Entertainment on the cheap: Where to go without breaking the bank

Published in the Portland Phoenix

You've paid your rent and your tuition, and bought your books and groceries. Yes, you're broke. But that's no fun. Now what?

Fortunately, Portland is rife with budget-friendly activities and events. Some places have weekly specials — we've compiled a bunch here — and there are plenty of others, as well as venues with occasional deals. Here's what to look for, and when.

Look your best
JONATHAN DOUGLAS SALON AND SPA (345 Fore St., jonathandouglasspa.com) has $99 "economy crunch packages" combining several services for one price. Choose "The Feel Good," with a basic manicure and pedicure, shampoo, haircut and style, and a brow wax, or unwind with "The OohLaLa," a one-hour Swedish massage and a "Get Acquainted" facial.

O2 SALON AND SPA (605 Congress St., 02salonandspa.com) has "recession packages," too, including a 30-minute massage and a pedicure for $80 (a $10 savings).

STUDIO ONE LTD. (151 Middle St., studioone-portland.com) is giving new clients 15 percent off services by Kate and Robin.

Each week GOODWILL STORES (244 St. John St., in the Union Station plaza; find others goodwillnne.org) mark many of their clothes and accessories (and other items) as half-price with special tags.

And on Wednesdays, the SALVATION ARMY STORES in Portland (49 Alder St. and 30 Warren Ave.) have half-price specials on marked items.

Refuel the engine
For a quick pick-me-up, grab a "recession special" coffee at FREAKY BEAN COFFEE COMPANY stores in Westbrook (855 Main St., freakybean.com), Scarborough (264 US Route 1, and 2 Cabela Way), and South Portland (740 Broadway) — it's 99 cents for a small drip coffee and $1.99 for a small latte.

Also calling its deal a "recession special" is BRIAN BORU (57 Center St., brianboruportland.com), which offers lunch for $7. That includes a soft drink; if you want to upgrade to a local draft beer, add just $2.95.

O'NATURALS in Portland (83 Exchange St., onaturals.com) has specials just about every night, under their "economic bailout plan." If you work at nearby businesses, stop in on Mondays for 20 percent off (show your business card, nametag, or pay stub); Tuesdays they give 20 percent off with a college ID. Wednesdays are family night, with a free kid's meal if you buy an adult one. Thursday two guys can go in and buy one meal and get a second free; Saturday the same is true for two women. And Friday is "date night," when any couple gets 20 percent off.

On-the-go diners will want to stop by the new JOE'S NEW YORK PIZZA (420 Fore St., joesnypizza.com) to check out their slice-salad-drink combo deals.

At ANTHONY'S ITALIAN KITCHEN (151 Middle St., anthonysitalian.com) you can buy one dinner and get the second at half price on Friday and Saturday nights.

Westbrook's Italian-cuisine standby, Casa Novello (694 Main St., 207.854.9909), has two-for-one entrees on Mondays and Tuesdays.

Back in Portland, SHAY'S GRILL PUB (Monument Square, shaysgrillpub.com) has a $4 quesadilla special on Mondays.

Every day is special at the EMPIRE DINE AND DANCE (575 Congress St., portlandempire.com), with a $6 burger deal that includes fries. Bring a friend — it's two small burgers, not one big one, so it's perfect for splitting.

There's always free popcorn at ROSIE'S (330 Fore St., 207.772.5656) and THREE DOLLAR DEWEYS (241 Commercial St., threedollardeweys.com) — though the management obviously prefer if you order something to eat or drink with your popcorn. And if you order a drink at the ARMORY LOUNGE (20 Milk St., theregency.com), you get free snacks.

The MAINE SQUEEZE JUICE CAFÉ (5 1/2 Moulton St., 207.775.6673) sells 16-ounce containers of really yummy soup for $3 (and, while this is moving into the next section, amazing flavor-explosion smoothies for $5).

Quench your thirst
The WHITE HEART (551 Congress St., thewhiteheart.com) has your back when it comes to drinking on the cheap. Every night they offer Portland Phoenix readers' favorite drink special: $4 for a PBR pounder and a shot of Evan Williams. Mondays are half-price wine night, when certain bottles — not glasses — are discounted. On Wednesdays, get $3 well drinks, and on Thursdays pay $5 for a PBR pounder and six wings.

The GREAT LOST BEAR (540 Forest Ave., greatlostbear.com) has "short" beer nights on Mondays and Tuesdays — get a 22-ounce draft for the price of a pint. And on Thursdays, selected pints are $2.50 between 5 and 9 pm.

At MESA VERDE (618 Congress St., 207.774.6089), Thursdays bring $6 margarita pitchers — which are nicer when it's warmer, we'll observe, but are still pretty good in wintertime.

On Mondays and Tuesdays at the DOGFISH BAR AND GRILLE (128 Free St., thedogfishbarandgrille.com) has $2.50 drafts from 4 to 7 pm.

If you're up late, CHEF ET AL. (408 Forest Ave., chefetal.com) has you covered. After 10 pm, appetizers are half price, and drinks are $1 off with a college ID. (The discount is also available to teachers and restaurant workers, regardless of student status.)

And UNA not only offers $5 specials on beer, wine, martinis, and other cocktails from 4:30 to 7:30 pm every day, but extends the deals all night long on Tuesdays. And on Thursdays there are even more, with $3 beers.

Catch a flick
Look, we all know about Hulu.com and the various TV shows and films there for free viewing (with just a few ads). But if you, like us, believe that it's better on the big screen, Tuesday's your day at the NICKELODEON (1 Temple St., patriotcinemas.com), with $5 admissions all day and all night to every film.

And if the film you want is no longer in theaters, it's certainly at VIDEOPORT (151 Middle St., 207.773.1999), which has daily rent-one-get-one-free deals: Mondays you can choose your freebie from horror, incredibly strange, sci-fi, thriller, or Japanimation; Tuesdays pick an action or classic film; Wednesdays pick comedy or foreign; Thursdays get a free film from any category; and on Saturday and Sunday, rent two and get one free from any category. (Also, on Fridays, you can get a kid's video free without even renting another film!)

Dance it up
Fridays are "college night" at the HIDDEN DOOR (the nightclub inside Styxx, at 3 Spring St., thehiddendoorportland.com), with no cover if you show your college ID. Also, there are 50-cent drafts until midnight, and a not-to-be-missed human disco ball.

There's tons of no-cover karaoke all over town. For just one example, head downstairs at the ASYLUM (121 Center St., portlandasylum.com) on Wednesdays. Thursdays, the downstairs club at the Asylum has a retro dance party with no cover.

Another no-cover spot with lots of variety (stand-up comedy, live bands, and an acoustic open-mic) is SLAINTE (24 Preble St., myspace.com/slaintewinebar), which also has half-price glasses of wine on Mondays and Tuesdays, and beer specials Monday through Thursday.

And don't forget...
If you'll forgive the shameless self-promotion, we suggest you don't miss OUR LISTINGS — every week, we compile everything that's going on in greater Portland, southern Maine, and seacoast New Hampshire, complete with times and costs. To stay current, pick up the Portland Phoenix every week and choose your favorite activities!

Exploring deep within

Published in the Portland Phoenix

Hannah Holmes, the Maine-born, Portland-dwelling science writer, naturalist, and friend to all animals has turned her lens deeply inward in her latest book, The Well-Dressed Ape: ANatural History of Myself. In the process, she not only reveals more of herself than perhaps might be generally considered polite (describing the color not only of the "fur" on top of her head but also elsewhere) but also uncovers deeper truths about all of us.

As much memoir as biology, Holmes compares her interactions with other humans against the ways other animals interact. We are, it turns out, definitively animalistic in our tendencies toward territory (whatever we have, we protect, protect, protect) but at the same time bizarrely unique (what we consider desirable in a location is not based on food productivity or defensive characteristics, but some external message of "status").

It is definitely fascinating — and amusing — to have the human animal explained in the detached, clinical prose of science, but most interesting, and in excellent supply from Holmes, is something we can never get from other fauna: the information from within the brain and the senses and the body of what the life of one of those creatures is actually like.

The Well-Dressed Ape: A Natural History of Myself | by Hannah Holmes | Random House | 351 pages | $25

Take Back Barack on LibertyNewsTV

Aired on LibertyNewsTV

Survivor winnings could help the state

Published in the Portland Phoenix

Survivor: Gabon winner Bob Crowley hasn't really had time to settle back in to his home South Portland, and already he has told the local media he wants to use some of his $1.1 million payday to take his wife on a nice trip. But what about the rest of the money? We can be certain that the state's bean-counters are looking forward to Crowley's 2008 tax return — and its accompanying check.

State law imposes no special taxes on game-show winnings (or, for that matter, lottery jackpots) — the winner simply owes state income taxes on the full amount. Because Maine's highest tax bracket (8.5 percent) kicks in at $38,900 in earnings for a married couple, Crowley will have to pay roughly $93,500 to Maine Revenue Services (that's in addition to an estimated $385,000 he'll owe the IRS).

Maine's cut isn't nearly enough to cover the $4.25-million hole that resulted from an overly optimistic guess at how much Hollywood Slots would subsidize state spending. And it's not even close to paying for even one of the many cuts in the Department of Health and Human Services, nor the damage to the Corrections Department's budget (see Lance Tapley's story). But Crowley's winnings could help.

Crowley couldn't be reached to discuss what he would like his tax payments to go to, so here are a few ideas, which would restore programs cut in the governor's 2009 emergency budget proposal.

Grants to the New England Consortium of Arts Educator Professionals and the cultural New Century Community Program: $4840.

Child-advocacy funding for the Disability Rights Center: $7035.

State help for homeless shelters: $23,542.

State matching grants for local humanities programs: $3309.

Gambling-addiction treatment program: $35,000.

Monthly meetings of Maine's largest planning board, the Land Use Regulation Commission (instead of every other month, as Baldacci has proposed): $2310.

Improved data-keeping about habitat that is home to federally endangered species: $2000.

Funds for the Applied Technology Development Centers, touted as part of investments to expand Maine's economy: $9911.

Support for after-school programs designed to keep children healthy, safe, and learning: $1302.

Help to provide science-lab equipment to schools throughout the state: $3236. (Crowley might like this best of all, since he's a physics teacher at Gorham High School.)

We could do all that, and still have $1015 left over. What do you think the state should spend any or all of Crowley's tax money on? Weigh in at thePhoenix.com/AboutTown.

Take Back Barack: It's time to reclaim the man we put in the White House

Published in the Portland Phoenix and the Boston Phoenix; reprinted in the Pittsburgh City Paper; co-written with Deirdre Fulton
Let's be honest: we didn't vote for the Barack Obama his campaign advertised. We didn't vote for an African-American man, nor for a US senator from Illinois, nor for a father, a husband, an activist, or a young politician.
We voted for the Barack Obama we fantasized — the progressive miracle worker. We voted for Change.
Millions of us stood up and shouted, handed out fliers, talked to our neighbors, donated hard-earned money, and drove people to the polls for Change. We screamed, hugged, kissed, and cried when we learned Change had come to America. We knew Change wouldn't come overnight, that it would take time, but we were excited that we had elected a man who was open to Change, who said he wanted to consider real people's needs while in the Oval Office. We eagerly awaited the first hints of Change, as the president-elect's transition developed.
And now, we have reason to worry that Change is not coming to America after all. For nearly two years we were encouraged to "Be the Change you want to see in America." It is now obvious that we have a ways to go toward Being that Change. And so does President-elect Barack Obama. And that, above all else, needs to Change.
It was not the Democratic base, nor the centrists, nor even the center-left, who put Obama where he is today. The progressive movement rose from near death and kept Obama alive in the primary, eventually proving stubborn enough to carry him to victory over the Establishment candidate. And then, in the general election, it was the progressives whose energy infected the nation, whose enthusiasm reminded longtime vote-the-ticket Dems that elections were about the future, and whose contributions, tiny as each individual one was, funded the revolution of Change that swept Obama into the Oval Office.
Now is the time to hold him accountable — even before he takes the oath of office — because once he's in there, he will be surrounded by the trappings of Power, the machinery of State, and the inertia of Bureaucracy. If we are to reach him, we must act quickly. Though he has shown us that he is not who we thought he was (for the record, we did know he wasn't the Messiah), he has also, fortunately, shown us the way to keeping him — and our country — on the right track.
What's gone wrongObama's fall from progressive grace goes beyond the campaign-season disappointment of his support for the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the warrantless-wiretapping law strongly opposed by liberal activists and civil libertarians.
Progressives have a variety of objections, largely relating to flip-flops (warrantless wiretapping), climbdowns (withdrawal from Iraq and taxing the ultra-rich), and betrayals (keeping Bushies like Robert Gates and Michael Hayden anywhere near the halls of power). Many also object to a return of Clintonites, who while certainly Democrats, were hardly progressives in many areas.
While a CNN poll shows that 80 percent of Americans approve of Obama's transition so far, some progressives are unconvinced. They objected loudly enough to warrant a Huffington Post talking-to from legendary Democratic strategist (and Obama advisor) Steve Hildebrand.
"This is not a time for the left wing of our Party to draw conclusions about the Cabinet and White House appointments that President-Elect Obama is making. Some believe the appointments generally aren't progressive enough," he wrote. But Hildebrand accused naysayers of being impotent and shortsighted. "After all, he was elected to be the president of all the people — not just those on the left."
But that plea for patience and tolerance wears ever thinner as we watch the transition unfold. Perhaps Obama's most egregious mistake in the eyes of progressives is the president-elect's decision to surround himself with decidedly unprogressive national-security and foreign-policy advisors. In part, that list reads like a Clinton-era roster — which is troubling because, as United Nations correspondent Barbara Crossette wrote in The Nation last April, "The Clinton record . . . is anything but stellar in global or even US security terms. . . . In many ways the 1990s were a wasted decade in international relations."
Most notably, there's Hillary Clinton herself, our soon-to-be secretary of state, who voted to authorize the invasion of Iraq, who has been called "a hawk among hawks," who pointed approvingly at humanitarian interventionist actions like the one her husband initiated in Kosovo in 1999. Obama's team of advisors includes several other returnees from the Clinton administration, such as Michele Flournoy, Susan Rice (recently named US ambassador to the UN), Richard Holbrooke, Anthony Lake, and Madeleine Albright, all of whom have been neoliberal hawks to one degree or other.
While a return to Clinton-era foreign relations is a certainly a change from destructive Bush-era policies, it is not Change writ large. Not to mention the fact that another segment of Obama's national-security squad is rounded out by center-righties with firm Bush-era roots, such as Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, who will stay on as a holdover from the Bush administration, and national-security advisor-designate Jim Jones, a former advisor to John McCain.
What will these choices mean when it comes time to make big decisions about closing Guantanamo Bay prison, or about withdrawing from Iraq, or about increasing troops in Afghanistan?
"Obama's argument — that his center-conservative cabinet will carry out radical change if he orders them to do so — is denied by recent history," writes Ted Rall in Maui Times Weekly. "The US government, as micromanager Jimmy Carter learned, is too big for the president to manage on his own. And, as George W. Bush learned after 2000, the people you hire are more likely to change you than you are to change them."
On the economy, as well, Obama has made some critical missteps. It's not just that Lawrence Summers, Obama's pick for head of the incoming White House National Economic Council, is a Clinton-era economist who oversaw the same policies that got us into the financial mess we're in today (or that his record on gender equality is iffy-at-best). Two of Obama's largest policy backpedals have been economic.
First, he adopted a more cautious stance on rolling back tax cuts for people making more than $250,000 a year — rather than taking the bold step of repealing those, he now says he'll just let them expire as scheduled at the end of 2010. Then, citing the sharp decrease in oil prices from this summer's record levels, he shelved his plan to tax oil-company windfall profits. Liberal blogger and columnist David Sirota had this to say: "[I]f oil prices are down and oil industry profits are truly down, what's the harm in passing a windfall profits tax? Even if you buy the right-wing nonsense about a windfall profits tax 'hurting the industry' or 'hurting the economy' when it is applied, if there really are no windfall profits to tax, then it won't be applied."
What's going right-ishIt is true that Obama is doing some stuff we thought he would do, although not always in as gung-ho a way as we might like.
Consider "Your Seat At the Table," a special section of the Obama transition team's Web site, change.gov. There, average-Joe Internet browsers can read policy recommendations from high-powered lobbying organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union, various environmental groups, the National Education Association, and HIV/AIDS activists. This is obviously in keeping with the team's promise of transparency.
Other bright spots are Obama's weekly YouTube addresses, and the announcement of an Office of Urban Policy, which could have big implications for the economy, the environment, and urban education. He's focused his economic efforts on preventing foreclosures. And while some of his advisor picks are ideologically questionable, there are enough women on the list that some pundits have suggested, as AJ Rossmiller did in The New Republic, that Obama is "ushering in a feminist revolution in foreign policy and national security."
Aside from the fact that, as Christopher Hayes wrote in The Nation, "not a single, solitary, actual dyed-in-the-wool progressive has, as far as I can tell, even been mentioned for a position in the new administration," some of Obama's choices have been downright heartening. The selection of Nobel Prize winner Steven Chu to head the Department of Energy, for example, signals a sharp departure from the days of head-in-the-sand climate change non-leadership from the federal government. Chu, an experienced outsider — seemingly unbeholden to any interest, other than science — is an ideal pick, the type we hoped we'd see more of from the Obama-Biden administration.
And former senate majority leader Tom Daschle, though he is on the surface a classic boys-club Dem, has impressive healthcare credentials to back up his appointments as secretary of health and human services and director of the new White House Office of Health Care Reform. His book, Critical: What We Can Do About the Health Care Crisis (Thomas Dunne Books) will come out next year, and will outline Daschle's major reform ideas, including the creation of a Federal Health Board that would make coverage decisions for federally-administered insurance programs. At the change.gov Web site, he's soliciting citizen input on how to fix our healthcare system (though there's one thing we can be sure of: it won't be single-payer). The fact that Daschle pushed to run both the federal agency and the executive-branch office suggests that there will be an aggressive attempt to address this issue early in the Obama administration — and that Daschle is eager to use his wheeling-and-dealing skills (honed in Congress) to make it happen.
But the most important achievement so far is that Obama has managed (mostly) to keep our nation's optimism afloat — despite Blagojevich, despite the auto-industry-bailout mess, despite the public's generally pessimistic outlook, Obama is still enjoying higher ratings and a longer honeymoon period than any recent predecessor. He's courting doubters while making sure that his base gives him the benefit of the doubt. That's Change.
Not there yetThe question becomes whether Obama will be a servant to his advisors, or whether he will learn from their experience, absorb their suggestions, and yet ultimately go his own, progressive, way.
As he rounds out his cabinet appointments, we'll assess his progress. (See how Obama's selections measure up, as they're made, at thePhoenix.com/TakeBackBarack.) With education, Obama was under pressure from conflicting pro-union and reform interests. One of his top transition-team education advisors was Linda Darling-Hammond, who had the support of teachers' unions, and is somewhat notorious for her stances against Teach for America and No Child Left Behind; but on Tuesday he chose Chicago public-school superintendent Arne Duncan — who is more reform-minded (generally favoring concepts such as merit-based teacher pay, charter schools, and high-stakes testing), but has questionable classroom bona-fides.
There's also the whole question of America's relationship with food, eating, and farming — and who Obama picks as his agriculture secretary will set the tone on these issues. While he's said he doesn't want the job, here's what sustainable-food guru Michael Pollan told PBS host Bill Moyers about the decision: "What Obama needs to do, if he indeed wants to make change in this area — and that isn't clear yet that he does, at least in his first term — I think we need a food policy czar in the White House because the challenge is not just what we do with agriculture, it's connecting the dots between agriculture and public health, between agriculture and energy and climate change, agriculture and education."
Just last week, in a New York Times column, Nicholas Kristof suggested Obama "name a reformer to a renamed position" — Secretary of Food and Agriculture, or just of Food, perhaps?
On so many other questions — How will Obama deal with terror-suspect detainees? Who will he appoint to federal courts? How will his administration address the possibly illegal maneuverings of its predecessors? — we will simply have to wait and see. Perhaps, in this case, patience is practical.
"Sure, there's a chance that Mr. Obama, derided this past year by the right as an empty slate who tried to mean all things to all people, has simply been leading the left on and is now morphing into a rudderless pragmatist who will break their hearts," Steve Kornacki writes in the New York Observer. "But pragmatism doesn't have to be rudderless. It's just as easy to portray Mr. Obama's early moves as a sign that he will be pragmatic about pursuing progressive goals."
But there's a fine line between pragmatism and losing sight of one's principles. If Obama turns out to be "more of the same," or more like "more of the same" than he is like Change, the progressives will go back in the closet they came out of to support Obama. A generation of young people might get their hopes dashed and become cynical opters-out of the political system, like the preceding generation.

The way forward

How can we take back Barack?
Fortunately, Obama's campaign of Change has shown us the way to take back Barack. We need to mobilize, to communicate, to connect, even to fundraise — and we need to be sure we get his attention, the way we got the world's attention when we voted for Change.
STEP 1: DECIDE WHAT CHANGE YOU WILL MAKE.
Determine what difference you will begin making, what effort you will start making — beyond any community involvement you're already involved in — and get started. Make the phone calls, send the e-mails, start the conversations, around whatever it is you're going to take on: healthcare, education, hunger, poverty, or any number of other problems facing us.
STEP 2: TELL OBAMA HIMSELF. At the Obama transition team's Web site, there's a page to share "your vision," saying "where President-Elect Obama should lead this country." (It's at http://change.gov/page/s/yourvision.) Make sure Obama knows that your vision is for Change, and what you are doing. But don't stop there. Write letters asking for support, demanding Change, and send them to the Presidential Transition Team, Washington DC 20270 (no street address is needed; and the transition team helpfully informs that only letters in No. 10 envelopes — that's business-size — can be accepted; nothing smaller, no greeting-card envelopes, and no packages).
STEP 3: TELL EVERYONE YOU KNOW. Post Change-seeking comments on blogs, forums, social networks, and even meatspace bulletin boards. Talk about what you are doing for Change — and how others can help — at bars, business functions, book-group meetings, and every other social event you attend. (Remember how much you did this before November 4? Just do the same thing again!)
STEP 4: JOIN THE COLLECTIVE EFFORT. Print out "Take Back Barack" logos, make them into bumper stickers, put icons on your Web site and social-networking pages, make signs and put them in your windows or on your front lawn. Host parties and neighborhood get-togethers to talk about your projects. If there are enough of you — and we're sure there are — get a group together to organize a March for Change in your community. Go to Obama supporters' "Change Is Coming" meetings in your community, or start one by visiting barackobama.com.
STEP 5: GET THE MEDIA'S ATTENTION. Call up your local alternative-weekly paper (and the local daily, if it still exists), and the local TV stations, and tell them what you're doing. Invite them to your events, and encourage them to cover the issues that are important to you.
STEP 6: USE TECHNOLOGY TO DO ALL OF THE ABOVE BETTER, FASTER, AND MORE EFFECTIVELY. Create a system by which people can text and e-mail in their hopes, dreams, plans, and actions from their phones and computers, and have that information forward automagically to Obama and his team. At the same time, post that information publicly elsewhere on the Internet, so we can all track the nationwide effort for Change and the increasing pressure on Obama — and gauge the response.
STEP 7: KEEP AT IT. As much as positive energy can come from all this, there's an important negative lesson: we can never let up. Change does not happen and just stay that way. We need to work for Change each and every day of our lives, and enlist more people in the cause at every turn.