When Jakob Dylan and the Wallflowers (recently sans Rami Jaffee) took the stage at the 9:30 last night, it was the first time they’d been on tour in two years, and the first time in DC in nearly four. It was pretty clear that they’d not been on stage in a while, but it didn’t show in the music, just the pacing. Long breaks were frequent between the songs, as Dylan tuned one of about six guitars he played during the evening. When he noted some restlessness from the near-capacity crowd, he explained he didn’t use electronic tuning, which seem to mollify the crowd.

It was a great show, overall. Dylan’s vocals were fresh, yet full of a rasp that was not borne of fatigue but rather a unique part of his genetic heritage. The songs were all heartfelt and sincere, Dylan’s voice could lend Happy Birthday a degree of gravitas usually reserved for songs of triumph or mourning. The highlight of the night for me, though, was Fred Eltringham on the drums. The man’s just have a good time. Not in that kinda-creepy Mick Fleetwood way, though, but in more of an “I love my job and everything that comes with it” sort of way. New guitarist Stuart Mathis was simply amazing last night, with a virtuoso’s touch on lead guitar, with soaring melodic solos that were not mere approximations of the studio versions, but added depth and character to the live performance. I don’t go for the jam band philosophy of rock concerts where each song should be 20 minutes long, featuring lengthy solos based on jazz reinterpretations of the cuban cover of the song, it doesn’t work for me. Mathis’ excellent solos captured the essential character of the songs without straying too far afield into the land of the jam band, from whence many concerts do not recover.

The set was a mélange of their catalog, featuring tracks from Red Letter Days, Bringing Down the Horse and Rebel, Sweetheart, but nothing indicated that they’re headed back to the studios for a fifth album, which was a bit of a disappointment. In contrast to the Killers show I saw this summer, the Wallflowers show was entirely business like. There was no set. There were no antics. Just a band getting up and rocking out. It was just what I was looking for, and just what I got. I left the 9:30 with my ears ringing with the last chord (as they still are this morning), and looking forward to their next stop in DC.

Two final notes from the show:

1. Dear TR Kidd & the Visions. Please consider going back to your day jobs. If you don’t have day jobs, please look into them. Your opening set last night was quite possibly the worst live music performance I’ve ever seen.

2. Dear guy behind us who was totally rocking out. I respect your enthusiasm for the show last night. I recognize that you likely worship the man’s entire catalogue, but that was no reason for you to gratuitously shout “WOOO!” in quiet moments. Also, the Night at the Roxbury dance routine was entirely uncalled for.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

photo courtesy of Aphrodite

It’s easy to be cynical about people in this city, whether because they have a wide stance, like to chat up the wrong people online, or just in general seem selfish in their behavior. I’m finding that taking mass transit is instead exposing me to people’s little courtesies and kindnesses, and they put my day off to a good start. Maybe they’ll improve yours.

A few minutes into my journey on the bus, a woman got on who clearly wasn’t used to taking it and lacked the proper change. The bus driver was being kind but firm with her and someone sitting near the front said “here, I have change.” She didn’t in fact, have full change for the woman’s fiver – she just had the necessary change to pay the woman’s fare. She refused to take the $5 in exchange for 75 cents – which would have been a sizable ROI – and told her not to worry about it.

A wee later, another fellow stopped what he was reading, leaned forward and waved at someone sitting down and across from him. “You dropped something there.” Not a great sacrifice, not even as much as giving away $0.75, but a small and basic courtesy he could have failed to do never the less.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

I am headed out to San Francisco the first week of November for my new job. Since I am a Premier Executive on United, I automatically get an Economy Plus upgrade and 9,500 frequent flyer miles.

But with the new Virgin America flights from IAD to SFO, I am willing to experiment. But only to a point. My boss wants me to be productive for the five hour flight over and the Betrothed Butterbean wants me to be productive when I get back Saturday morning so I have two deal-breakers to a switch:

• I need to work the whole flight to SF, and this means using a laptop. On UA’s Economy Plus seat, I can get my T60 open and have room to type in a semi-comfortable fashion. I also often can get exit rows or first rows due to status.
• I take red eyes back to IAD and I know I can usually sleep a few hours in a UA EP seat at the window. The recline pitch is just enough and the flexible headrests keep me from neck aches.

Now I don’t care for the inflight entertainment, work and sleep are higher priorities, and my laptop batteries will last a whole flight, so the Virgin America inflight games, electrical plugs, and even snacks on call are not decision points.

So that makes me ask those who have flown Virgin America:

1. Can you use a laptop in a VA main cabin seat?
2. Does the VA seat experience allow for decent shut-eye?
3. And is the $25 extra for an exit row or first isle seat worth it?

Bonus if you can compare your Virgin America experience with United’s Economy Plus.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Why anyone would open up their house for the public to walk through is beyond me, but I’m sure glad they do it. If you’ve never been to one of DC’s house tours they are a great way to spend a Sunday afternoon. They give you a chance to see inside many of the homes you walk by every day. Sometimes they are surprisingly nice, other times they are a big disappointment, but overall it is a great chance to take in some history of the area and even get some decorating ideas for your own home.

So if you don’t have any plans this Sunday, be sure to check out the Dupont Circle House Tour from noon to 5pm. Unfortunately the DCCA’s website doesn’t list the homes on this year’s tour, but in years past there have been amazing places like the O Street Mansion. Tickets are $25 in advance and $30 on the day of the tour. Check here for a list of places to purchase tickets.

See you there!

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Wayan’s DC Photos

Coming back to the office after a morning errand run, look what I found occupying my office sidewalk: a fire drill party.

With a week’s warning, the drill was not unexpected and the timing was not bad either. In fact its a great excuse to go for lunch.

What do you do for your Fire Drill Party Time?

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Show me a person who hasn’t had a blood-boiling experience with Comcast and I’ll show you a person who has never had cable TV. Whether they’ve screwed up your bill, showed up five hours late for a service call, or taken three visits to actually fix your problem, their quality of customer service is at the bottom of every industry.

Let’s say for example that Comcast scheduled an appointment to come by your house for an installation, didn’t show up, came by two days later, then botched the installation. You decide to go to the local Comcast service center to complain, patiently wait two hours, only to be told that the manager has left for the day. What would you do?! What would you do?! Stop! Hammertime.

That’s exactly what little ol’ Mona Shaw of Bristow decided to do as she went home and stewed over the weekend, got her husband’s claw hammer, and went back to the service center to let them know who’s boss. According to today’s Washington Post article:

“Hammer time: Shaw storms in the company’s office. BAM! She whacks the keyboard of the customer service rep. BAM! Down goes the monitor. BAM! She totals the telephone. People scatter, scream, cops show up and what does she do? POW! A parting shot to the phone!”

She claims that her blood pressure skyrocketed, she started to hyperventilate, and was ultimately booked by Johnny Law. She was fined $345 and received a three month suspended sentence for disorderly conduct. Poor little ol’ lady. While I don’t think busting office equipment with a hammer is the solution to every problem, kudos to her for letting her voice – and her hammer – be heard.

Photo by yoganerd

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

photo courtesy of atp_tyreseus

If you can’t think of anything more fun than lurching around the District, covered in bits of gray matter and blood, menacing tourists, then, well, [Representative Ron Paul joke redacted] the upcoming zombie lurch is for you.

Pour on the red paint, tear up your clothing, re-enact the zombie dance from Thriller, then walk shamble around the city. Yep, dance.

First, to kick off the event, we invite folks to “Thrill The World!” Starting at 6:00PM sharp, people around the planet will be dancing the same routine to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” in an attempt to break the Guinness World Record for the most people to do the same dance, simultaneously & world-wide!

Sadly, my darling girlfriend won’t have the opportunity to veto our attending this event – we’ve got an art show in Dupont at Church of the Pilgrim that day. If you’re free and pride-impaired, put on your best food coloring & corn syrup and go for a walk stumble. If it’s 1/10th the fun of Santarchy it’ll be a good time.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Ingrid Michaelson, singer/songstress, is performing at lunch at the Borders at 18th & L Streets at 12:30 tomorrow. So, if you’re not packed with lunch, go by and see her perform. If you’ve seen Grey’s Anatomy, or caught anything with an Old Navy ad lately, you’ve heard her voice, and tomorrow you can see her down at the Borders.

Or, you could see her open at the 9:30 club tomorrow at 5p. I’ll be at the 9:30, but for the Wallflowers show that opens at 10. Tomorrow’s going to be an awesome day for music here in DC, check some of it out.¹

¹ Not that every day in DC isn’t an awesome day for music, but tomorrow is especially so.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Will the Taxi Zones really die so easily? I’m not sure they will. I can see a potential taxi-strike, or maybe some sort of peculiar form of passive protest? Then again, how would you know if your cab driver was being a jerk to you because of the meters he’s had to take over, or because he’s a nutjob with a crappy-ass cab?

It’s really going to be hard to tell if they take up the passive protest route. I suppose a court challenge isn’t out of the realm of possibilities, but I look forward to seeing what’s next. Mayor Fenty has said “he has no idea how much the transition will cost or what the timetable will be,” according to the Washington Post, which is a bit of a bummer. I was hoping to see a drop-dead date today for the changeover, but I suspect now they’ll have to standardize the fare rates, not to mention settle on a meter platform, and get them installed in taxis. So, I think the death of the taxi zone is probably still at least 9 months off, and probably closer to a year given the District’s proclivity toward taking a good amount of time to do anything.

Now, if we could just make cabbies sit for The Knowledge in DC…

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

photo courtesy of Zoom zoom

You’ll be seeing these in cabs here in DC before long – WTOP is reporting that Fenty has approved scrapping the existing zone system and going to meters based on time and distance. Personally I think it’s a wash, though lots of people have strong feelings on the matter.

I’ll just be happy if they don’t put in any goddamned TVs.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

The Geek Comedy Tour 3000 (“Comedy that knows Han shot first”) is coming to Arlington next weekend with a show on Saturday, October 27th at the Comedy Spot in Ballston.

No, I’m not on the Tour (and in fact, I notice a startling lack of female geeks on the tour- what’s up with that?), but I’ve caught a number of the Geeks as they’ve performed around the area and am confident to say that if you like comics who read comics, this is the show for you.

Tickets are $15 at the door, but the GCT3K site has instructions for getting your tickets two-for-one. So much comedy! So little money! You’d be crazy not to go.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Rolling around in the back of a New York City taxi on Monday, look what I saw in the backseat: a live TV monitor beaming back at me.

Now wouldn’t it be cool to have a TV in the backseat of a DC taxicab? A TV system that can show you location on a real-time city map, can give you a Zagat restaurant reviews when you’re hungry, and best of all, offer a direct conduit to the DC Taxicab Commission?

But this cool wiz-bang technology isn’t coming to DC if we stay with zones. There’s no impetus for psycho taxi drivers to add electronics if they can zone gouge with taxi fares based on invisible lines and crap maps.

I join Max in calling on Mayor Adrian Fenty to step in where the DC Taxicab Commission is too chicken-shit to tread. Fenty, let Senator Levin’s requirement come to pass.

Give us meters in DC cabs!

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

At the car wash

Originally uploaded by tbridge.

One of the things I grew to depend on was the frequent rainstorms in the late summer and early fall, but with a drought in progress, it’s hard to get the grime off without hitting the carwash and either paying something like $15 to get it done nicely, or paying $5 for a creaky gas station carwash, where things may go awry.

There seems to be little middle ground in terms of a good wash that doesn’t cost a ton of money. I know some of the downtown area parking garages offer detailing service, but how do you know which ones to trust? I felt good doing it at my office in Columbia Square, but not so much the office on Thomas Circle. While I’m sure Wayan would rather the only Cars we dealt with be the work of front man Ric Ocasik (whom I recently learned married Paulina Poriskova! How the hell did THAT happen?!), the rest of us who can’t rely on mass transit need a place to wash up.

Where are you getting your car washed?

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Tomorrow, Mayor Fenty has to make a decision between keeping the existing crappy zone system for taxis or requiring them to begin using meters like they do in every other major city. If he fails to make a decision, legislation by Senator Carl Levin (D-Mich.) will make the choice for him and require meters to be installed in all cabs.

According to the Washington Post, “81 percent of frequent riders rated the city’s cabs as fair or poor” and are generally in favor of doing away with the zone system. It’s hard to argue with those numbers, but it’s easy to argue with a cab driver when he says a 5 minute trip will cost you $13 because it’s rush hour and there is a gas surcharge and the moon is full.

As you have probably guessed, I’m also in favor of installing meters in cabs. Sure, it won’t always work out in your favor, but at least you know you’re being treated fairly and the driver isn’t picking a fare out of thin air. The drivers of course are protesting this change because they’ll more than likely see a decline in income, but I say welcome to the real world where you have to play by the rules.

If anyone has any arguments for the zone system I’d love to hear them, but in my opinion, Fenty has an easy decision to make.

Photo by zeul

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Wayan’s DC Photos

Just check out this super cute carport I found in Petworth.

Perfect for a Sicon or a Mini, it is tiny. Perfect for an alley, its tucked against the house. Perfect for everyone, it has a porch on top, doubling its use.

One thing its not perfect for is a big annoying SUV. And I think that almost alone makes it perfect for DC.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Today’s OMGWTFBBQ-it’s-the-Hill story comes to you via Jezebel:

Our Democrat friend wears Chuck Taylors and jeans to the Russell Building when Congress is in recess, no questions asked. But our Republican pal is not so lucky! Just last week, she was pulled aside by a supervisor and debriefed as to the ins-and-outs of Grand Old Party dressing. Open toe-shoes are a no-go, as are jeans. Heels are mandatory at all times. But most bizarre is the “pantyhose policy.”

Basically, pantyhose must be worn every day, she was told. Even in the summertime? Oh yes, and “no exceptions.” Well, what about pantsuits? “Well, I suppose you can wear them,” the supervisor sighed, “But you are going to need to check with the Senator herself whether or not you will need to wear hose under pants, as well. I’m not entirely sure of the Senator’s stance on pantsuits at this time.”

Yep, we still haven’t left the 50’s and 60’s in some offices at the Hill. Heaven forfend that people might work in some semblance of comfort. Wait, before you ask it, yeah, I know what it feels like to wear pantyhose, as any swimmer worth their salt will do post shave-and-taper to simulate extra drag. They’re kinda itchy.

I’ll let you wager your own guesses as to which of the Senators this was, I have no idea myself, but I have a few guesses. Every day I walk by tons of people in full “business” dress, and glad that I don’t have to abide by their rules anymore.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Autumn begins in Clarendon

Originally uploaded by tbridge.

Walking to lunch today, there was something in the air that’s been oddly lacking in Fall so far. Maybe it was the smell of dry leaves and fresh mulch, or maybe it was golden leaves and the rustling in the breeze, I’m not all that sure.

I’ve been enjoying the return of soup to the lunch menu of my favorite haunts, back from its summer hiatus. The colder evenings are just begging for chilis and chowders and soups, and this weekend we took the time to make the first batch of pasta e fagiole, and this week will bring the first batch of clam chowder (new england, not manhattan), and have me thinking about brining a turkey before too much longer.

I’m sure we’ll be seeing stew weather before too much longer, even if the forecast still holds nothing but warmth for the week.

What are you missing from your menu so far this Fall?

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

In going through the gyrations to complete my move, I’m handling getting my tax and sticker settled up with Arlington county. Ah, what a joy. Can anyone explain to me why they don’t just have the stickers and the property taxes on the same schedule? Or better yet, why the Treasurer’s office speaks to you like you’re a slow child when you call them with a question about stickers? After all, they have details about the stickers on their own web page, next to their contact information. If that’s not a sign to call them, what is?

What I really wanted to mention to you, however, is that they’ve also been so kind as to provide meddling busybodies a welcome tool as well. Notice a car parked on your street who isn’t handing their $24 to the county? Then report them from the comfort of your own home! (Tom, check to see if it’s iPhone compatible – maybe you can even do it on site!)

My favorite bit is the box to tell them the owner’s name, if you know it. If you’re driving an out-of-state (or even county) car you’d better think twice about pissing off Ms Jacobs down the road…

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Annie Leibovitz is an icon of modern photography. Building her career from scratch, she has become one of the most recognized, sought after, and important photographers in the world. Over the span of her career she has photographed countless celebrities including Demi Moore, Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio, Al Pacino, Robert Dinero, and Scarlett Johansson. She has worked for such magazines as Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair, and Vogue and created ad campaigns for The Gap, American Express, and the Milk Board. She was designated a “Living Legend” by the Library of Congress and Smithsonian Magazine has called her one of the “innovators of our time”. She has photographed the last two sitting presidents and many of their cabinet members. Hell, she recently photographed the Queen of England claiming that “they had fun” during the shoot. When asked by a reporter if she has a “dream shoot”, that is someone she’s been dying to work with, she sort of scoffed at the question. From a professional photographer’s point of view, her life has been a dream shoot.

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Wayan’s DC Photos

Getting off a red eye from PDX at DCA, I was looking forward to a direct Yellow Line ride to Petworth. Foolish me for thinking that Metrorail would be easier than rousing the Betrothed Butterbean for an early morning National Airport pick up.

With the Yellow Line bridge across the Potomac closed, what would be a 20 minute trip is now an hour long two-line transit trauma.

And a classic WMATA welcome back to Washington DC.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs