The concept is simple," explains club manager Kevin Patey. "A panel of judges, (comprised of members of Boston's music community)  and an opportunity to sing, and risk the chance of the wrath of the judges and the much feared 'gong.' (Why does JSInk fear this judges bell will toll for us at some point ... )  

Why compete? Patey: "Contestants can win prizes and accolade from the judges, (or be told the reason they got the gong!). Hosted by former Abbey Lounge doorman, local comedian and all around great guy, Tommy Somerville. 

ongoing

"Inception" is centered around the type of plot device usually riddled with questionable developments. But Christopher Nolan’s latest mind-game is a full-blown success. Leonardo DiCaprio is Cobb, the head of a mercenary dream-team (pun intended!) of information thieves, the kind that get into your head while you sleep.  Most of the time, Cobb and his team are the best, they know how to break down the safeguards of the mind and “extract” desired information for their employer. But when Japanese business mogul Saito hires them to do the nearly impossible – to plant an idea in someone’s mind, rather than take it (called “inception”) they get into a swirling mess of dreams-within-dreams that nearly kills them all.

Time travel and dream sequences are more often than not the undoing of many a decent adventure picture. Interesting premises go sour when logic falls by the wayside or dreams stray too far from reality. An easy way out is for a writer or director to make up new rules as they go, in order to excuse a digression from the structure of earlier scenes. So all the credit to Nolan for offering up just enough exposition to let us in on how things work, and then not bending his own rules too much.

ongoing

 Between you and me, I think the Monster seats at Fenway are a tad over-rated and certainly over-priced. Being a traditionalist, I also miss the plain old screen. And the day when the wall wasn't tattooed with placards. But don't get me started ... Back to seats in the lyric little bandbox. I share in a season ticket/night game plan that has me in the second row grandstand between home and third. Been there for years. Will be there until I leave this mortal coil. Think the view is fab and the price, though high, is not as heinous as everywhere else in the park.

Tues. Sept. 7 &  Sept. 14

Last minute booking at the Lizard Lounge. The band is The Giant Kings, who and you may not know that name, but you do likely know the name of the guitarist, Duke Levine. Levine's resume includes stints with Mary Chapin Carpenter, Peter Wolf, the J. Geils reunion and Dennis Brennan (and many many others). He joins with Kevin Barry on guitar and lap steel, Marty Ballou on bass, Andy Plaisted on drums, Paul Ahlstrand on tenor sax, Mark Early on baritone sax and the amazing Chris Cote (Upper Crust) on vocals, to rip through classic R&B, soul and country soul from the '50's and '60's. The mini-Tuesday residency is Sept. 7 and 14 and starts at 10.  Pianist Sonny Barbato is aboard for this ride. Tix: $7.

1667 Mass. Ave., Cambridge, 617-547--0759 www.lizardlounge.com

ongoing

Apparently, Pixar has under contract nearly all of the truly imaginative writers in the industry. Using old (but not tired) characters, in "Toy Story 3" they have yet again told a delightful, entertaining story that will be a blast for kids and adults.What Pixar understands is that using a classic story model is fine, as long as you can inject a bit of wit and a slightly different approach into the obvious. The storytellers don’t stretch too far beyond the ordinary for their building blocks: they use toys we all recognize, spoof known genres and make generalized pop references as the butt of many jokes.  Yet in combination – and with a knack for pacing and building real character relationships – something fresh emerges.

Lee Unkrich has an awesome advantage when directing an animated feature: he has absolute control over the actors’ faces.  A beautiful human face or an actor who “lives the part” can be engaging, but a line delivered with a certain twitch of the mouth or a cut of the eyes can make a character. Animation allows the director to make sure that every character can be given a life beyond what is in the script.

ongoing

Who don't like whales? Certain Japanese and Icelandic whalers, I suppose, or maybe we should say they like whales a little differently than we do. They like whale parts. So, did we, here in America in the 18th and 19th centuries. You've read "Moby-Dick." You might have heard Mountain's "Nantucket Sleighride" and done the digging to find out what that was - harpooned whaled talking whalers for a frightening ride. I've been to the whaling museum in Nantucket and it's quite a trip back in time. Sitting in the precarious whaling boats, taking in the lecture about whales meant then and now, honoring the island's proud whaling past and then coming to the 180 degree turn of: We don't do that anymore. We just about made these huge animals - the largest earth's ever seen - extinct.

The Museum of Science has just put up a new exhibit, "Whales Tohura," that encompasses an exhbit and an IMAX film "Whales." The film itself, made by explorer and President of the Ocean Alliance Roger Payne, was done 15 years ago. Need we say it's not dated. That is, whatever went on in the whale world 15 years ago is going on today. Payne spoke at a press function, before the film went up June 20. "Whales face more threats than ever before," he said. There are more than 80 species of whales, including dolphins (did not know this, dolphins are whales.) The film, he added, is "the next best thing to swimming with whales" - maybe even better because of the lack of actual wetness. He's right.