turn and face the strange

All I Have to Say Is...

2009-03-09T20:21:00.000-07:00

I Wanna Be Elected

2009-01-20T15:31:00.000-08:00

Congratulations to Mr. Obama.

Much ado has obviously been made about this Inauguration weekend, from the historical aspects to the ungodly logistical challenge facing the city of Washington (no news to indicate any major failures, though I'll keep an eye on this).

I tried to sit this one out. There was a lot of pressure to participate, but the fact is that I don't like crowds and I don't like the cold (and I don't like tourists....sorry).

Still, I did go to the Manifest Hope: DC art exhibit in Georgetown, where I spotted Maria Shriver. And I also saw Angela Bassett and Danny Glover arriving to the premier of Gospel Hill at the Uptown Theater (along with Tom Bower and Chris Ellis....not stars, but career actors who have worked their butts off over the years). So, I think I had my fun.

Inauguration Day does still remains special to me, though, for a very different reason: Inauguration Day 2001 was the last time I saw my Grandad.

Grandad was starting to fall apart. He still had his wits, and he was only slightly forgetful, if slower for the stress of recent years: He'd stopped taking care of himself after my Grandma died a few years earlier. He wasn't eating, and he'd become rail thin, and clearly very depressed. Things were also beginning to pile up around the house in a way that was troubling.

I'd been visiting him as much as I could, though the trek out to Fairfax made it hard to go more than about twice a month, much as I hate admitting this. (Had they decided to stay in the Porter Street house, I would've been just around the corner, as I was living at Newark and Macomb at the time.....but there's no sense in thinking about all that).

Anyway, my mom had hit her limit, and demanded that she, her sister, and a few of the kids would get together and help him clean up -- do some scrubbing, take out the trash, get rid of the piles of junk mail that Grandad was hording.

Nothing memorable happened that day, excpet that I looked around and realized, prophetically, that if Grandad were to die, we'd be left with one hell of a tesk on our hands in emptying out this house, which had become the dumping station for generations and generations of dead relatives' possessions. So little did I know what the coming year(s) would hold for the family.

I recall my grandfather - a lifelong Democrat - seeming detached and disinterested in W's acention to the throne on that chilly, rainy day.

I remember my mother excitedly demanding that we all drop everything and watch Dunbar's band march in the parade.

I remember being angry that my cousin......the family favorite since childhood.....was not present that day to share his load of the work, because it was more important for he and his then-boyfriend to stand in the rain and protest the new president.

I admit that perhaps I haven't let go of my resentment over that.

To this day, my cousin still mourns his dead grandfather. It's been almost eight years, and still, it comes up every time he gets more than two drinks in him and he wants to reflect on his history of not having his fucking act together.

Perhaps.......just perhaps........if he'd had his priorities straight eight years ago, he might have experienced a little more closure by this point.

I miss you, Grandad. But rest in peace knowing that my grieving ended some time ago. You are at peace, and so am I.

Still, I wish so much that you could have seen this day.

....

My prayers to Mr. Kennedy.

So WIld and Free and Far From Me

2008-11-23T11:34:00.000-08:00

Ok, no theme here....just what I've been up to:

- M-83 at the Black Cat were pretty good. Rich, textured, very pretty. I wasn't blown away the same way I was the first time I heard them (sitting in the unbelievably expensive lobby bar at the Tribeca Grand Hotel), but I still have to say that it was enjoyable. Still can't quite believe how fucking young and suburban these crowds are these days, but shit, I'm turning 35 in a week, so I guess I just need to accept that this will be the trend moving forward.

- Photo Week DC has exceeded ALL of my expectations. Every single one of them. Very much enjoyed the three exhibits on M Street (sorry I can't remember the name of the really big host location; it was an excellent venue...Was it Lumas, maybe?); also enjoyed Ken Ashton's work at Vegitate.

Wasn't so crazy about whatever clusterfuck event took place at the Katzen Arts Center at AU (too crowded, overwhelmingly text-heavy, and just generally packed with people), but I do have to say that the third floor exhibits were pretty rad, and that the space in general just might be the best contemporary arts spaces I've ever seen in Washington. Total f-ing gem.

Either way, those prima donnas at Art-O-Matic might want to consult with the Photo Week folks. These people seem to knw how to run an event.

- Dinner at Chef Geoff's last night was good (scallops with mushroom risotto, bowl of won ton soup; the lady had soup and salad), but I'm not sure if it was $100.00 good. I'm pretty sure it would have been a spectacular $50 meal, and a pretty darned good $75 meal. $100 is a tougher sell.

- Cleveland Park finally has their Yogi Berry! Now I can finally stop wondering if I should check out that Mr. Yogato place (is D.C. really so boring that we need names this dumb?).

- WhyIHateDC finally have some new writers, and a few of them seem to have a little common sense. We'll see how long this lasts.

- Skins got it back to gether tonight, thank you Mr. Springs. Good to see us get a little distace on the Eagles, (though I must say that it doesn't feel good to see it end this way for Donovan. Reid mismanaged the heck out of that team this year, and looking back it's hard not to empathize with McNabb over his desire over the offseason for more weapons on the offense.

Whatever....Philly sucks).

Life goes on.

But I'm Outta My Head When You're Not Around

2008-11-09T18:02:00.000-08:00

Here we go again....sorry for being a completely shit blogger.
I'm kinda busy these days, and most of my effort (haha....
effort) has been going towards my updating my Flickr account
and working on a different blog, which any straglers should
try and check out if they can.

So, because I didn't bother to do full entries on anything
I've been up to lately, here's a quick-form run-down:

- Caught the Avadon exhibit at the Corchoran.  Goddamn.  It
honestly is just as good as everyone says. I'm just as big on
pimping the free museums in D.C. as the next Washingtonian
apologist is, but when the Corchoran does it right (see:
Modernist exhibit of last year), you don't quite mind
shelling out.

- We have a new President coming to town. I'm happy to have
been here when it happened.

And while I'm at it, I'm happy to throw a little love at Sen.
McCain.  In the past five days it's become all kinds of
fashionable to cite McCain's concession speech as proof of
the man he once was....the Republican that Democrats could
once get behind. I always did maintain that the world would
have been a better place if he had gotten the nod in 2000,
rather than W., but at this point it matters not.  I just
hope that now that this fucking mess is over he can go back
to being the statesman that he once was, before Bush warped
him.

(P.S. President-elect Obama: Don't sleep on nuclear!)

- Went to New Orleans last weekend for Halloween.  My god, do
I loathe Bourbon Street (and a lot of the Quarter), but we
still ate well, drank absinthe, and had a good time.

I believe that my mission in life now is to somehow have the
Rebirth Brass Band commissioned as a national treasure.

- Caught one hell of a show by the Magnetic Fields at Lisner
a few weekends ago. Although the place was packed with just
as many NPR nerds as I was fearing, the fact was that it was
a great big fun show.  The sound was phenomenal; you
immediately appreciated how pure each of the three vocalists
is, and no aspect of the instrumentation suffered at the
expense of another. And while Claudia Gonson's ultra-dry
intellectual wit is a huge turn-off to me personally (why do
smart girls always insist on stripping the cute out of absolutely
everything?), I could listen to Stephin Merrit complain all night
long. With no sarcasm intended whatsoever, that dude is one
charming curmudgeon. "Papa Was a Rodeo" was almost too
beautiful that night.  Seriously. As was a very stripped down
version of "No One Will Ever Love You." Best show of the year.

- Not best show: John Powers at the Red & the Black.  Listen, it's
not like I don't love stupid silly schtick. I love metal.  I love
garage.  Schtick is fine by me.  But schtick without effort is just
a waste of everyone's time.  I fucking hate it when performers
won't go all in on a schtick.  Near as I can tell, John Powers is
basically just goofing off enough to maybe get some trim, but not
hard enough to convince anyone to come to more than one show.

HOWEVER, Low Red Land kind of won me over, despite the 5 string bass
and a drummer with a tendency to overplay a little. Loved the dual
shouting, and I got the feeling that the lyrics had some substance to
them.  Most impressive was the encore/acoustic mini-set at the front
of the stage, which most of the fucking drunks missed out on. Awesome,
awesome way to end the set; shame no one but a handful of us actually
saw it, but in a way, that made it better.

- I missed DMBQ when they came to the Velvet, but I saw them before.

- Caught the Dandy Warhols at the 930 Club - Not their best performance.
I happened to catch them on the "13 Tales" tour, and this performance
underwhelmed me by comparison.  Part of this was due to some half-assed
performance, but more than anything, it was the coked up Asian chicks
chatting their asses off at full volume next to us, and the fat, old
girls doing the sexy-dance all night long and making weird,
uncomfortable, prolonged eye contact with every guy in near proximity
(including yours truly).  Nice way to totally, completely, absolutely
ruin "Godless".

- WhyIHateDC died and then came back.  Hahahaha.....it's so much easier
for transplants to hate on DC than it is to make a consistent argument
for why they hate it.  Pussies. (Although, as much as it pains me to
say it, the content is markedly improved these days....big time)

- Finally hit up Palena.  Holy shit, that was expensive.  And fucking
good.

Ok, I'll post again in like three months.

I May Leave This Town Tomorrow

2008-10-29T19:59:00.000-07:00

BUT PHILLY STILL SUCKS!

Ben, the two of us need look no more

2008-08-07T14:03:00.000-07:00

Dear Ali Family,

I was so very happy to hear that you'd be getting a few stalls at National's Stadium. Honestly, it would have been wrong not to have you there. And I won't gripe about paying extra....it's still a bargain for the wonderfulness that is a chili half smoke.

Well, all of that said, someone needs to tell you this:

One of your stalls is selling big-ass beef dogs and calling them half smokes. They came out of a tin, rather than off the grill, and their was no friggin pork in them. Trust me, I've lived in D.C. for the past ten years, and I've got hypertension at the tender young age of 34. With those creds, I think that I know what's a half smoke and what isn't.

Someone also needs to ask the following question: When the hell did half smokes start coming with shredded cheese? Please tell me that you did this to appease those bastard Phillies fans who so love our park.

Seriously....what's going on over at Barracks Row?

Nice Gesture....

2008-06-30T19:42:00.000-07:00

Dear D.C. band, Gestures,

Fuck you.

Fuck you hard (and yes, I'm specifically looking at the doofus playing trombone solos).

You wanna play Ft. Reno? By all means do it. It's a fine institution, and every band should get the chance. And by golly, I'm glad you got yours'.

You wanna have a non-traditional line-up? Go for it. Horns, two drummers and a moog? Sounds pretty crazy to me, but have at it. Could be just the thing we've all been waiting for.

You got the 7:15 slot?

Well, then get your fucking band there in time to load in and sound-check. If you're missing a band member or two to traffic or work? Guess what, Tommy Dorsey...Thin the fucking herd and move on without them. (It just might leave more room for preposterous trombone runs that no doubt had Mangelsdorff rolling in his grave).

Alternately, you just might shorten your silly ass set.

But don't start the night half an hour late, then proceed to play a full set of half-assed, weak free jazz arrangements played in poor time.

Three bands, kids. Three bands. Try and play nice in the sandbox so everyone can sample a little something from each band. With storm clouds rolling in at the early portion of the Moderate's set, it was only too clear that Bellman Barker was getting the shaft tonight.

Nice GESTURE....fucking rookies.

things that suck in D.C. right now

2008-06-10T19:48:00.000-07:00

Such a long time without posting. I have a few good reasons, including a spankin new condo in Cleveland Park (which is awesome in ways that I can't even express, as it continues the cycle of my family being something like eighth generation Washingtonians...and Catholics at that. And yes, I realize that I'm bending the rules a little, seeing as how I was raised in the lilly-white MoC, but I can explain it all to you later if anyone really gives a damn).

Anyway....new condo and home ownership = awesome.

Everything else = suck.

Item # 1: Heat. I am used to the perennial whiles that we never get a Springtime here. I'm used to the endless thunderstorms of June. And as I get older, I'm used to the awful reality that the emergence of warm weather does not, in fact, mean that you'll be getting any time off. But I'm not used to 99 degrees in the first half of June. Maybe that Gore feller was on to something.

Item # 2: Gas. $47.00 refill in Virginia this morning. Nothing more to say.

Item # 3: The Naked Bike Ride. I've been reading about this event for going on two years now, and I finally decided to check it out for myself this time. Big fucking mistake.

Listen, I absolutely hate to cop to being homophobic, sexist, or otherwise anything less than fully comfortable inside my skin, but goddamn.....Did D.C. really need eight sweaty dudes in nothing but cock-socks and two chicks who couldn't be bothered to even strop down to a bikini in order to try and pull off a naked bike ride. Jesus, ladies. A little skin for the dorky lanky fuck, please.

Jesus, I hate it when people call out D.C. for its conservative, but fucking hell. That wasn't the least bit necessary.

Item # 4: getting shut out of Friday's M83 show. You know, I constantly (to the point of annoyance) harp about the late 90's and how much more fun D.C. was back then. And I know that people find it boorish. But I attended non-stop shows back then, and I can count on one hand how often I was shut out of a sold out show. This year, however, it has happened four times. Fuck. I'm tired of you fucking kids.

Item # 5: I attended a funeral this morning for someone who died way, way, way too young. I know its a diminishment to list this in this tome, but there it is.

Here's to a better next week.

Stephanie Says

2008-04-07T17:23:00.000-07:00

I've mentioned here before that I believe in supporting the homeless. And while I don't regularly give hand-outs to the local pan-handlers in the neighborhood, I do have my moments of kindness (or perhaps weakness), and I do believe that there are undeniable benefits to sometimes lending a hand. Call it karma, call it justice...call it what you like.

But there are boundaries. And that's what make life tough.

About six or seven years ago, I was on a date with a young woman. Let's call her Julie (because that was her name). Julie was awfully nice, but I wasn't really that into her. So why did I keep dating her? I don't really know. I think it was because I was seriously lonely, and because more than a few of the girls I was dating at that time were NOT nice.

It would have been better to stop hanging out under the pretense of dating (and it would have been especially nice not to have hooked up with her in the back of a cab, considering that I knew I wasn't really into her), but for some reason, we went on a handful of awkward dates, neither one of us entirely certain what the others' intentions were. She invited me to parties and continued to be up for hanging out, just because she was cool like that.

In retrospect, she was considerably more mature about the whole thing than I was....

Anyway, we were on this date one night, hanging out at Steton's. (Yes, Stetson's. Fuck you.)

Right as we were walking in, a well-dressed, 50-something African-American woman approached us. She was exceedingly polite and particularly well coiffed. She introduced herself, and asked me if I knew anything about cars.

Despite the fact that I had no earthly reason to want to impress Julie, I responded with a shrug and a lie, saying, "Well, you know....I know a little."

She went on to explain (in much detail) how she had just worked a late night at her law firm in Dupont Circle, and had just locked her purse and her keys in the trunk of her car. Because it was a new model BMW, it had a sophisticated anti-theft device that prevented use of a slim jim. Because it had a chip instead of a key, there was no use in calling a locksmith.

She provided all of this information unsolicited.

She then explained that if we could provide her with $40 cab fare, she could go back to her home in Aspen Hill, get her other set of keys, come back to the bar and pay us back.

It was early in the evening and the date hadn't really started yet, so we both had cash. In fact, with little hesitation, Julie reached into her purse and produced a far larger sum of cash than I was comfortable with. Then, stuck betwixt the option of being a mark and being a cheapskate, I offered the woman a paltry $5.00.

I knew she was lying, and it pained me to part with even a nickel to someone who had gone to such great lengths to be dishonest. But I forked it over anyway.

Julie and I spent a good deal of the remainder of the evening making fun of one another for being such idiots over countless rounds of darts. It was all good natured, but we both seemed disappointed in ourselves for nothing telling the scam artist woman to go to hell.

(Damn....Julie was SUCH a nice girl. Why did I have to lead her on?? Why couldn't I just be honest with her that I just wanted to be friends? Oh, that's right, because I was like 26 and was in such great pain over all of the many rejections I'd experienced lately that I was in a very selfish frame of mind. A total selfish jerk frame of mind, in fact. Dammit, now I'm kind of depressed.)

Anyway, the date ended uneventfully, and in time, Julie and I lost touch. We traded the occasional e-mail for a year or so, and one night I ran into her at the corner of 14th and U. She looked great and she told me that she was moving out to Washington state for grad school, which was always her plan. I was happy for her. It was the last time we spoke.

It's funny how you lose touch with people, only after the fact realizing that you could have been great friends if you'd put your mind to it. I really do regret not being friends with her.

But then there are the other people that you still run into, despite how badly you want to move on with your life.

Enter Stephanie.

Stephanie greeted me at the bottom of the escalator at Union Station last week as I was coming back to the office with a sloppy, lousy gyros for lunch. A depressing prospect, as are most coming out of the Union Station basement. (And, no, I'm not talking about the creepy men's room action down there....)

Stephanie stepped in front of me, pawing at my arm to break through the social buffer that is my iPod. Removing an earbud, I cocked my head as if to ask what she wanted.

"I'm so terribly sorry," she began. "My name is Stephanie. Do you know anything about CRXs? It's a new BMW, and I'm having a terrible time with the locks...."

I stood and listened to the story. Seven years later, I still remembered the details...the anti-theft device, the futility of calling AAA, the cab fare, where her home was....I stood in front of her glowering, waiting for the ask.

Sensing my frustration, she leaned forward and touched my arm again.

"I'm so sorry. I'm so distraught that I forgot to ask your name."

I took a breath and told her that we had met before. My tone was even and my voice was quiet, but there was no mistaking the irritation or the lack of sympathy in my voice.

She looked at my quizzically.

"We've met before," I repeated. "You told me the same story almost ten years ago out on Florida Avenue."

"I've never been here before in my life," she spat at me.

I turned and shrugged walking away and heading towards the escalators.

"How dare you offend me!" she shouted in front of a group of tourists in town for the Cherry Blossoms. Maybe she thought that she could shame me, but more likely she was just trying to save face.

"Oh, yes, how dare me?" I shrugged, walking up the stairs of the escalator....silently hoping that a Street Sense vendor would greet me on Mass Ave.

Thanks for the Memories

2008-04-07T17:10:00.001-07:00

There's no shortage of D.C. stuff to blog about right now, but today it's time to give some props to my sisters and brothers in Baltimore and Philly.

Thank you, Darnell, for giving your long-suffering Explorer fans something to cheer about in the post season.

Thank you for staying with us through the scandal.

Thank you for breaking the All Time Atlantic-10, Big 5 , and La Salle University 3-point records.

Thank you for being a gentleman the entire time you did it.

Thank you for giving Coach G a chance.

Thank you Darnell. You have made so us proud.

Stuff that Ruled in D.C. this Month

2008-03-23T17:41:00.000-07:00

Same fucking intro every time: I sure am a worthless blogger, etc etc. The apology would mean so much more if anyone read this thing, but I suppose people might do that if maybe I bothered to write more often than every eight weeks. Fucking hell.....

So, here's what's been up:

"DCist Exposed" at Civilian Art Projects - OK, so this one came and went in a hurry, but I have to admit that I enjoyed this exhibit. It was a manageable size in a friendly gallery, and an awful lot of the photos were just far enough off the beaten path that it avoided getting mired in the same subjects that always seem to pop up in other local Flick pools. And maybe community- based art isn't really that big of a deal now that the city is getting so much bigger and more densely populated with self-starters, but its still fun to watch stuff like this just sort of spring from the ground....

"RECOGNIZE!: Hip Hop and Contemporary Portraiture" at the National Portrait Gallery - I like hip-hip, even though I could never honestly call myself a fan....I feel like I need to justify that statement, so I'll just say that I know that a lot of it will never really make sense to me, and for that reason, I sometimes feel that it would be senseless to embrace it too aggressively (i feel the same way about a lot of jazz and country as well).

But that said, the visual aesthetic of hip-hop has always been something I've been enamored with: part of it is the street-based fashions; part of it is that much of hip-hop is rooted in rugged, muscle-bound youths in aggressive stances, and all of this probably reflects some sort of voyeuristic leanings on my part.

At the end of the day, though, a whole lot of hip-hop is also a statement of individuality among frequently mitigated, misunderstood, and alienated members of society. And that shit will get my attention every single time.

Plus, I found out a few weeks ago that the exhibition was featuring work by Jefferson Pinder, a guy I went to high school with, and who was one of the single most brilliantly charismatic individuals I've ever known.

As the Thin White Duke once said, watch that man...

Bob Mould at the 9:30 Club -- On another blog that I've since killed off, I mentioned that seeing Mould about two or three years ago was an incredibly emotional experience for me. Last week's show was definitely a highlight of the weekend, but I guess I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that he brought the rock a little more last time; this show was more pop-oriented and featured a few numbers that were much slower (though no less emotive).

That didn't stop me from having fucking tears in my eyes YET AGAIN during "Celebrated Summer." I don't know if I'll ever really understand why that song affects me so deeply, but somewhere between the hyper-aggressive rock, the nostalgic (yet questioning) lyrics, and that completely fucking beautiful fake ending, there's some kind of message to me that angst is forever, even after you've moved on to a more sensible life.

I suppose that creates quite the analogy to the dignity with which Mould has approached his craft in his later years. Honestly, if he just played a show full of Husker Du covers, it probably would have been a whole lot of fun, but I'm not really convinced that I would have left the building having quite so much respect for him for being such a true artist. Thanks for being true to yourself, Bob. (Now if I could just work up the nerve to say hi the next time I see you getting coffee).

And by the way, "Circles" is one hell of a song....

Jury Duty on Thursday - Released at 1:30 PM on the first day of the NCAA Man's Basketball Tournament. This gave me an excellent opportunity to revisit a once-loved (but nearly forgotten) past time of years past: drinking all day and watching sports while I do it. I guess I'm really not as good at this as I used to be, but it was at least good to be able to find out.

AND I finally got to see that Dominion Brewery in the Convention Center....which was, um, just another sports bar. Whatever....

Buying A Home -- Yeah, I'm finally getting there. More on that another time. It's been a crazy experience, and one that I actually had given up on until very recently. Cross your fingers, kids....

Easter Sunday Mass at St. Matthew's -- I suppose it's always been the case in these parts, but so many factors in recent years have made any allegiance whatsoever to organized religion such a blight on one's character. And while I'm no tub-thumper, I think this way of thinking is complete bullshit.

I know all too well that I'm far from being a good person, but I also know that I want to be good. And at this point in time, the Catholic Church is doing more to help me from being any worse of a person than anything else is.

Maybe it's not for everyone, but I'm tired of being looked down upon for it; I've never once pushed my religion on anyone else, despite the myriad assumptions I face when I do admit to anyone (even close friends) that I am a practicing Catholic.

As I get older, I'm beginnging to think that staying steadfast to my faith may be the most punk thing I can do in the face of the self-absorbed, the arrogant and the self-hating who see it as foolish and destructive to believe in a higher power and to embrace a man-made structure for better connecting with Him or Her. (Yes, Hitchens I'm looking right at you. I defend your right to be an atheist, but everyone who has ever seen you stumble into the Wyoming knows that you might do better to look within before chastising those of us who might actually not hurt anyone through our faiths....oh, and screw you Tom Cruise and George Bush and Ted Haggart. That "hurting other people" thing was directed at you all. And, of course, that asshole, Osama).

Anyway, now that I've got that out of my system, I just wanted to point out how wonderful it was to have to wait in line to get into a cathedral the size of St. Matthew's.

Perhaps God is not dead in this city after all.

Picture's Only Begun

2008-01-22T21:02:00.000-08:00

Kids, it's fucking cold outside. Buy a fucking copy of Street Sense, ok? It costs a lot less than your precious Saturday afternoon brunch or the 10,000 calorie drink you're about to buy from Starbuck's. And it's an honest way to give a sober person a little change.

Feed Jake...He's Been a Good Dog

2008-01-14T19:24:00.000-08:00

Jesus, it's been a while. Been busy....I am such a crap
blogger.  If I can even call myself a blogger.  Which I'd
prefer not to do.  Because I'm fucking lazy.

Ok, so the, like, two of you who read this blog probably
know that I'm a Cleveland Park resident.  And despite
the sometimes suburban culture here, I tend to like it.
That said, it's fun to see the City Paper rip on some of
the more asinine quarrels that many of our more entitled
resident engage in.

Today, the CP reported on the apparent scourge on our 
community which is unleashed dogs.

I dunno, I guess I should withhold too much commentary on
this, even though I'll totally run my mouth anyway;
I grew up with monstrous - but gentle - dogs.  Walking
them without a leash was out of the question....and I'm
not sure why it's in the equation for any pet owner,
but whatever).

But it did remind me of a complaint on this city I've
been wanting to make:

My complaint is about people who tie their dogs up
while they are shopping or getting coffee.  That
strikes me as just about the dumbest, most selfish,
irrisponsible thing you could possibly do as a
pet owner.  And as near as I can tell, it takes
place just about everywhere in this city.

You wouldn't leave your three year old outside while
you get your stupid fucking latte fix, and you sure
wouldn't leave your precious bike on the curb
unlocked. Why on earth would you leave your dog
tied outside unupervised??

In the post Michael Vick era, I would expect a
little more common sense from pet owners than
leaving them out to potentially get loose from
their leashes, get hit by a car, or God forbid,
get snatched and turned into target practice for
a pit fighting dog.

Yes, it does happen.

Go shopping on your own damned time, you selfish pricks.

Oh Childe of the Moon, Bid the Sun Arise

2007-11-09T17:54:00.000-08:00

Looks like another D.C. institution has closed it's doors. Kudos to DCist for breaking the story to me....the Childe Harold is no more.

I guess I'm one of those asshats who can't stand to see anything change around here without lecturing everyone about the way things used to be before you moved your special ass here......goddamn, I'm going to make a great old man someday. Or perhaps a truly awful one.

Anyway, despite numerous visits over the years, I have only one special story about the Childe Harold. But it was a defining one.

It's a long story, and much like many of my best stories, it is full of self-loathing and defeat. Maybe someday I'll get the discipline together to write it down in full. But until then, here are the key learnings of it all:

- IF you've been chasing a girl for the better part of a year with only a few dates to show for it, and IF she finally agrees to meet you for happy hour on a Friday, you should see this as a opportunity.

- AND IF she is simply the single hottest girl you've ever dated, you should probably try and impress her by taking her someplace other than the Childe Harold. (You should probably also not wear el cheapo Docksiders with athletic socks, but my problems this evening, it would turn out, were bigger than this).

- IF ALSO, you realize in the middle of this date that you are on the brink of needing to take a giant, grumbling, belt-loosening poop, you should not panic. Even if it means waiting in line to take a dump in the abhorrent Childe Harold men's room. (At the end of the night, discreetly evacuating your insides may be, in fact, the only thing you do right all evening).

- SHOULD YOU somehow manage to get this far into the evening, and notice that the hot girl you are with develops a great big case of the drunkies, you should proceed with great caution and much patience.

- AND IF the conversations turn to deeply personal matters, whereupon she shares secrets of embarrassing incidents and shameful experiences, you should listen and be sympathetic. You should probably not giggle and try to one-up her with more embarrassing and shameful stories of your own. (But really, that's your call on that one).

- IF SOMEHOW, in the midst of these extremely personal confessions, this very hot girl should inform you that she's been going through a sexual identity crisis that is troubling her, you SHOULD NOT INTERRUPT HER BY KISSING HER.

- Let's repeat this last part. If the hot girl tells you that she slept with this one girl a few times, and that she really loves and cares about the girl, even though she knows that she herself isn't a lesbian (and if she also confesses to you that she's not as comfortable with the sex as she thought she'd be -- despite calling it "incredible and so different"), you shouldn't fucking interrupt her. You also shouldn't kiss her while she's sharing this story with you. No matter how much of a boner she gives you while she tells you all this stuff.

- AND WHEN she confesses that this girl she had girl-sex with bought her a computer and helped her with cash when things got tight, you totally should NOT giggle and tell her that she has a sugar-mama.

- IF you do any combination of the above things, you will substantially increase your chances of having the worst date in a lifetime of disappointing evenings with women.

- ONE WAY to ensure that this happens is if you agree to go to a 17th street gay club with her after drinking 10 beers at the Childe Harold. (But it was good of you to pick up the tab, dude).

- ANOTHER WAY to ensure a bad night is, if she stops at her condo on the way to the gay club, and if you take this as a sign that she's finally ready to kiss.

- IF SOMEHOW, she decides that she still wants to go to that gay club with you....Well, then take it from me, chillens. Bitch is settin' you up. But you kind of deserve it a little (....I guess).

- IF SHE keeps teasing you in the gay club and encouraging you to dance with the latin boys, DON'T DO IT. They dance WAY WAY better than you, and you'll look really fucking dorky...And don't think for a second that the brown shoes and the white socks are lost on them. They're laughin' at you. (And, don't look now, but so is she).

- IF SHE THEN becomes bloated and less beautiful by the moment, you probably shouldn't be totally surprised if she grabs you for no good reason and starts making out with you.

- BUT, SERIOUSLY, she not doing it because she likes you. By this point, she will have hated you for a good hour, maybe two. Maybe forever. No one knows why she's doing it. Don't try and figure it out because it'll make you crazy as a shithouse rat. Which is maybe what she wants. (It'll be a really bad kiss, anyway).

- IF at the end of the evening, she wants to go to a shitty steakhouse at order surf and turf on your dime, well, you have no one but yourself to blame for letting this come to fruition.

- AND IF, during this $50.00 2:00 AM meal, she orders a bloody mary...Well, fuck dude, you might as well let it slide and maybe order for yourself. The night ain't getting any better from here.

- OH, AND if in the middle of the meal she tells you that this evening was a total waste of time, you probably shouldn't get indignant and show her that your feelings are really hurt. You'll be embarrassed about this reaction for years and years. (You'll also forever hear in the back of your head the giggles and snickers coming from the drunk-ass gay dudes in the booth behind you).

- IF ALSO she tells you during this meal, that "you're this super-intelligent guy who is totally confused about his sexuality...." Well, if this happens, it would benefit you - benefit you greatly, in fact - to focus on the former part of the statement, and not the latter. But you totally won't, which is a shame...because years later, you'll kind of smile a little when you remember the image of this angry, hateful, kind of beautiful but mostly really, REALLY drunk chick, being the first person ever (in your whole, damned life...the first person EVER) to tell you that you're intelligent. And, trust me, if you get to 26 and no one's ever told you that, you'll want to remember it without a bunch of self-imposed hang-ups cluttering things.

- THIS DOES NOT mean that you won't beat yourself up for the special girl thinking you're gay. You totally will, even though you totally shouldn't. (Because, my man, a LOT of people thought you were gay or kind of weird or something back then. Don't trouble yourself defending yourself...No one said you were a damned queen, but you were different in ways people didn't understand, ok???)

- IF THEN she asks you to walk her to the door, and she ten tells you that she's completely tried to drink herself into a blackout so she'll never remember this awful experience, you should probably try and ignore that comment. And when she stumbles into you at the end of it all and asks for a hug, you would be a good guy for giving her that limp little hug you gave her. (And you're also a good guy for not grabbing one of those amazing boobs or asscheeks out of spite. True, she was going to black out anyway, and true, she wasn't going to hate you any more than she already did. But still, only a bad person would take advantage of all that just to touch her firm, round woman parts. So, you know, try and hold on to whatever dignity you've got, and be the good guy that you are).

- AND IF you find yourself in a happy relationship someday, and wondering -- honestly baffled -- at how you ever could have gotten so caught up in that drunk girl, well, it probably means that life turned out pretty ok for you.

- HOWEVER, IF you end up writing about it on the Internets, you're still kind of an insecure ass.

-EITHER WAY, now that the C.H. is gone forever, no one will ever have to make the mistakes I made.

I Tired to Look Back As You Diminished In Size

2007-10-28T19:24:00.000-07:00

So, a few weekends ago I had the treat of seeing Jamie Block perform at Iota.

There was a time when this was a semi-regular treat for me. I believe that for a few years I caught Block at Iota about every three months, with intermittent gigs at the Velvet Lounge and even once (on a weekend!!) at the 9:30 Club. He came through town a lot, and I tried to be wherever he was performing.

It's a long story how it is that I came upon Jamie's music, but the short form involves my younger brother being a DJ at a college radio station that received a promo copy of Jamie's independently-released first release. What followed was a gig at said college campus, and a madcap and utterly out of control mini-tour of the Tidewater region with my little brother and his roommate.

Its a long story and no one remembers many of the details, but suffice it to say, it was bad-ass.

Anyway, last month's show was a great time, even if it wasn't Block's best (or best attended) show. The crowd sucked, the other bands were lousy and Jamie has probably lost a little vocal range over the years since he semi-retired.

In fact, as I stood there taking it all in, it struck me that it had been at least six years (probably more) since Block's last run through the D.C. area. And while Ian lays out the reasons much better than I ever could, I have to admit that whatever the circumstances, I really missed being able to go see him every so often.

Jamie seemed by all accounts to be on the way up back in the late 90's -- he had the label backing and the motivation to tour just about non-stop, he was getting excellent press and decent radio play, he had songs on two or three movie soundtracks, and I even heard him on the jukebox in a bar in Colorado at one point.

In fact, in that point of time that I always seem to be reminiscing about, there were *so many* up and coming singer-songwriters that I used to see every time they came through D.C. And I totally, honestly believed that each of them was utterly brilliant and destined to become a superstar.

There was Block's smart, angry and drunken (but totally charming) anti-folk.

There was the heartbreakingly beautiful performances by Emm Gryner at the by-now-long- defunct Metro Cafe. (During an extremely rare moment of self awareness for that period of time, I vividly remember chatting with Emm after one of her Metro sets, talking her ear off, completely spellbound and believing that she was the single most beautiful creature I'd ever spoken to. By the grace of God, I finally realized that I desperately NEEDED to stop talking before I creeped her out any further, and before she forever crossed Washington, D.C. off of all future tour dates).

Then, there was the jaw-dropping performance of Hamell of Trial I caught one Tuesday night at the Velvet, where I wondered how anyone could ever conjure such intensity, venom and fucking hilarity with nothing more than an acoustic guitar and the tongue of a damned genius.

There were others, of course, but those three definitely stick out in my head. But sadly, none of the bands or artists I loved and felt close to from that period of time really got to that level of recognition that I felt that they deserved. I think they all ended up doing ok for themselves (Hammel toured with Ani DiFranco, Emm toured with Bowie, and Block has an amazing career as a financial analyst or something), but I do have to admit in an embarrassed kind of way that I'd always wanted to be able to tell someone that I'd used to see any of the three of them "in a small club before they made it big."

These days I don't really go out anywhere near as much as I used to, and I'm not as in touch with what's happening in music as I should be...and I have to admit that I'm also a hell of a lot more guarded about giving away my enthusiasm. (There has to be a good reason for this last item, but I'll be damned if I can come up with one). Anyway, maybe that's why I don't really have any favorite upcoming bands these days, and maybe that's why I'm not cheering for any struggling artists to "make it" the way I used to. Maybe, as an utterly failed artist and musician, I've finally learned that the entire notion of "making it" is totally fucking warped.

Still, a lot of this seems to have more to do with me and my issues than it does with the state of music and art today. I have to constantly remind myself that there always are and always will be young, exciting artists that one should support, and that life's more fun when you're a fan of something...

Man, I really gotta start going out again...HOLY FUCK. Hamell is playing Jammin Java in two weeks! I literally just saw this as I was finishing this entry....Damn, I'm glad I decided to link to his site....

(So, Emm, I guess that means you're last. Please come on back and see us if you can).

Thngs that suck in D.C. at 3:08 AM on a Wednesday

2007-10-17T00:07:00.000-07:00

There's a fucking mouse in this apartment. Or one is tying to get in. Fucking hell. Woke my ass up.

Hope its just a mouse.

Goddamn, apparently I'm really hungry at 3:08....

More Stuff that Ruled in D.C. This Week

2007-10-16T16:46:00.000-07:00

Pizza at Comet -- My friends and I have a number of theories as to how this pizza place in the furthest reaches of upper northwest became a hipster hangout for the fine-artist-musician crowd, but it doesn't make it any less weird to me. I guess I got myself so surrounded by the worthless glam-and-coke-fuckers in the Red Room and at the Hotel that I forgot that some cool people do, in fact, go north of Adams Morgan.

"Wisconsin Death Trip" at the National Gallery of Art -- Can something dark and tragic also be hysterical? It appears so!

Meeting Nikki Sixx last night -- Listen, you don't have to tell me that waiting in line for two hours for a washed up rock star to sign his crappy book for me was kind of uncool. I know it's kind of uncool. But this was Nikki Sixx, and as washed up rock stars go, he's really fucking high on the list. Way higher than Elton John, higher than Rod Stewart, higher than Gene Simmons, higher than Lars Ulrich (nice mullet, dude). Maybe about tied with David Lee Roth and Ronnie James Dio. Not quite at the level of Ozzy or Ronnie Wood.

But you know what IS totally fucking cool? Giving your little brother a book signed by his favorite rock star from 1990. And even cooler? When the rock star in question says to you...."It's for his birthday? Jeez, man, give it back so I can sign it 'Happy Birthday, Kevin.'"

And THAT was the moment that stuff ruled in D.C. this week.

Things That Rules in D.C. This Week

2007-10-09T19:25:00.000-07:00

The Klaxons at the 9:30 Club -- Apparently the Klaxons have a sizably larger following Washington than I'd realized.

And if my insights are correct, the Klaxons have a larger following in Washington than THEY realized as well. With the possible exception of David Lee Roth's totally and completely insincere welcome to the crowd at Merriweather Post Pavilion back during his laughable "Lil Ain't Enough Tour" of the summer of '91 ("In 15 years of rockin' and rollin' all over the world, I have NEVER seen a crowd this craaaaazy!!"), I have never seen a band express more gratitude to a D.C. crowd than the Klaxons did last night.

Maybe they're just showbizzy and know how to play to a crowd to make them feel special. Maybe they were doing some kind of punk rock send up by flattering D.C., with it's reputation for giving touring bands such a predictably skeptical and lukewarm reception. But these guys seemed legitimately grateful. Nice.

The All Roads Film Festival at National Geographic -- Wait, no. I meant to write, "attending a lecture featuring an appearance by Super Barrio at the All Roads Film Festival at National Geographic." Mexican wrestler/activists make Fugazi look like such a bunch of goddamned pussies.

Veritas Wine Bar -- Just because D.C. needs more of this sort of thing. And I like wine.

Rip this Joint Gonna Save Your Soul

2007-09-25T19:25:00.000-07:00

Yikes, looks like I disappeared from this spot for some time this summer. And there was a buttload of stuff I meant to write......reviews of a friend's art show, reviews of restaurants, updates on my vacation to Canada, photos from my flickr account. I was even gonna write that series about dating misadventures in Washington. Shit got busy, ok?

And no one reads this trash anyway, so whatever.

But, anyway, I guess I wanted to comment about the Nationals closing out their final game in RFK Stadium.

Seems that a lot of folks wanted to turn this into a bigger event than it actually was. for instance, I happen to work with this 40-something Capitol Hill star-fucker, name-dropper type who I overheard lamenting the Nat's last game, and talking about how special it was to be there.

You have to be fucking kidding me.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the six or seven Nats games I attended...as much as I've enjoyed any other baseball game I've ever attended, I guess. But having been born in Maryland and having lived through both the Memorial Stadium and Camden Yards eras, I know what a shitty baseball stadium looks like.

And RFK was the bomb for football back in the 80's (more on that later), but it was somewhere along the lines of Shea Stadium for baseball.

This is one of the things that's irked me the most about the changes underfoot with D.C. culture. I could have sworn D.C. was always a football town. That's always what I identified with - Redskins football. Sonny Sam and Frank. Riggos Rangers. The city was a mess back then, and maybe it was just because I was a kid, but this whole place seemed to at the very least have a sense of self. And part of that sense of self was that if this was a baseball town, the Senators never would have left.

But those old cliches about there only being two things in Washington that matter ("politics and the Redskins, and not necessarily in that order"), I wonder if anyone finds them to be true anymore. I see Eagles and Giants and Steelers and - God help me - Patriots fans on every corner (dude, while I'm thinking of it, ever noticed that for a town teeming with New Englanders, you'd never met a single Pats fan in D.C. until 2001...just pointing that out), but I feel like I have to trek out to Leesburg or Bethesda to find anyone who likes the Skins these days.

But shitty red hats with our shitty fucking president's moniker on them? Ubiquitous.

Anyway, crying over the end of the Nats at RFK is just another example of how I'm hip deep in this fucking rootless culture of transplants here in D.C. The Nats had no legacy in D.C. Why pretend?

If you wanted to do some crying over RFK, 1996 was the time for it.

Mo Money Mo Problems

2007-07-17T19:14:00.000-07:00

Well, now that it's completely old news, I guess it's about time I weigh in on July's City Paper cover story about venerable D.C. institution, Late Night Shots. I'm sure that once again I'm the last blogger in the city to comment, but with maybe four of you out there, I can't imagine anyone will mind.

Now, I'll preface this by saying that two or three times in my life I've been called a rich kid. And this has always been an odd thing for me to hear.

You see, while I did grow up in a large-ish house in Rockville, we lived in Rockville, not in Potomac.

And while we still lived in Rockville, we lived on the East side of 270, not the West side.

While I did go to private school, I went to a Catholic school. (And for the record, no, it wasn't one of the two wealthy Catholic high schools in the D.C. area).

While my mom's family was based in Cleveland Park, they lived on the Wisconsin Ave side, in a shared wall/row home, not in one of the towering Newark Street compounds. (And this was in the 40's, long before the NW D.C. housing market became what it's been for eons).

And no, I've never been given a car (new, used, stolen or otherwise) as a gift. No, my folks have never paid my rent. Yes, I have been employed since eighth grade, and, no, I did not get a single one of those jobs through any sort of family connection.

I have never been to camp, no one in my family has never been a member of a country club, and none of us has ever owned a boat of any kind.

But here's the deal: If you grew up poor....or even if you grew up underprivileged or decidedly working class (my Dad fell in somewhere within that range in 1940's coaltown, PA), those distinctions don't mean a damned thing. East side, West side, Connecticut Ave. side, Wisconsin Ave. side....A big whatever. To them, you're getting by just fine, and you probably have a little scratch left over at the end of the month. Your family goes out for dinner a lot, your family goes on vacation every year. Guess what? To most of the world, that makes you a rich kid.

But to actually wealthy people? Let me tell you, we were merely middle class...maybe upper middle class. Those petty distinctions -- all those things I say to assure people that "well, no we aren't actually rich" -- trust me, those distinctions are anything but subtle. They are enormous to those people with actual wealth.

I say this to illustrate that to some extent I do feel some sympathy for the insecurities one can develop when you realize that people just might resent your upbringing. Everyone wants to be loved for who they are, or at least have a shot of being liked for who they are. And growing up with more toys that other people will certainly diminish your chances.

All of that said, I've very much learned over the years to despise the kind of rich kids one finds on the streets of Georgetown.

Long before I'd heard of Late Night Shots, long before Collin Finnerty was found guilty of chasing an innocent stranger down Wisconsin Ave., threatening violence and repeatedly calling him a faggot (by the way Loyola, WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU THINKING? Fucking Jesuits!), long before Bourbon was overtaken with young Republicans who left coke residue all over the bathroom, I knew all too well the perverted attitude delivered by kids who have grown up in an environment of entitlement and superiority.

I've seen the culture fairly close up, and I dislike it on a number of levels. I'm quite accustomed to feeling unwelcome in their bars, in their neighborhoods, at their parties. The few times I befriended kids who grew up with any moderate wealth, I learned to recognize all too well their parents' disapproval of me as a friend to their child.

I got by. I made lots of friends. I'm pretty happy with who I am. And life turned out to be more or less....well, wonderful, when you think about it.

But the City Paper story (which, no matter how much pleasure I took from it, was a decidedly unbalanced hit job on an easy target) forced me to try and think of those kinds in Late Night Shots. I kind of felt like they had a right to defend themselves in the story. I felt that they didn't really deserve to have their full names published in the piece. I kind of felt like they should get a chance to respond.

THEN I reviewed the 500+ comments left at the end of the story on the CP's Web site.

Holy fuck... I fully realize that any message board will attract some flies and some trolls, and that sometimes you just need to take Internet posts with a grain of salt. But the comments -- CONSISTENTLY espousing hateful, elitist and even racist sentiments, reinforced just about each and every awful thought I've ever had about rich kinds and their shitty attitudes towards the rest of the world.

The most telling comments in my opinion, were the two following posts:

"possumfest" offered: " We are better athletes, smarter in business, more attractive, tougher, and, in general, winners of the genetic lottery."

...while MGR chimed in: "At the end of the day, they hate because they are jealous. Jealous of our priviledge [SIC], jealous of our economic success, jealous of our fun. I hate to say it but they hate us for the same reasons the terrorists do."

And now I get it. It all comes back to what I started with -- the undying insecurity that comes with wealth. The soul-crushing doubts that one faces when you just don't know if people love you for who you are or for what you have. The last defense one has when one finally learns that, no, all those people that you've been taught are beneath you...they do not automatically, by necessity, admire you.

And so early on, you're taught....repeat after me...."They're just jealous."

No, people don't hate you because you're selfish. No, they don't hate you because you're cruel. No, they don't hate you because your friends and neighbors manage to get away with crimes the rest of us would go to jail for. And they don't hate you because you are shallow and materialistic.

That's right, there's only one reason that most Americans hate you....Just keep telling yourself that its because they are *jealous* of you.

Five hundred eighty three very angry posts later, I know one thing for certain:

Say what you want, but you rich kids CARE what we think. You obviously care a whole lot, otherwise you wouldn't feel so scorned by this article. Otherwise you wouldn't have responded with so unbelievably much small-minded hate.

It hurts that we don't admire you, that we don't want to be like you, and that in the spare moments that we give you any thought at all, we tend to mock you.

But I guess it's just because we're so jealous, right?

Dear Dickbag Suburban Harry Potter Fans

2007-07-15T17:18:00.000-07:00

Listen, I *do* appreciate that you want to bring your kids to the Uptown Theater to see the new Harry Potter flick. Seriously, as a third generation Cleveland Park resident (although, uh, a first generation Cleveland Park renter), I dig it that you recognize that we have the very best movie theater in the metro area. I like that you want your kids to experience a movie on a legitimately big screen. I like how you are patronizing a local institution. It's all good.

But for the love of God, the Metro stops RIGHT THERE.

Same block, Dr. Fairfax. Sixty steps away, Prince Gaithersburg. A 40 second trot from the red line, Mayor Vienna.

SO TAKE THE GODDAMN METRO AND SAVE ME A FUCKING PARKING SPACE! METRO NEEDS YOUR MONEY AND I NEED YOUR PARKING SPACE. WE GOTS A WAR ON AND GAS IS EXPENSIVE. DO IT FOR THE CHILDREN! DO IT FOR THE SOLDIERS! DO IT FOR AL GORE! I DON'T REALLY GIVE A FUCK -- JUST DO IT!!

And to the four cars in the fire lane On Macomb Street, I'm not saying that I'm the one that spit on your cars....but I was mighty close by when it happened.

Love,

T-O-N

Dear Pregnant Lady on the Metro

2007-06-17T18:17:00.001-07:00

You don't know me, but if you did, you'd realize how ironic this situation is.

I'm really determined to prove that there are good people in Washington, D.C., and that we're not all a bunch of fuckheads obsessed with our own importance.

I'm really determined to prove that good things happen here, that selfless people can not just exist, but thrive in this city.

I'm really determined to help change the self-important fucked up culture that people bring to this city - even if it's just through small acts of kindness....offering directions to tourists, volunteering with St. Matt's, high fiving kids at Nationals games. Whatever it takes to have somebody -- ANYBODY -- someday go back to their hometown and say, "You know, there are actually some really friendly people in Washington, D.C.".

So, you can understand just how embarrassed I am not to have offered you my seat on Friday afternoon. I have no idea what I was thinking ; I looked at you, and I saw that you were about as pregnant as one can be, and yet it never once occurred to me that the right thing for me to have done would be to stand up and offer you my seat.

(And, yes, I was sitting in the handicapped seat, to top it all off).

I'm sorry, pregnant lady.

T-O-N

Even more stuff that ruled in D.C. this week

2007-06-07T20:01:00.000-07:00

1. DMBQ at the Hoisery - Holy zombie Jesus! Sabbath/Nebula/MC5-style-jam-away metal played by a bunch of Japanese dudes who light shit on fire, scream a lot, play too loud and do things with drum kits that haven't yet occurred to Tommy Lee. This was the hottest, sweatiest, loudest, most awesome show I've been to...ever.

Plus, the Hoisery is damn near the only spot in Northwest that looks exactly the same as it did seven or eight years ago. I don't quite remember the last time I'd seen a tranny hooker taking a leak in the middle of the street, but it had DEFINITELY been too long. Memo to you gentrifying motherfuckers who stole the soul from this city: Fourth and Eye is the final frontier. Go ahead and take it. You went ahead took everything else, didn't you? Besides, I've had my fun. With Japanese metalheads, no less.

2. Lunch at Taquerito Nationales on Capitol Hill - Cheap tacos in Washington? Fresh, sweet onions? Fresh made salsa? Homemade fruit drinks? FRIED MUTHAFUCKIN YUCCA WITH DIPPING SAUCE? Lunch for less than $7?

D.C. has a lot of problems, but this isn't one of them.

3. Bloc Party at Constitution Hall -- One of the joys of being a local to this area is dropping snobby-ass references in conversation specifically to remind people that you were here long before their asses got the idea to move to D.C. (and to subsequently tell the world how much it sucks here and how much more they preferred Pittsburgh or Philly or Jersey or whatever sorry ass Boston suburb it is that they ran away from...).

I'll give you an example....My high school graduation ceremony took place on the stage of Constitution Hall. Once in a while (like, every chance I get), I manage to drop into conversation the phrase, "Oh, DAR --- that's Constitution Hall to you, dear -- oh, yes, my brothers and I graduated on that stage. In fact I even played that stage a few times before."

Right about then I stop talking, because it's just a matter of moments before someone inevitably asks how I got to play that stage. And then I have to explain to them that as a member of Good Counsel High School's symphonic band, I was obligated to play the National Anthem and a 14 minute version of "Pomp and Circumstance" for the graduating class...every year, freshman through junior years.

And right about then people become thoroughly unimpressed with everything about me. Because it doesn't matter if you're doing blow off of Jessica's Biel's ass cheek after the Olsen twins give you head....if you're doing it as a member of the high school band, you're still a fucking dweeb.

Ok, so all of that said, Constitution Hall can be an odd choice to see a rock band. Back in college I saw Keith Richards play there, and the sound guys actually pulled the plug on him (pulled the plug....on Keith Richards....don't EVER let anyone tell you this isn't a union town). I also caught a great little cat nap during Springsteen's utterly forgettable "Ghost of Tom Joad" solo acoustic tour some ten odd years ago.

So, yes, one doesn't often go to Constitution Hall to rock out.

But, frankly, the show was utterly inspired. Great sound, tasteful lights, and two full sets by a very on-their-game band.

Plus, Bloc Party has a sizable (though hardly overwhelming) gay following, it is it always fun watching young, good-looking gay city folk trying to figure out to do when listening to guitar-based rock.

Let's face it, my gay peeps may in fact be the only subset of the Caucasian demographic that knows what to do on a dance floor, but throw in live drums and a stringed instrument or two and they totally get self conscious. Which is kind of fucking awesome in ways that are less sinister than my words may lead you to believe. In point of fact, I think most of us got a little spastic and hyper-rhythmed when we were first officially turned on to punk/indie music.

It's just that it's not every day you get to see elegant boys with fauxhawks, expensive jeans and six pack abs go through the horrifically awkward motions that the rest of us ugly people left behind at age 17.

And that, my friends, is why D.C. ruled this week.

I've been up, I've been down...

2007-05-17T21:04:00.000-07:00

Ups in D.C. for the past week or so:

1. Model in a thong posing for a photographer in Dupont circle in the middle of the day. I've got a camera phone picture of this phenomenon, but I'm way to ashamed to share it. I am officially just another douche for taking a camera phone picture of a nearly naked model.

2. Awesome exhibits at the Portrait Gallery:

- Harry Benson: Being There - a study in some fan-fucking-tastic photojournalism that rocked my face off, mixed with a bunch of Vanity Fair-style over-saturated celebrity portraits that left me a little empty, to be perfectly honest.

- Great Britons: Treasures from the National Portrait Gallery, London - I've got less to say about this one, except that it's cool to see a bunch of 50-something women get their voyeur kicks off looking at a video of a topless David Beckham taking a nap.

3. A new Five Guys location in Dupont Circle. No explanation needed.

4. KRS-1 at the Black Cat. I'm all about the racially integrated music crowds. Note to Dante: Let's book some more hip-hop up in here.

5. Impressing the heck out of out of town coworkers and clients by taking them to D.C. Coast. (I know....D.C. Coast?!?! Does anyone in D.C. get excited about going to this place? Not that I don't love it, but the restaurant gods tend to save their masturbations for different locals if I'm not mistaken).

Downs in D.C. for the past week or so:

1. Art-O-Matic is done for the year. Bummer.

2. Carrying $8,000 in expenses from my trip to Texas last week. Not fun.

3. A really disappointing anniversary meal at Nora. This sucked because I've been looking forward to going to Nora for a very long time. With the exception of a great wine choice by the girlfriend and some truly, truly awesome veggies (no joke -- good veggies), this might have been the most disappointing meal I've had in the past year.

Memo to Nora: If you're going to be shopping a book and doing the Smithsonian lecture series, you really should make sure that all your damned cooks and all your damned servers show up so that we can sit down, order, and be served in less than ninety minutes. Table wasn't ready, service was indifferent (quite a bit of redundant activity from the wait staff, in fact), and the food was slow for every table in our vicinity - and didn't seem to be acknowledged as such. I can forgive below average meat (not much flavor on the just slightly overdone chicken; a hunk of lamb that was a little too rare...even for lamb; a kind of yucky chorizo), and I can forgive below average service. Both in one night? Unforgivable.

(I do like that other restaurant of yours', though).

So Many Mothers Sighing

2007-04-30T17:23:00.000-07:00

I may in fact be the last D.C. blogger posting about this, but yesterday, Eastern Market burned up.

I don't have a lot of great stories about Eastern Market or anything. I bought fish there sometimes. I ate crab cakes there sometimes. I bought earrings for my girlfriend there sometimes.

I generally liked it because it was a slower paced kind of place, often crowded, but seemingly free of so many of the least desirable elements of D.C. (popped collars, suits, drunks, obnoxious transplants bitching about how much New England or Pittsburgh or Jersey is better than D.C.).

A Saturday afternoon at Eastern Market was usually time well spent, if sometimes peacefully squandered.

I'm sure they'll rebuild in a year or two. But I'm really, really sad right now.

Ten Songs That Make Me Cry

2007-04-30T17:13:00.001-07:00

Since it's easier than actually writing about the nonsense in my head, I thought I'd steal an idea from My Pal Pete and list the ten songs that make me cry. Because I'm weak.

To Love Somebody - As Sung By James Carr

Man, this song was the soundtrack to my senior year of college when I had three....count em, THREE, friends date girls I was nuts over.

What gets me about this song is that no matter how mournful the vocal is sung....and James Carr really knew how to lay it on thick....at the end of the day, the lyrics themselves are a little spiteful and bitter. That whole "you don't know what it's like" sentiment can be pretty damned juvenile (and in my case it probably was), but when you're dealing with unrequited love, it works pretty well.

I sure wish the Bee-Gees hadn't written this damned song.

Waltz # 2 - Elliot Smith

Good God, back in 1998 I lived in this farm house outside of Olney, MD with a former drug addict and this other guy who was kind of a broken-hearted-obsessive-record-collector who, for about 10 months, played Elliot Smith on his souped up analog sound system every fucking day. I hated that album X/O. Hated it through and through.

My roomie was a great songwriter and good guitar player, but I could never understand how this dude could roll outta bed on a sunny Saturday morning and fix himself a western omelet - cutting board, ham, sliced peppers and all - to the sound of a man slowly broadcasting to the world his future suicide. I mean, if I ever had to face the day to that kind of despair....well, I just woulda stayed in bed. (God, maybe Greg was endowed with more intestinal fortitude than I gave him credit for....Surely, now that I think of it, at some point in the 70's some poor sap must have made himself blueberry pancakes to the melodious strains of "Which Will," but I digress).

Years later, when I was moved out of the farmhouse, I made a relatively conscious decision to be a pain-in-the-ass alcoholic. I blew all my cash, alienated a few friends, forgot to pay bills and generally was accountable for none of my many, many fuck-ups. Making my peace with the mess I'd created was a pretty unpleasant experience, but I actually found myself listening to Elliot Smith quite a bit during this period, and I kept coming back to Waltz # 2. There is something simply elegant about that lonely, hanging, seemingly-incomplete lyric, "I'm tired.....I'm tired."

I was very tired, as well.

I Loves You Porgy

"Dont let him take me/Dont let him handle me with his hot hands"

Yikes....kinda makes that Elliot Smith story seem pretty silly, now that I think about it.

Let It Loose - The Rolling Stones

Every head-up-his-butt music reviewer has already written too many articles about how "Exile on Main Street" isn't really a celebration of sex, drugs and rock and roll, and that it's more of a requiem for how life on the road can kill one's spirit....or something. And I can buy that. Even Keith Richards has to come down at some point.

I also know that a lot of people kind of hate the Stones for consistently attempting forays into other musical genres like county, gospel and reggae, many of which didn't work. At all.

But "Let it Loose" will do it to me every time. For a guy who has the world's biggest reputation for being a conceited asshole, Jagger has a way of turning quite the vulnerable phrase. That whole half-bridge, "Maybe your friends think/I'm just a stranger" section, where his voice gets a little thin and exasperated, has always struck me as one of the more honest and sincere lines (and vocals) he's ever sung. I mean, who ever would have thought Jagger gave a damn about what his groupies thought....much less what his groupies' friends thought?

Nothing Compares 2U - as sung By Sinead O'Connor

I know a lot of people just plain hate Sinead's atonal vocal style and crappy personality, but for those of use who grew up in Irish households (hold on folks, this is gonna get pretty o'schmaltzy), Sinead knows how to hit that sad, sad note that permeates the best Irish music -- kind of a Celtic blue note, except less sexy and more.....um, miserable.

Fuck that Riverdance shit and the fratboy drinking songs you hear in Ireland's Four Provinc....uh, Four Fields (or whatever it's called)...Irish music isn't about unicorns and wild rovers, it's about being broke and pathetic. And having bad teeth.

All of that said, I kind of do hate including any Irish music at all on this list. I spent way too much of high school and college surrounded by flag waving Paddies, and the longer I'm date a Filipino, the most I want to track each and every one of my Irish brethren down and tell them that no matter how much Guinness and Lucky Charms they ingest, the Irishman will, in fact, never, ever be considered an exotic creature by anyone.

Prince, on the other hand.....well, he *is* a sexy motherfucker.

Do What You Gotta Do - Roberta Flack

I'm not even sure what this song is about....I breakup I reckon. I tripped over this record my senior year of high school when I was downed with a pretty vicious case of chicken pox....so bad I actually quit wanking for a few days because I was just too repulsed by my own appearance.

With all that free time on my, er, hands, I pored over my parents' record collection, looking for some decent jazz amidst a whole lot of bad folk and show tunes (holy crap, how did I not spank it to the album cover of Kiss Me Kate back when I was 16....I'm pretty turned on now just looking at it. Is that Dean Martin looking guy actually giving her a spanking? Does he actually have a sadistic smile on his face? Is she looking over her shoulder at him with resentful scorn? This truly is some bangbus shit. And no, I am NOT linking to that).

Where was I?

So, yeah, I find this Roberta Flack record. I think it was called "Volume II". Apparently, Roberta is from D.C., and for a few brief years before she was a superstar she was kind of a local hit that only the hips kids knew about.

...anyway, I sit there in my parents house just dumbstruck at how sexy and sad and romantic these songs are. I listen to the record over and over -- like four times in a row -- wondering if white people have tragic romances like this or if it's just a black thing, wondering if I'd ever have to tell a girl to do what she's gotta do, and go chase her dream even if it meant we'd never be together again, and, most importantly, wondering when, exactly, it was that my parents had soul, and when it was that they lost it.

Maybe that's what makes me cry....

Maps - The Yeah Yeah Yeahs

I don't want to cop to this one, but I will anyway. The whole "they don't love you like I love you" thing is probably even more self-centered than the James Carr "you don't know what it's like" thing, but I'm pretty sure that's what this new breed of $200 haircut punk rock is all about.

Acetone - Mudhoney

I really don't think there's anything sadder than feelings of shame, and that's pretty much what this song is about -- a really sinister, tragic kind of shame. I well up when I even think of that one lyric, "I never meant to make you run/I never meant to hurt anyone." Coupled with "Oh, Lord what have we become?/We're not fooling anyone" it just the saddest, simplest and most shameful sentiment I think I've ever heard from a punk band.

You See Me Crying - Aerosmith

Lordy, Jesus, do I hate what Aerosmith has become. Even so, this song has such a masterful, hazy, 70's, AM radio vibe (god DAMN, those awesome string arrangements in the 70's!!) that you can overlook the ridiculous-even-by-Areosmith-standards lyric "cuz my love is like a marry-go-round.

* Note, I would have preferred to include "Seasons of Wither", but I felt that Acetone maxed out my drug-induced-shame-based songs. And one Areosmith song is more than enough.

Southern California - George Jones and Tammy Wynette

On paper, this song should be a complete train wreck. Consider:

- Celebrity Duet:
Check!

- Celebrity COUPLE Duet:
Check!

- Corny Spoken Word Outro:
Check!

But the fact is that George Jones somehow manages to make sappy shit work (and really, the only reason I didn't include "He Stopped Loving Her Today" is because it's just too obvious).

George Jones, in fact, is Ray Charles for white people. Except he probably treated his drummers better. And his wives worse.

And he was undoubtedly every bit as dangerous behind the wheel.

Things that rule in DC at this moment

2007-04-24T20:17:00.000-07:00

1. Art-O-Matic: Non-juried, no rules, and way too much bad art, low art, and weird art. It is everything that like to say D.C. is not, and I love it almost as much as I love Fort Reno and even more than I love the Run For Cover benefit. (Too bad it's in Virginia this year).

2. The Modernism Exhibit at the Corcoran: I wish they hadn't put a bunch of damned chairs in all of the adverts for this show. There's stuff actually worth paying money to see in this exhibit. And in a city where the museums tend to be free, that's saying something. But I will never pay money to see just chairs.

3. Pizza By the Slice at Vace: For some reason it tastes better when the reflection of the sun off the tin foil wraps blinds zoo-going tourists on the sidewalk....no idea why. For less than $2 is may well be the only pizza by the slice worth eating in this town. Yes, fuck you, jumbo slice.

4. The Wizards in the Playoffs: I don't care if they're getting decimated. You transplants have no idea how precious it is to have them in the playoffs at all.

Hit the Limelight, make my day, get me back to JFK

2007-03-18T17:10:00.000-07:00

So, my job has me traveling a LOT these days. Within the past five weeks, I've been in Baltimore, Atlanta, NYC, and Los Angeles. Next week I'm in the Carolinas.

And as much as the whole process sucks, one of the really cool things about doing all that travel is that eventually you will see celebrities in your travels. In fact, within the past two weeks, I've spotted Dominique Wilkins, Tyson Beckford, Melora Hardin (that's Jan from "The Office"), and that greasy little gnome doll from "Rockstar Supernova."

(And on that note....Jesus Christ, were it not from the two stripper types accompanying him out of the Rainbow Bar and Grill, I would have sworn that guy was a fourth grader dressed up in a k-mart rock star costume; Nice lifts in your boots, dude.....Memo to Lukas Rossi: Lemmy shits bigger than you).

So anyway, it's hard not to get a little resentful of the relative void of celebs here in D.C.

But then, this afternoon I drank a cup of coffee on Rhode Island Ave. literally four feet from Bob Mould. This is the second time that's happened.

Maybe Bob Mould isn't a big deal to most people....I dunno, my old bands used to cover Husker Du, and I distinctly remember seeing "Zen Arcade" on sale at Olsen's Books and Records when I was like 12 years old.

My point? I guess that my point is that if you spend enough time in airports and hotels you can trip over celebrities eventually. But artists? They're everywhere.

Punk. Fucking. Rock.

Holy Diiiveeer!

2007-03-14T19:35:00.000-07:00

DISCLAIMER: This post has nothing whatsoever to do with Washington, D.C.

OVERHEARD IN ATLANTA HARTSFIELD-JACKSON AIRPORT: "Dude, I was taller than Ronnie James Dio when I was in fifth grade!"

Fucking awesome. This one's for you.

Homeboy, you never shut up!

2007-02-21T19:21:00.000-08:00

I talk too much. I'm aware of this.....It's been a problem for years. It got me in trouble last week at work. It got me in trouble with the lovely girlfriend last weekend. And I guess that now I have to eat some crow here on my rarely-visited blog.

It looks like Cleveland Park's "other" Irish bar bar, Nanny O'Brien's, is not actually closing...despite my requiem a few weeks ago.

You can't really blame me. Ask yourself, faithful reader, have YOU been in Nanny's in the past year? How about the past two or three years?

Oh, sure, you had some good times there at some point, probably before you discovered Adams Morgan and the Dinseyfied wonderfullness that is now Logan Circle. But, lately, come on....you know and I know that there were few reasons to visit Nanny's. The Guinness was overpriced, the barbacks weren't all that friendly if you weren't FOB, and the clientèle could be rowdy in a not-very-charming kind of way.

And the place smelled like piss and vomit...even more so since the smoking ban ceased to mask the odor of humanjuice (and this, in fact, might make it the very most authentic Irish bar in D.C., but that's besides the point....of course, the Irish Times completely reeks of all manner of ungodly odors, but that sure don't make it an authentic anything but an authentic shithole).

Still, everyone has a good memory or two of Nanny's. Like when my buddy John passed out there wearing this god damned tight-ass Star Wars tee shirt he was a little too proud of...only to regurgitate all that Guinness in a cab on 16th Street an hour later.

(Did I write about that before???? Sorry....)

So, with wonderful memories like that tattooed on my soul, you can understand why I wanted to be the first to celebrate the place when I saw the writing on the wall. Shit, I walk past Nanny's twice a day, and the message couldn't have been clearer if there was a container of oxygen and a dialysis machine out front: This bar was on the way out....

The happy hour crowd is rarely more than six people. The plumbing system is hopelessly fucked up, and has been since I was about 26. The kitchen hasn't been operational for months. Over the Fall, the hours changed, closing down on Sundays, then opening back up only for NFL games (WTF?!?!?!). Sometimes the damned place just inexplicably went lights out in the middle of the week.

Sounds like a dying bar to me.

Anyway, last week with it being Fat Tuesday and all, I decided to stop in for a Black and Tan on the way home from work. Thought it would be an honorable and noble gesture, since I couldn't honestly see the place surviving past the 40 days leading up to Easter.

I found, behind the bar, a fresh-faced early-30-something, good looking hipster dude. Now Nanny's has a reputation for keeping their bar staffs for a long time -- sometimes a bit after their expiration dates. So immediately my radar was up.

I settle in, order my beer, and start flipping through a copy of blender that was stuffed into the bottom of my man-purse. (Blender....Man purse.....I'm such a fucking poseur).

About half way through my beer, two suit-jacket-and-open-collar Republican-type boys walk through the door. They strike up a conversation with the bartender, talking business, and I hear the words "Bedrock Management."

Immediately, its very clear that Nanny's has a future. A different one, but a new future indeed.

Here's the deal....as much as I understand it, Bedrock started a bunch of pretty darned good bars back in the late 90's.....Now, I could be a little off here -- maybe they bought out some of these bars and maybe they set them all up from scratch -- but I know that six or seven years ago, Bedrock Billiards, Buffalo Billiards, the Continental and Arlington's Carpool were all under their umbrella. Looking over their Web site, I now see that Atomic Billiards and Aroma are also part of the family.

Now, don't get me wrong....I've had good times in each of these bars (except Carpool, where I got into a pretty serious fight with my future sister in law back around 2002).

Still, it's a little odd to me to find out they're all under the same ownership....it seems on some level that independent businesses aren't quite as independent as I'd thought. Nanny's always struck me at the epitome of independent.....(but I suppose I could just be mistaking Brian Gaffney's alcoholic lust for life as independence, when in actuality, may have been a little closer to inept management over the past year or two...or three).

(Sorry, Brian. I love ya, and truth be told, listening to you and random waitresses of your choosing sing "Fairy Tale of New York" on a Saturday night in December will always be a favorite Christmas time memory. I'm sorry to know that you don't have the keys to Nanny's anymore; I really am. But those days are over, I guess).

Anyway, I mulled over the thought of Nanny's going corporate as I signaled the good looking bartender boy that I's take another black and tan.

"Benrock Management, huh?" I offered.

"Yep," he answered. "I guess I came as part of the deal."

"Interesting," I said. "I know they had a really successful string of bars back around 2000/ 2001, right?"

The rudeness of this statement didn't really occur to me until it came out of my mouth. By that time, though, it was too late.

"We've never lost one," the bartender shot back, turning back to other customers.

Well, then, I guess I'll be looking forward to those new urinals.

Cheers.

Ooh that dress so scandalous

2007-02-11T19:33:00.000-08:00

Ok, I've got half a dozen blog entries just lined up and ready to go....er, I mean, half done and totally incomplete.

And they were going to be good - film and record and restaurant reviews, this whole series about how tough it was to date in D.C. back when I was single, and just a great chronicle of all the things I've fucked up lately. I really did have some plans for this blog at one time.....but I got kinda distracted.

Anyway, thought I'd dash one off before my next business trip....Getting back to the whole "life in D.C. isn't really all that bad" theme that was originally going to guide this old online diary thing.

So, on Saturday, the lady and I were planning on hitting M'Dawg, the new hot dog joint on 18th Street, which it appears will never actually open. And, no, you won't lure me into some Ben's vs. M'Dawg debate (though I know that's a lie, and that I, like several other losers online in D.C. won't miss the opportunity to do so at some point, and that at that time, I won't fail to remind everyone I can that I was going to Ben's long before white people knew it was an acceptable thing to do....or, at least a few years before white sorority girls from Massachusetts named Lindsey knew it was viable late-night dining option....

Oh, shit, FINE, I first went to Ben's ten or twelve years ago, ok? Lots of people were there before me, but I still like to think that I'm superior to most of the cracker-ass white kids on U Street, these days, ok? Yes, I am just that insecure).

Where the fuck was I?

Oh, yes, we were going to check out M'Dawg, but it wasn't open yet. We ended up back at Amsterdam Falafel for the ten millionth time, knowing full well that whatever the secret ingredient it is that makes the falafels better than just about anywhere else I've been, also gives me the wind something fierce. (And by fierce, I mean "more horrifying that staying up late to watch "The Fog" on channel five when you were eight years old, then being so scared that you woke your parents up, knowing full well that they'd punish you for staying up past bedtime and watching films you weren't supposed to watch, but it was too damn scary to be alone in the dark after watching that shit. I mean, we're talking about some nasty, driving-with-the-windows-down-in-the-middle-of-February farts).

So, while my girlfriend and I were standing on 18th Street, debating what we were going to do for lunch, I glanced inside the Spy Lounge for no good reason.....I really don't know why. I've only been in the Spy Lounge once, and it was a very short stay that ended with a lot of vomit and my carrying My Pal Pete
into a cab and back to my old beloved Newark Street apartment, where, upon waking early the following morning, very disoriented and confused (as he had never been to my apartment and didn't remember being transported there the evening before), Pete decided that the best course of action would be to grab my copy of Angela Bowie's "Backstage Passes", strip naked, and take a nice hot bath in my filthy tub.

All of that would have been fine if I'd thought to look for him when I first roused the next morning. Of course, I'd forgotten all about the evening before, forgotten that I had failed to meet any young ladies that night because Pete had gotten wasted and gotten himself 86'd from the Spy Lounge for throwing up on three separate levels of the club.

So, instead of looking for Pete and making sure he hadn't pulled a John Bonham in the middle of the night, I instead did my usual Saturday morning routine, which involved heading to the bathroom for a pee.

You can imagine the rest...weenie out, hungover and unshaven, there I stood in front of a naked and very wet Pete, who had been reading all about David Bowie's beautiful gay 1970's pre-Iman sex for god knows how long. All that erotica and both of our penises exposed, I'm sure you know what happened next.

We kind of screamed a little.

So, that's my spy lounge story....Wait what was I getting at?

Oh, yeah, I peeked in the Spy Lounge, and some photographer had rented it out for the day for a totally killer King Magazine style photo shoot. Leggy black women in thongs, posing in front of 18th Street.

And, so here we are again, proving who D.C. still rules. Sexy black girls, vomit, homoerotic experiences with former bandmates, good falafels and bad farts.

Goddamn it, this town rules.

I've Been Around This Great Big World, Yeah

2007-01-17T19:41:00.001-08:00

So, earlier tonight, I found myself writing the following pretentious bullshit to a friend, about the merits of traveling single and alone, vs with a loved one:

"On one hand, you have this nagging feeling that you'd like to share certain experiences with someone special, but on the other hand, there's something intangible and wonderful about hording a special experience all to yourself. I can't really explain it, except to say that I did Dublin alone and grieving when I was 25, then did Paris on my own in the midst of my shipwrecked, alcoholic, self-loathing 26th year, and I know for certain that my time in both cities - alone, but not lonely, speaking to barely anyone for days on end - bookended two big turning points for me personally. By the time I was 31 my head was finally in the right place to share Budapest."

Wow, I sure love to hear myself talk. I would hate someone for writing that kind of esoteric crap to me.....seriously.

But since I am basically a self-important twit, I'll indulge the germ of an idea it gave me.....and you know, germs, they're icky.

I've got a story for each and every country I've visited, and some of them are even worth telling. Before I forget (because I'm at the point where if I don't write shit down its gone forever), here's a word on every place I've been:

Canada: fling

Mexico: drunk

Ireland: grief

England: friends

(no, no wait....can I change that to "pinching an Australian girl's bum?" No? Ok, I'll go with "friends" then).

France: forgiveness

Czech Republic: love

Hungary: romance

I hate myself when I write this kind of shit. I really, really do.

I Saw You

2007-01-02T19:21:00.000-08:00

Me: Tallish, 30-something, blond, bug-eyed guy standing with mouth agape in the window of alley-facing apartment in Cleveland Park last night.

You: Tallish, 20-something brunette girl, walking around alley-facing Cleveland Park apartment opposite of mine last night, absolutely and completely buck naked.

Now, listen, I've fantasized many times over about having this sort of thing happen. All city dwelling men have. And you're a cutie....from what I can make out from here.

But I have to come clean here: You've got to stop. I am losing my mind. I can't really see any of the good stuff in any detail, but I can't look away because if I concentrate, I can kinda sorta make out your tushy and the shape of your hips. And that's pretty nice.

But, seriously, this has to end. I can't sleep to start with. This won't help. Please? Because in a masturbatory career that's had it's share of misadventures, I've never actually wanked in front of my apartment window. And I'd very much not like to cross that bridge. So why doncha put on a sweater and some boxers, mkay?

Thanks sweetie....Yer a doll.

P.S.: The guy upstairs from you has a really tiny wiener. Thought you should know.

The Queen, My Lord, Is Dead

2006-11-14T19:59:00.000-08:00

Please allow me to be among the first to tell you:

Nanny O'Brien's is pretty much done.

Just about everyone in Washington has lost a night or two in this venerable Cleveland Park hell-hole. And I have to say, I'm going to be sad to see it go. I'll be more than sad; I'll be crestfallen.

Now, to be honest, Nanny's was never a great bar. The place always kind of sucked. Too small. Too dark. Too smokey. Too gaddamned expensive for a lousy pint of Guinness.

But I had a lot of great times there. In fact, during my early 20's it was consistently one of my very favorite D.C. hangouts.

Maybe it was the ever-present Irish brouges heard from both the clientele and the barbacks.

Maybe it was the half-cute/half no-nonsense-yankee-knock-your-feckin-teeth-out Irish waitresses.

Maybe it was the way the cigarette smoke would gradually overcome the nauseating scent of vomit that permeated the establishment during daylight hours.

Maybe it was the overabundance of alcoholic AU students, combined with the constant flow of bawdy, wide-hipped, large-buttoxed, raven-haired Irish-American chicks knocking back drinks at a rate I could only pray to asipre to.

Maybe it was the charming way that over the last four years or so, the urinal in the men's room never once flushed for me. Despite the incalcuable number of times I urinated there....Archimedes would have something say about that.

In reality, those things only added to its charm. I mean, seriously, fuck the Four P's. Fuck their menu with their pansy-ass chicken fingers. Fuck that fuckhead in the corner singing the fucking unicorn song. Fuck ALL of that plastic Paddy bullshit. Nanny O'Brien's was the real deal. The only true Irish dive in D.C.

At the end of the day there are two reasons I love Nanny's in spite of itself:

1. It was the only place I could sneak my little brother and future-alcoholic cousin in when they were under-age (which made me feel a tad cooler than I actually was).

2. For right or for wrong, the memory of a drunken Brian Gaffney dueting "fairtail of new york" with a bairmaid is one of the very greatest Christmas-season memories that I have. For years and years...even when I was living in Twinbrook, I'd hop the red line and return to Nanny's each December, hoping to hear Brian sing "it was Christmas eve, babe....." And it never happened again.

For those reasons (plus the memory of the time I scared off two hottie german exchange students by singing drunken Bob Dylan songs to them, only to be outdone by my buddy puking Guinness all over the interior of a taxicab cruising up 16th street, resulting in a $40 fare and a footchase through downtown Silver Spring by a very dissatsifed cabbie and various members of the Montgomery County Police Department, only to be outdone by said buddy puking more Guinness all over the front door of a -- get this -- professional body builder who lived downstairs from me back when I lived in S.S.) I will terribly miss Nanny's.

Nanny's please don't go.

I know it's late.......

2006-11-06T20:15:00.000-08:00

In fact it's too late to be writing this post. But I'm just gonna go and go and go tonight, and get everything out of my system, then I'm going to post this without proofing it. That's the kind of night it's been. And no one reads this blog anyway, so whatever.

I really outdid myself this week. I totally fucked up.

See, I've got this problem...I happen to be really kind of good at a job I dislike. A job/career that makes me unhappy. I've been searching for ways out of it, but somehow every time I job hop (basically every 2-3 years), I end up in the same kind of miserable environment that I came from. This has been going on for eleven years.

Now I'm not going to go into a lot more detail because we all know what happens when bloggers bitch about work

(And I should point out that even if I ended up miserable on every stop, I've worked at a handful of good companies, and only one or two actaully bad places. One of the best, in fact, is under some public scrutiny at the moment. Bummer for them; I enjoyed my time there and make some lifelong friends.

But yeah, this job makes me unhappy, even when i do it well, and even when i do it at a good company. Which I currently do.

It's one of the really sad things about life in D.C. It's a career-based culture. Walking around Capitol Hill on a summer day, you can get lost in it -- the young men in their suits, the young women in their summer work-dresses. The sense of purpose on K street, even at lunch time.

Sure, you can try to ignore that; there are a lot of folks who do the bohemian thing really convincingly in this town. Adams Morgan rastas, Logan fashionistas, Shaw hipsters. But I don't buy it. Even the non-profit-save-the-world-types (a community I wish I had the wherewithall to join) approach their craft in an oddly political, calculating way that screams of careerism.

So, yeah, for the past few months things have been bad at work. So bad, that when a friend at a competing company offered me the chance to interview I jumped.

The position was a big one -- a little over my head, and would require some late nights and a healthy dose of committment and confidence that at this moment in time I just can't summon. Terrified at the prospect of working another few weeks at my current employer's, though, I gave it a shot and made it through four hours worth of interviews.

A few days later I got a call, inviting me back for another four hours worth of interviews.

Still not excited about this prospect, but still afriad of what would happen if I stayed in my current job, I gave it a shot.

And lo and behold I got the job.

Having done my research about salary negotiations, I took a few days and managed to talk the salary up, finally accepting the position last week.

I accepted the position and resigned on Thursday.

On Friday morning, my company called in the cavalry. My employer begged me to stay. I got calls from everyone, including the top brass, asking me to reconsider. They matched my generous salary offer, they gave me different responsibilities. They told me I was valued.

And I caved. I fuching caved.

The problem was that I had already accepted the offer. This, my friends, was very foolish. Because today I had to call the other company and back out of the job I'd accepted.

Remember when Juwan Howard screwed over two teams in two weeks? That's kind of how I feel. Except I'm not making $100 million. (But I am getting booed across town right now).

Yeah, This is not cool.

I also had to call my friend and tell him I was basically screwing him over, costing him a needed employee, making him look dumb for referring me, and -- oh, yes -- destroying his sizable referral bonus.

He's a little pissed at me right now. I'm not even sure if we're still friends.

I have no idea how to explain what I did without sounding like some Holden Caufied pussified piece of shit. But I was afraid of taking that job. Afraid of success? Maybe. But I think I was just afriad to work in the same kind of environment I've been promising myself I'd eventually get out of for the past five years or more.

And, fuck, I was afriad that they'd all find out I'm kind of a fraud and bullshitted my way through eight hours of interviews. Don't get me wrong, it's a talent. But there's a reason snake oil salesmen sell out of their cars.

I feel like I learned a lot about myself, and I learned a lot about making impulsive decisions when I'm in a bad place.

I really made a mess.....

Listen to my favorite song playin on the radio

2006-10-17T17:40:00.000-07:00

I've come to the conclusion that no matter how many metro commutes, road trips and minutes spent on the treadmill it has gotten me through, my 30G iPod is basically there just to remind me of how lousy my taste in music can be. I will now list for you the first 10 songs that spontaneously come up when I set my iPod to shuffle. Ready?

1. Looking Tired - The Rolling Stones (album: Around and Around).....ok, early, early Stones. I guess I get some cred points here. Not a bad start at all.

2. What's Yr Problem -- The Capitol Years (album: Meet Yr Acres).....allright, the Capitol Years have some indie cred, despite the unfathomably lame titles to this song and this album. And they happen to put on a motherfucker of a live show. But to be honest, I've never actually listened to this disc. None of it.

3. How Long Has This Been Gong On? -- Herbie Hancock (album: Round Midnight Soundtrack)....Jazz -- who hoo. I am clearly a well-rounded, open minded music fan. Except I've never listened to this album either. And I'm not going to listen to it now.

4. Pool Hall Richard -- the Faces (album: Unconditionally Guaranteed)....ew, this is off of one of those albums that comes with a music snob magazine. Ew, ew, ew. Whatever. The Faces rock your, um, face off.

5. Paper Tiger -- Spoon (album: Kill the Moonlight).....another indie cred moment. And I've actually heard some of this album. And by "some of this album", I mean the first two tracks. Not that i could sing you even a bar ot two.

6. Y Control -- The Yeah Yeah Yeahs (album: Fever to Tell)....somewhere along the lines, all the cool kids decided that the Yeah Yeah Yeahs were lame. And here I am still loving their last album. Advantage: cool kids.

7. Loose -- Pansy Division (album: We Will Fall: A Tribue to Iggy Pop)...The Pansy Division rocks, but tribute albums are lame. Hence, I suck.

8. American Horse -- The Cult (album: Sonic Temple)....Otherwise known as "that Cult album none of the smart kids bought." I, on the other hand, purchased it on tape in the 80's, then repurchased it on CD in the 90's. Advantage: smart kids.

9. Lisa Says -- Lou Reed (album: Lou Reed - Different Times: Lou Reed in the 70's)...You saw this one coming, kids, didtcha?

10. Tomorrow Wendy -- Concrete Blonde (album: Bloodletting)....Ah, yes. The album drama club kids bought to make themselves feel badass when they weren't listening to Billy Joel. Advantage: nobody.

Conclusion: even when I'm cool, I'm lame. I'm sorry my iPod couldn't have risen to the occassion and offered up some Faster Pussycat or Permenant Vacation-era Aerosmith, but I guess the list above will do.

Welcome back, welcome back, welcome back!

2006-10-10T18:52:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I know at some point I was going to write a mission statement about this blog, about how living in DC really DOESN'T suck, and that it's all a matter of finding your place, tapping into a community, and sucking up all the city has to offer, (instead of sitting around and moaning about the metro, about the crime, about the fucked up taxi cab zone system which I can't really defend...at all).

But the fact is, this city is changing and it's changing in ways that I don't like. Forces of gentrification have been at work in this town for years and years and years, but the past three or four have been simply amazing. Back in '98 it was like pulling teeth to try and convince my MoCo friends to come down to 14th and Q to see my band play at the Metro Cafe. They'd talk about going down to Velvet Lounge the way that old soldiers talk about firefights in Vietnam.

To the outsider, that whole U Street/Logan area was pure sketch back then. Fourteenth was all but deserted on a Sunday night. And bad things definitely *could* happen.

But truth be told, my car was only broken into once, and although one of the neighborhood crackheads *did* pull a knife on me as I walked back to my car from the Velvet one night, for the record, it was a butter knife, and for the record, he didn't put much effort into the whole performance.

In fact, the homeless people were always really nice to me down there. (...Kevin, if you're out there and connected to a computer, I hope you're still singing).

I know damn well that the fun of it was that my white suburban friends were afraid to go down there. And perhaps as a white, suburban kid, I was just gentrifying without actually moving in. And perhaps that's just another form of carpetbagging. Perhaps I'm hypociritcal for hating all the seemingly-rich, seemingly-gay white kids who bought up my old playground. And perhaps I'm a big asshole for thinking of that neighborhood -- a place where *generations* of native Washingtonians call home -- as a place I ever had any sort of "ownership" over whatsoever.

At least I recognize it. You can't walk down U street without tripping over a drunk sorrority girl. The Whole Foods on P Street is packed with some self important fuckers who wouldn't dare shop in a Giant. And the sidewalk in front of Halo on a Saturday night? Well, let's just say that boys that pretty wouldn't have lasted long on that street ten years ago. (And perished even faster right around 5th and K....though for different reasons entirely).

My point? I guess that the unfamiliar faces are starting to point to a suddenly unfamiliar neighborhood. And even though I know the neighborhood is safer and cleaner, and that none of the booming establishments in Logan ever could have survived without the newcomers (and yes, this includes my gay peeps, who I admittedly sometimes unfairly target the most for "changing" the face of the hood), sometimes I miss the old neighborhood.

But then, on the way to Starbucks on Saturday morning...

(STARBUCKS? Jesus, why should you even read the rest of this post? "On my way to STARBUCKS Saturday morning"?!?!?" God damn, I suck)....

I saw it: The awning of the new Stoney's!!!!

Stoney's IS old DC. Stoney's is one of the only tried-and-true dive bars the city has ever known. Sure, we've got the Raven and Nanny O'Brien's and the Pharmacy Bar and I guess you can throw Wonderland in there, too. But Stoney's is old school. The place was nicotine yellow and sticky from stale beer years and years before my uncles were having their own happy hours there in the 80's. Redskins memorabelia covered the walls, and cliche fireman's tags hung behind the bar. (Imagine the Chile Harold, then imagine if a clean up crew had never once visited the place). It was cash-only, the food sucked, and the staff did not discriminate - they were rude to absolutely everyone.

I loved Stoney's. I loved sitting on the patio in the summer, I loved grabbing greasy grilled cheese sandwich dinners with my girlfriend there in the winter, and I loved driving by it just as the sun went down -- barely being able to make out the forms of a few broken-down locals and the flicker from the TV behind the smoky windows.

About a year ago, this L Street institution of 35-some years shut it's doors, the victim of rising rents and doubtless fiscal mismanagement (the place kind of always seemed to be barely hanging on).

And now it's back. It's back. On P street. On gay old P Street.

A fucked-up football dive on P Street. I am absolutely the happiest little boy on Connecticut Avenue tonight. Sorry, Argonaut. I have a new place to watch the Skins on Sunday.

Sunday, Sunday, Sunday!

2006-10-09T17:27:00.000-07:00

Sunday, September 24 -- The Woggles, the Fleshtones, The Mooney Suzuki and the Zombies play the Black Cat

Sunday October 1 -- The Vibrators play at the Red and the Black

Sunday September 7 - The Black Cat hosts vintage movies of live concerts of the Stooges and the Dead Boys

Sunday October 15 -- TV on the Radio at the 930 Club

Sunday November 26 -- The New York Dolls and the Supersuckers at the Black Cat

DO YOU SEE A PATTERN HERE?!?!?!?!?!

Fucking hell....I know everyone wants to play NY over the weekend and all, but I've got a job, people!!! How about throwing us a few Friday night shows?

FUCK!

A liltte dinner conversation

2006-09-30T14:38:00.000-07:00

So, Thursday night my girlfriend and I try out Acadiana on NY Ave. Good meal -- FAR better than the Washington Post's review would lead you to believe (the crab dip appetizer was weak, but the duck was out of this world).

One small issue -- the tables are a little close together, perhaps a litle too close for comfort. We realized this about 20 minutes into our meal, when a typically self-important-20-something-Washingtonian group of paralegals takes the table next to us.

Now I'm not the guy who says that Washington breeds douchebags. No way. I know too many cool native Washingtonians and have been friends with too many great people who have lived here for 10+ years to make those kinds of generalizations.

But let's be honest: This town tends to be a magnet for people who think they're too fucking important for New Jersey, for Pennsylvania, for outlying Boston towns (i.e, the whole damn state of Mass), or for whatever place they originally came from. THESE are the people who give Washington a bad name. Washington doesn't TURN them that way, they thought they were special some time around junior year of high school.

And this party of four next to us was EXACTLY who I'm talking about. A selection of quotable quotes from the Carrie Bradshaw wannabes next to us:

- "I NEVER read the news. NEVER. I just can't. I'll read style, I'll read humor, I'll read sports, I'll read the celebrity pages. But NEVER news. I just can't."

- "I buy everything from Ann Taylor or Banana Republic. EVRYTHING. That's where all of my clothes come from."

- Upon consulting her blackberry over dinner: "That little piece of shit! That LITTLE. PIECE. OF SHIT! Who does he think he is, taking my projects? I'm e-mailing the partners right now!"

- "Remember how your mom said I had beautiful skin? I love her!"

And the grand coup:

- "Facials? Manicures? I don't spend that kind of money on myself."

(This line was delivered as the young woman perched her shoeless foot on the sofa across from her...the same sofa my girlfriend was seated on. About 16" inches away from her. As she was eating).

This town attracts some real asses.

Was it something I said?

2006-09-26T20:15:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I posted my 9/11 story, which included a pretty freaky account of an even more freaky dream I had a long time ago, and I was a little afraid of what people would think about said dream when they read it. But I figured, whatever, no one is actually reading this blog anyway, right?

Fucking hell....my page views have doubled since that post....what the hell?

It was a sad day

2006-09-11T19:47:00.000-07:00

I don't see how telling my 9/11 story will make any difference at all. It isn't any different than most people's, and it's far less dramatic or moving than many, many other people's stories. And as Wonkette put it so properly today: NO ONE CARES ABOUT YOUR STORY!

And yet I'm going to take a shot at it, because the fact is that nothing has ever really been the same ever since. And I know I use too many words and I know that I tend to be a drama queen about my feelings, but it's true: Nothing has ever been the same. There has been nothing but bad news for the past five years, and it all seems to go back to that day.

Well, that's only half true.....in a lot of ways it goes back to three weeks before 9/11 when I got dumped by a girl I had no business chasing in the first place. But that's a blog for a different time.

My 9/11 story starts in the wee wee hours of the morning of September the 11th, when I awoke from literally the scariest fucking dream I have ever, EVER had.

Now I'm not trying to pull some Nostradamus shit on you, but the fact is, I has a horrible, guesome, terrifying dream a few hours before the world went bad. The kind of dream where you don't exactly feel relief when you wake up......the kind of dream where you have an awful, awful feeling that something isn't right. And I'm not saying that I knew something was wrong in the world, but I did have a literally sick feeling, that something was wrong in my world.

I know how this looks on paper......and I'm not exactly saying anything, other than it was an odd coincidence. And what sucks is, if I actually tell you about the dream, you'll think I'm full blown bonkers.

In the most abstract terms I can muster, the dream was about a violent conflict between the forces of good and the forces of evil (Heh, I told ya you'd think I was a nutter). But that's not the scary part.

The scary part is that the forces of almighty good and almighty evil were both being played in this dream by recently dead relatives of mine.

***ALL OF THIS SECTION HERE HAS BEEN DELETED. IT'S TOO WEIRD AND NO ONE BELIEVES IT ANYWAY ***

And then, gradually, the form faded away, until it (whatever it was) was reduced to the tall, gaunt silhouette of my grandfather, backlit against a flight of stairs.

He turned and looked at me again, but said nothing. I couldn't make out his face, but he looked impossibly frail, impossibly weak. He looked helpless. Stepping lightly and unsure, he moved towards the stair and disappeared forever.

I awoke with a start, and felt very, very afraid. And this is the God's honest truth: I was certain I had lost another relative.

Somehow I got back to sleep, and awoke some time in the 7:00 hour. I tried to shake off the bad feelings, but driving into work in Rockville that morning, I decided that I needed to check in on a few family members.

Arriving at my office, I dialed my parents while I booted up the computer and waited an unprecedentedly log time for Yahoo to load. My mom answered the phone.

"Hi, it's me.....how are you?"

"Are you watching the news?", she asked.

"No."

Of course, you know the rest.

There are so many odd images I remember from that day. The impossibly crowded roads when I left work in Rockville, around noon. The empty streets in the District as I ventured back home. The empty patio at the closed Starbucks across the street from my old apartment on Newark Street. The Pentagon, still visibly smoking, as I crossed the Key Bridge to visit a friend in Fairfax that night. And the armored military vehicle stationed on a Georgetown street, artillery pointed towards the bridge, as I came back home. The sounds of low-flying helicopters and jets patrolling the skies above Washington, which would continue on for weeks.

Yes, you know the rest.

We're All Gonna Rock to the Rules I Make!

2006-09-10T20:44:00.000-07:00

Ok, yeah, so with the primary election coming up I've really been re-thinking this "despite it all, I really do love DC" thing. But truth be told, the last few years have be a little bewildered. It sure is a big, rich, gay, Carrie-Bradshaw-stepping-stone-to-New-York kinda town lately. And now that I work near Cap Hill, I really do have a better appreciation for why people say that the people and the food sucks here (although i found a decent deli in the basement of Union Station, which was borderline shocking).

Anyway, I can't really be bothered to eleborate on any of these thoughts (although there is a future post in here about the "all of DC is gay and rich and white" because it really is an odd turn of events, and I can't for the life of me determine if it's made the town better, or a whole lot worse. It sure seems pretty damned cultureless these days....)

Anyway, here's another dumb-ass exercise I ripped off someone else's blog. It's like, basically, script the soundtrack to a day in your life.....

Opening credits: Put Your Hands Where My Eyes Can See - Busta Rhymes

Wake Up Scene: We Built This City - Starship

Car Driving Scene: Moby Dick - Led Zeppelin

High School Flashback: Kiss Me Deadly - Lita Ford

Nostalgia Scene: 99 Luftbaloons - Nena

Bitter/Angry Scene: In My Darkest Hour - Megadeth

Breakup Scene: Do What You Gotta Do - Roberta Flack

Regret Scene: You Can't Put Your Arms Around A Memory - Johnny Thunders

Night Club Scene: White Lines - Grandmaster Flash & Melle Melle

Fight/Action Scene: Sick of You - Iggy Pop

Lawn Mowing Scene: Bolero - Ravel

Breakdown Scene: Let It Loose - Rolling Stones

Death Scene: The Devil may Care - Brian Jonestown Massacre

Funeral Scene: Sing Me Back Home - Keith Richards

Pot Scene: Alladin Sane - David Bowie

Dream Sequence: Green - The Dandy Warhols

Sex Scene (Classy and Sophisticated): Win - David Bowie
Sex Scene (Dark and Creppy): Haunted - Type O Negative
Sex Scene (Fucking Hilarious): Ten Seconds to Love - Motley Crue
Sex Scene (Gay): Mother - Danzig

Chase Scene: Cottonmouth Kiss - Grand Champeen

Contemplation Scene: I Loves You, Porgy - Miles Davis

Happy Love Scene: My Best Kept Secret - Longwave

Happy Friend Scene: Rhinoscerous - Jamie Block

Closing Credits: Do You Love Me? - Kiss

Where were you?

2006-08-22T19:07:00.000-07:00

Yeah, yeah - got to do something about how cool DC is and how lame people from Capitol hill are, etc etc.....I'm working on it. In the meantime, here's a project I stole from someone else's blog:

TEN YEARS AGO:

I was just beginning my first job out of college, and I was officially underemployed as a motherfucker. Detailing cars at a dealership that no longer even exists (Silver Spring Auto City), I was working 6 days a week, 10 hours a day, in 90-100 degree heat (DC is hot). The other guys used to like to tease me a lot, cuz I was all college edjumacated but still couldn't quite figure out the nuances of a clockpunch machine. It sucked more than I could ever explain.

I was very much accepting that the victim of a short-lived summer romance, a girl that - for the record - did not even live in the US, was not planning on visiting DC any time soon, and I was grudgingly learning that I was probably not going to (a) see her again (b) get out of my parents house any time soon, or (c) get my money's worth for that diploma quite as quickly as I'd hoped. The prospects of ever having sex again were looking dim. Dim, goddamn it.

I was listening to the Foo Fighters and Lenny Kravit a lotz, and don't tell anyone, but I also was kind of into that Jagged Little Pill album. Yeah, I know, so just don't even say it, ok?

I missed my friends back in Philly a whole lot, and I wasn't really making new ones. And I was a total bama. Bad hair, bad clothes, bad breath.

FIVE YEARS AGO:

Single and independent, I was living in DC alone for the very first time, after a three year stint in my band's roackhaus out in the stix of Montgomery County, MD. I was in an ok band, I knew a lot of artists and musicians, and I could go out pretty much any night of the week assured that I would run into someone that I knew. In retrospect, I was sort of on the fringes on scenesterism and having an awful lot of fun.

I had an ok job at a PR agency; the pay was low, but it was a huge step in the right direction after the auto detailing and various other bottom-basement gigs. Little did I know that I was just about one year away from riding with that company on an excruicating two-year implosion. And that ignorance, in fact, was quite blissful.

Bought a computer. Used it primarily to steal music and look at porn.

I was dating quite a bit - spending time with all sorts of people that I didn't necessarily match with, but who were teaching me an awful lot about myself and about relationships and about women. I think it was quite a watershed time for me, and even though at times I was moping and bitching and generally thinking that I was somehow missing out on all the fun, the truth is that this might have been one of the most fun times of my life. I was my own god in many ways -- I had few responsibilities, few real consequences for my indulgent behavior, and a lot of time on my hands.

ONE YEAR AGO:

Re-emerging from that two year slump that I mentioned before. Re-emerging from what seemed like near financial ruin. Re-emerging from frightening health scares. Re-emerging from maddening musical celibacy since 2002. Miserable at work, but unbelieveably happily monogomous, smarter and more mature than I ever thought I could be. Another job, another apartment. I have a goddaughter named Molly and a neice named Bridget. Molly reminds me of my very first memories of my little brother, and that thought still gives me strange and wonderful, yet vaguely sad, feelings every time I examine it.

YESTERDAY:

Got up and worked out in the morning for the first time in years. Critically addicted to coffee. Musically celibate once again. Same girl, same apartment, more roaches. New office, new company, still kind of miserable at work. Complaining more, but finding fewer things to complain about. This computer is dying on me.

Dear DC-101

2006-08-07T20:41:00.000-07:00

Ok, I know I said I'd get a mission statement or some such crap on this blog sooner or later, and I promise it'll have something contrarian about how life in DC doesn't really suck, and how all the local resident aren't *all* douchebags. I just need some time to, um, make my case.

In the meantime, I need to get something off my chest. I know DC rock radio has kind of sucked for a long time. I'm not going to be one of those dickheads that tells you that "I listened to HFS back when it was actually alternative", because, well, I didn't.

Oh, my brother did...but I was too busy listening to the Scorpions to have time for that alternative college music crap. And when I wasn't listening to German hair metal, I was probably listening to Led Zep and lecturing people about how the Cure sucked. See, I was pretty progressive and open minded that way.

But I did listen to DC-101. DC-101 was bad-ass back in the 80s. They had Howard Stern in the mornings (which I was absolutely forbidden to listen to....since I was seven years old) and they played a lot of Billy Idol and the Stones and vaguely dangerous sounding music for a sheltered pre-pre-teen.

In fact, I remember, in great detail, being a youngster and watching one of the neighborhood teenagers get into his car one summer night, wearing a super-dooper tight, early 80's style yellow tee, with a big black old fashioned DC-101 logo on it -- you know the logo, the same outdated one with the lightning bolt that I believe hangs over Connecticut Ave today, down around Farragut North.

I looked at that kid, and I thought....DC-101? That dude is fucking cool.

Over the years, though, DC-101 has taken suckage to new heights. That Elliot in the Morning dude was pretty cute for a year or two back in 1999/2000, but not even his hyena ramblings about the Caps and Kegs and Eggs or whatever can compare to the suckage that is DC-101's programming.

And so I give you my open letter to DC-101.

Dear DC-101,

Listen, we all know that the world has pretty much sucked ever since 9/11.

Seriously, we understand...Enron, Worldcom, the recession, the war in Iraq, the London bombings, the motherfucking land-grab/housing boom in D.C., American Idol. To quote Mark Renton, "It's a shite state of affairs, and all the fresh air in the world won't make a bit of difference."

Things aren't what they used to be, that's for damned sure.

But that's no reason to freeze your playlists from September 10th, 2001.

There's actually been, a lot of good music made in the past five years. And I know some people get a warm and fuzzy feeling from listening to "Interstate Love Song" and "Machinehead" and "Evenflow" every single night on the way home from work, but the fact is, that is what God made iPods for.

You've turned a once proud place on the dial into a classic rock station for the 30-something crowd. It's disgraceful. Go ahead, flip the dial to 101.1. I'll wait.

What's playing? Yes, that's Collective Soul. And yes, you had to take a moment to remember their name. That's because they disappeared sometime about 5 years ago, and DC-101 IS THE ONLY STATION THAT KNOWS WHERE TO FIND THEM.

Get with it, you 30-year-old frat boys. You're an embarrassment.

And, no, playing the new NIN single doesn't count. That fucker's been writing the same song since 1995.

If you could just bear with me for a moment

2006-08-01T20:20:00.000-07:00

Ok, so like four months ago, i woke up, drunk, in my folks' house (I was dog-sitting) and realized I was the not-so-proud new father of a blog.

Fucking hell....a blog. A blog with a really fucking lousy title, and an even harder one to type (and I'm in marketing). Double fucking hell.

Anyway, I might as well accept it and start blogging. It's been months, and I do have an excuse or two....In fact, I did forgot my own password. I even tried an entry or two in Word, only to find out that there appears to be no goddamn cut-and-paste feature here (if anyone knows otherwise, please clue me in, ok?). And, you know, I really am kind of busy and didn't bother to think through what the theme of this blog was gonna be (something about living Washington D.C., but I'll be damned if I can remember what).

Ok, so just hang in there and I'll get started on some weak-ass personal diary pretty soon. I promise. Based on the four visitors who have stumbled upon this site in recent months, I don't think anyone will mind.....

well, great. juuuust great.

2006-04-22T20:34:00.000-07:00

So, now I've got a blog. Wonderful. One more example of how I've turned into everything i used to hate. Consider:

1. I have grey hair and a gym membership
2. I go to punk clubs despite not having been in a band for years.
3. I listen to NPR....a lot.
4. I spend lots of money and free time at Starbucks.
5. I fanatically defend the Dichord philosophy.
6. I vote Democratic. (I'm not sorry, but it still feels weird).
7. I have a fucking iPod.
8. I whine about it every time I have to go into the suburbs.
9. I lecture people about how they don't know shit about D.C.
10. I have a fucking blog.

I guess at some point I'll find a way to be more annoying and self important, but at the time being, this is a good start.

What have I become......?