Hello World

It's Restaurant Week here in DC, which means that lots of really good (and expensive restaurants) are opening their doors to the unwashed masses, offering $20.05 three-course lunches (dinners) and $30.05 three-course dinners (suppers). This is my favorite time of year (they do it once each summer and once each winter), and a rare opportunity for me to convince friends that they should tuck a shirt in and meet me at one of the many classy joints whose menu I've never sampled.

( Click on to read my reviews so far )

Tonight I'm going to Tosca Ristorante, one of DC's very best Italian restaurants. I've been there once before, for lunch, and really enjoyed it, so I'm excited to wrap up Restaurant Week here. My tentative plan:

• First Course: Insalata di ruchetta con scaglie di Parmigiano e olio di frantoio al limone
  Baby arugola salad with shaved parmesan cheese and extra virgin-lemon oil
• Main Course: Costine di maiale brasate con purea di patate all'aglio, biete all'agro e salsa di spugnole
  Slowly cooked pork ribs (off the bone) with roasted garlic potato puree, sautéed Swiss chard and morel mushroom sauce
• Dessert: Granita all'anguria
  Organic watermelon granita - Italian ice

Should be good.

Some jerk's trying to rename 16th St. in DC "Ronald Reagan Boulevard." This was first reported by my internet friend Catherine at DCist, and then the Post picked it up today without naming DCist in the story. That's lame, but not as lame as the horrific idea by South Texas Rep. Henry Bonilla, of totally screwing up DC's street naming conventions and costing the district $1 million it can't afford to waste. Said Mayor Anthony Williams, with whom I don't often agree: "It's been a long time since I've heard of a plan that made so little sense. . . . Changing the unique and beautifully mapped street system in Washington would mean undoing . . . a design that has inspired millions of people from around the world." Just another example of why DC would be better off with home rule.

The New York Civil Liberties Union has sued New York City over the egregious and reprehensible (not to mention essentially useless) random bag searches in the subway. The best point made in the article, is that the searches are almost completely ineffective--if you are approached to be searched, you can just turn around and leave. Because anyone with a bomb would do that, this ensures that the only people who are subjected to the inconvenience of a search are those who are innocent of any wrongdoing. It's as stupid and pointless as confiscating swiss army knives at airports (I'm sorry, but if you think that the no-utility-blades rule is preventing terrorism you're crazy/deluded--and don't get me started on the prohibition of lighters, scissors, and nail trimmers).
(related links from this blog: My first rant on the subject and my favorite response to the situation.)

This country is so absurd!

At the end of last night's Thievery Corporation show (link to my review forthcoming), they brought about two dozen girls up on stage to dance (or, in some cases, gyrate wildly and hope nobody notices their lack of rhythm). This is what it looked like:

I went to see Reel Big Fish play the 9:30 club last night. It was pretty fun, and for the most part they put on a good show, but I have a few criticisms:

First of all, they have a new trombonist (or at least new since I last saw them a couple years back), and he sucks. He can handle the basic rhythm horn stuff, but whenever asked to solo or perform anything complicated, he basically throws up an airball. For a band so dependent on tight horn hooks, that is a Very Bad Thing.

Second of all, the band seemed pretty disjointed. They had to start a bunch of songs over after screwing up their cues, and although they are very funny and clever about covering up for that stuff, it's still annoying--especially considering this band has been touring more or less nonstop for 10 years.

Finally, this show demonstrated that I am just too old for punk rock. At a Sunday night show, violent masses of young men in various states of undress threw themselves at the stage and each other unceasingly for 3 or 4 hours. Kids unironically wore hilarious crap and silly coifs. People skanked around. Almost nobody was old enough to be drinking beer. Meanwhile, I stood on the balcony and alternated between quietly bouncing to the music and self-consciously laughing at the dumb shit I saw going on in the crowd. I remember when I was in high school, we used to go to the 9:30 club for shows like this. Although I was never a fan of moshing (I wasn't ever what one might call "robust") I was right there in it, nonetheless, jumping around and acting like a moron speedfreak. Now look at me. I'm old. It was a bizarre realization to come to while listening to songs about high school alienation and the politics of selling out.

But when it comes down to it, it doesn't really matter. I was a rabid RBF sycophant for a few high school years and have gotten a lot of happiness out of their music since then. They're fun, they don't condescend to their mostly-young-and-stupid fanbase, and they are unrelenting in their efforts to rock hard. So you know what? It was still awesome. I'll be at their next show, with earplugs and nostalgia at the ready.

( Here be pictures )

I saw this on my lunch break yesterday.

After work, I went to the 9:30 Club to see Ted Leo & the Pharmacists play a sold-out show. ( Here's what I thought: )

D.C. Schools Closing Early For Heat

It's going to be a scorcher out there today -- the hottest day of the year so far, and public schools in the District are closing early to beat the heat.

The National Weather Service issued a heat advisory for the entire Washington metropolitan area from noon until 6 p.m. today. Temperatures will be in the mid-90s, according to the weather service, but coupled with high humidity, the heat index will make it feel more like it's in the 100-degree-plus range.

Yeah, it's really hot.

It is so hot here that there is no way to get to work in the morning without my back and neck getting sweaty. So hot that my stupid forehead perspires for another 10 minutes even after I finally get to my air-conditioned office. So hot that I've been on a two-showers-per-day schedule for a week. So hot that I'm seriously trying to figure out if there's any guy's business casual outfit with no sleeves.


It's days like today that I feel serious antipathy for the politicians who chose to set our nation's capital in a buggy, humid, sodden marsh. Why couldn't we set our foreign policy from San Diego, or Honolulu? Or, better yet, why not have a summer capital (Bangor, perhaps) and a winter capital (Phoenix has a lot of nice golf courses, I hear)?

But there is good news:

Experts predict temperatures will retreat Wednesday and Thursday, and humidity will lessen as well. And by Friday, they expect a high only in the low 70s.

So that's nice. Just one more reason to look forward to the weekend.

Update: I'm sure that, wherever you are, it's much hotter and more uncomfortable than DC. So just take that as axiomatic and skip the part where you tell me so. Thanks!

( Here are a few pictures from my weekend: )

Yesterday, I met a couple of friends in Adams Morgan for dinner. It was warm, and there was a vendor on the street selling water-ice (sort of sorbet-ish stuff), so after we ate we stopped and picked up a few cups. My friends got tamarind/mango and mango/coconut, and I got RAINBOW. Rainbow, to be fair, is less a flavor and more a color scheme, so I guess the best description of what kind I got would be sucrose.

Anyway, we were walking with our water-ices, and after a while a bunch of mine had melted into a mufti liquid subsuming a rapidly-diminishing mound of pale sugary ice. I decided to get rid of the sweet ichor, and started to pour it onto the sidewalk, when suddenly a voice cried out, "No!"

The plaintive yell came from a woman in pink--dry hair like old wheat, faded skin, a trace of a moustache perched jauntily above her sashimi lips. Possibly a transvestite, almost definitely a drug-addled shell. I was confused, but thought that perhaps she was upset with me for wasting food.

"I'm still eating it, just getting rid of the melted part," I explained.

"Give me it," she said, holding her hand out, palm up, expectantly.

"No, I still want the ice. I'm pouring out the liquid."

"I know. Give me the liquid."

I looked at her, dubious. "You want the liquid?" She nodded, her animal desire for melted sugar-water gleaming in her glassy eyes. "Well, all right."

I tipped the cup, my spoon poised just above its rim as a sieve. Blood-red fluid streamed down into her palm, and after a few seconds she said, "okay, that's enough." I stopped pouring, and she walked away, her hand still in front of her like she held the holy communion. Although I don't believe any translation of the New Testament suggests that melted street desserts can be a part of Christ's transubstantiation.

We walked the other way, to sit on the porch and drink some beer while the fireflies did their thing.

Just another day in our nation's capital.

George Bush was asked what he thought about extending the FCC's oversight and/or standards to cable and satellite television. His response was interesting, because it betrayed a complete lack of thinking and yet accidentally included the smartest thing anyone has ever said about this issue.

First, the smart part. He said that the ultimate and most effective way of dealing with unacceptable content is to turn the TV off. This is a consumer economy--vote with your remote control dollars. On the one hand, no shit. On the other hand, I don't think I've heard a single politician say anything along these lines before.

Then, he went on to say something dumb. He said, of course it's up to parents to make sure their kids aren't seeing anything inappropriate, and the government should do what it can to help them, and if that means standards, well then there should be standards for cable and satellite television. Unfortunately, he didn't clarify what he meant, so I don't know for SURE that he just said that he was in favor of FCC oversight in these areas. It's possible he just meant something along the lines of movie ratings or whatever (which would still be stupid, but not offensively so).

I wish he had stuck with the reasonable argument that people who don't like what's on TV should just turn it off, because that is emminently sensible and in fact the only way to convince a business to change the way it is doing business is to make it more profitable to do so.

He also said a lot of other things that ranged from evasion to empty patriotism to demagoguery, and he was very charismatic and likeable. It's hard to remember that you disagree with him on so many of his policies when he is making funny jokes (until you realize that the punchline of one of the jokes is that a reporter in the press pool ought to be locked up. Ha ha ha... hmmm. Not really all that funny!).


Lunch today was ceaaesar salad, followed by decent steak with potatoes au gratin, green beans, carrots, and an adorable little crab cake on the side. Dessert was a decadent pastry shell filled with sweet cream and fruit. Not bad--I guess they go all out for POTUS.

This review of a.k.a. Friscos dredges up some of my most positive memories. This was the cool place to get lunch when I was in high school here in DC (longer ago than I can really believe). These days, now that sandwich shops are the next big thing, a place like a.k.a. Frisco’s doesn’t stand out that much, but back then my other lunch options were the school cafeteria (like, omg, tater tots again????), Popeye’s, and McDonalds. There was the bagel shop, too, but that was really more of a place to smoke cigarettes while skipping study hall.

It felt like being an adult, leaving campus, strolling right past the kids waiting for their super value meals, and sauntering into a real lunch place, frequented by grown-ups. They had fancy sodas, like IBC root beer and Orangina, and baked potatoes and side salads. They had tables in the back where people on lunch breaks from the Fannie Mae Foundation (pre-scandal) would sit, talking about more important things than how hard the next day’s bio test would be.

I remember being astounded by the exotic sandwich names, taken from San Francisco landmarks and neighborhoods: the Alcatraz, the Nob Hill, and my personal favorite, the Presidio. California was far away, and as mysterious as Oz--I knew it existed, and had my own ideas about the specifics, but when it came down to it I saw it as a land of free spirits and counterculture. Those place names were just empty signifiers to me, like “Arabia,” or “solipsism,” and I gave the allure of their geographic and cultural distance free rein. I imagined wandering around Haight-Ashbury, tie-dyed, pot-addled hippies holding hands and singing songs of freedom and love. Curvy hills stretching up and up, obscuring the horizon with townhouses and a neverending stream of streetcars. Professors in Berkeley and flaming homosexuals, corduroy-coats with elbow patches coexisting peacefully with leather chaps and G.I. Joe moustaches.

Of course, a lot has changed for me since then. I’ve been to California, even lived there for a while, and saw my (in retrospect) ridiculous expectations fall to the wayside, only to be replaced by more subtle and far more fascinating realities. I’ve taken up and given up bad habits, I’ve flown across an ocean to walk on ancient ground, I’ve read books written centuries before I was born. I’ve made great friends and lost them. At some point I became an adult, I suppose, for lack of a more meaningful term. I’m pretty sure there aren’t any adults who really feel like they’re all grown up, though, and probably that realization is the best indication that I’m not a kid anymore.

I miss the days when I could walk down the block to a sandwich shop and enter another world, and the days when this kind of crap sounded like real profundity.

If you've spent any length of time in DC in the last 20 years (especially in the '90s), you're familiar with WHFS, the perennial "slightly-less-mainstream alternative rock" radio station that has been the only decent alternative to DC101, the seriously corporate rock station that hasn't played anything interesting in my lifetime. WHFS was pretty well known for throwing the WHFStival, an annual rock show with a dozen or so popular artists all playing. Pretty typical, KROQ in LA does it too, so do lots of other stations. But this is the one I went to in high school.

Today WHFS's parent company, Infinity, ignominiously switched the station to a spanish-language format. "The station will play a mixture of Salsa, Merengue and Bachata, targeting adults 25-54."

This format change was unannounced and caught a lot of people by surprise. Most of them had a reaction along the lines of "yeah, it used to be awesome, but it has sucked for a while and I don't listen to it anymore." I guess I feel that way, too (although I don't really know if it sucked--I just don't listen to the radio these days). It's just another chance to realize that things I expected to always be around are ephemeral.

Anyway, that sucks. It reminds me of when I was in middle school (or maybe younger) when a really great station (105.1, as I recall) switched to a Christian format. Boy, that blew me away. In comparison to this WHFS affair, that was catastrophic, because I did listen to the radio, back then--desperately waiting for the newest Vanilla Ice, Richard Marx, or Roxette single to play for the 4th time of the night, my finger poised above the REC button on my tapedeck, working on the perfect mix tape.

Kids today just don't understand. And they never will.

Well, it looks like DC should be getting baseball. The city council approved a deal for a new stadium, which had been the roadblock preventing the Nationals (the ex-Expos) from moving to our nation's capital. But, you know, it's not over until the fat lady sings, something nobody bothered to tell this guy:

"This is a great day for baseball and Washington," said William N. Hall of the D.C. Sports and Entertainment Commission. "There's nothing else that can go wrong. This is it. We've done it."

The greeks have a word for statements like that. I wouldn't count any chickens at this point--MLB has to approve, too, and we kinda pissed them off recently.

Nonetheless, I'm hopeful that my new hat will not be retro-cool any time soon.

Washington DC is not home to too many culinary specialties, but on the 18th Street stretch of Adams Morgan in the wee hours of weekend evenings you can find something special: Jumbo Slice. It's many things--at its simplest, it's an 18 inch long slice of greasy, floppy, cheesy pizza, served on two paper plates. But, more than that, it's an opportunity for extremely intoxicated revelers to gather and, often, grapple clumsily and noisily. It's also the nexus of a bitter, cutthroat competition between three purveyors of the (gulp) 1,309 calorie wedge. And there's still another dimension to the Jumbo Slice phenomenon--the antipathy held by Adams Morgan residents toward the pizzerias:

When bars and clubs become a nuisance, residents can force owners into line by threatening to withhold their support for a liquor-license renewal. But when it comes to the pizza joints, none of which serve liquor, the residents hold no bureaucratic aces up their sleeves. Essentially, the pizza places reap all the benefits of a nightlife business without being held to the same standards. "We can hold up against bars because of the [alcoholic-beverage] commission," says Bryan Weaver, also a neighborhood commissioner. "But there's no Shitty Sauce Commission where we can go and say, 'Hey, these guys are making bad pizza.'"

Learn all about it in the Washington City Paper.

A relatively new blog, DCist, is about (mostly) the non-political side of DC. It's part of the -ist family of blogs (LAist, Gothamist, and, uh, I don't know--GreenBayist?). Anyway, it's of little-to-no interest if you aren't in or from DC, I imagine, but if you're a local it is a decent resource.

And for those of you not keeping score, 4 weeks and 1 day until the first episode of the second season of the best television show to feature a guy sleeping with his ex-girlfriend's mom, who also sleeps with her daughter's boyfriend's best friend's grandfather, who is ALSO her own best friend's father. Also, the nerdy kid is going to sail from Southern California to, like, the Phillipines, in a 10 foot sail boat. And he's not coming back. Delicious. My OC posts are going to increase in frequency over the next 30 days until they and I converge in a sickening orgy of enthusiasm the likes of which the internet has not seen since, well, last season. So prepare yourselves for that.