DEAR READER,

I first met Dan Savage in Madison, Wis, at an Association of Alternative Newsmedia conference over a decade ago. I was on top of the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed convention center enjoying the opening reception with a few hundred other alt-media geeks when I decided to inform everyone around me that I had a joint and was prepared to smoke it. Like a gay rainbow zeroing in on a pot of gold, Dan appeared out of nowhere and made it clear that he would smoke that joint with me… and we did.

Thus began a friendship that would find me owing him money (which he eventually forgave) after running his column for a year or more without paying him, an awkward elevator ride in San Diego after he pulled the column and gave it to the now-defunct Boston Phoenix, and eventually a poolside chat in Arizona that landed Savage Love back in the arms of its rightful Boston man-crush. While I don’t exactly pick up the phone and call Dan to ask him what he thought of last night’s episode of whatever-show-was-on, we still run into each other every now and again, and I like to think that I’m just as important to him as Bill Maher is.

In this week’s issue, the esteemed sex addict Chris Faraone had a chance to talk with Dan in advance of his Boston show at the Wilbur and talk dirty about politics, santorum and the greater good. If you haven’t grabbed your tickets for the show yet, you still have time and you definitely want to. Aside from his sex advice on all things butt plugs, GGG, and safe words, he’s an incredibly intelligent, witty, engaged man who seemingly knows just about everything that is meaningful today. He’ll make you laugh, think, but not, in case you’re worried, be gay, because being gay is not a choice, in Dan’s own words—and if you think otherwise, to paraphrase the man as he offered words of wisdom to presidential candidate Ben Carson, “Suck my dick and prove being gay is a choice.” You gotta love a man who speaks his mind to truth!

Jeff Lawrence, DigBoston Publisher + Editor

DIGTIONARY

GREEK – Noun, adjective
1. A native or inhabitant of modern Greece, a person of Greek descent, or a language of Greece
2. Anal sex

OH, CRUEL WORLD

Dear City of Boston,

How the fuck did we get to the point where you are so shameless as to announce a deficit in school funding, gloat about a reprehensible company like GE coming to town, then dispatch your officials to a photo op where they announce that they do it all in the name of MLK. All in the same week, in that order. Everybody knows it’s getting unaffordable to live around here, but if you’re paying attention to the headlines and reading between them, it’s getting pretty damn insufferable too.