In 2007, current New York gubernatorial candidate Rick Lazio was a JPMorgan Chase executive, one who sent emails like all the other JPMorgan executives. The difference, though? Some of Lazio’s emails — which the Village Voice has now obtained and published — show the details of just how involved the potential governor was in a deal that could’ve resulted in over $1B in retiree benefits being invested in doomed JPMorgan Chase subprime mortgages were it not stopped, a deal that Lazio made over a $1M bonus regardless. Voice staff writer and columnist Wayne Barrett reports: Inside Rick Lazio’s Biggest Wall Street Deal–The Chummy E-Mails.
Elsewhere this week in News, we’re stripping away at some figurative (or literal) “new clothes”:
Can you recognize a Justin Bieber when you see one? Do you feel the need to understand what kind of threat this Justin Bieber thing is to Western Civilization? Or at the very least, how or why he’s playing Madison Square Garden? Well, either way, Rachel Devitt will try to explain.
There are singer-songerwriters, and nowadays, R&B-rappers. Epic track-guest Bruno Mars isn’t one of them. Yet coming up on his solo debut, as Mikael Wood finds by talking with him, he’s not “soft” either.
In Food, we’re bringing the old-school to the front:
Cantonese was the go-to Chinese province for “Chinese food” in New York up until the past two decades, when regional cuisine from Shanghai, Fujian, Xi’an, Chaozhou, Taiwan, Dongbei, and Sichuan came in to crowd the field. Voice food critic Robert Sietsema argues, though, that New York’s experiencing a bit of a Hong Kong Riot in visiting two new Cantonese restaurants, one in Brooklyn and one in Queens.
Meanwhile, Voice food critic Sarah DiGregorio is thinking ’bout the South again, as she gets down with the Dixie cuisine in Williamsburg’s Honeychiles inside The Charleston, a punk bar now serving up hardcore southern food. DixieCore?
In Film, we’re covering all the required watching:
Pat Tillman’s never not going to be a symbol of the worst parts of the American War Machine, or those who’d label it as such, either. The Arizona Cardinals safety who went to fight as a U.S. Marine in Afghanistan became a propaganda symbol for the war cause, even though he was killed by friendly fire. Melissa Anderson sees more than just a documentary in The Tillman Story, she sees the record set straight.
The Virgin Suicides writer Jeffrey Eugenides is seeing another one of his stories make its way to the silver screen in The Switch. Except, only kinda. Not really. Karina Longworth explains.
Finally, in Arts, there are no more movies to review, which is relieving:
National Lampoon put out a $40 book of the best visual artists the brand had before all the movies of the last ten or fifteen years came along and completely screwed the legacy of a once respectable publication and comedy brand. It probably has more laughs in it than all of those years combined. In the first two pages. R.C. Baker reviews Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead: The Writers and Artists Who Made the National Lampoon Insanely Great as well as some transport posters from London spanning the 1920s to the 1940s, which are no doubt better than the MTAs last…however many years since they’ve been around….’s posters.
Voice theater critic Michael Feingold saw Zach Braff in a play by one of the guys who are responsible for teen sex romp American Pie (sorry Paul Weitz, you’re never outliving that) off-Broadway at Second Stage, who for some reason, keeps mounting his stuff with decent marquee names (maybe the whole American Pie thing has something to do with it?). Anyway, here’s what he saw.
Here at The Village Voice, we close deals the honest way: We avoid work at banks or in government. It doesn’t pay nearly as well, but at least we get to throw down on assholes. That’s pretty nice.
Trump now takes office on the strength of his demagoguery. A student of little else, Trump is an intuitive expert in popular fantasy, and he plays his American audience like a well-worn instrument.
“It’s a make-it-or-break-it period for us. We do the right thing, we’ll be able to pull into the 21st century with some kind of program. We do the wrong thing, the 21st century is going to be gone, there’ll be no coming back”
“These people act like we drink a gallon of blood and hang upside down from crucifixes before we go onstage,” Rob Halford says. “We’re performers, have been for two decades. We do the show and we wear the costumes our audience expect us to.”