If you’ve ever wondered what it takes to get kicked out of the White House, look no further than local rabble-rouser Mark Plotkin. Many thanks to DC Shadow Representative Mike Panetta for sending along this gem:

In typical Plotkin style, he blurted out the following question:

“Mrs. Bush, do you agree with those who say and believe that members of the Ballou High School band should not grow up to become members of the House of Representatives?”

About half way through the question, Mrs. Bush realized this was not a friendly softball being lobbed from the peanut gallery, but a real question with an agenda from the press gallery.

Mrs. Bush looked down and walked to her seat without a word. The smile was gone.

So, that’s what it takes to get kicked out. A real question. Segraves’ commentary is excellent, and worth a read in its entirety, as I agree that the media has become too much an enabler and not nearly as critically questioning of the people involved. Was Plotkin’s question to the First Lady rude? Not nearly as rude as her ignoring it in its entirety.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Remember when I graduated from comedy school? I know some of you were thinking, even then, what a terrible shame it was that you couldn’t make it out to catch the beginning of what will surely be a majestic comedic career.

Fortunately for you, you have another shot at it. On Thursday, October 25th, I’ll be competing against a number of other up-and-coming local comics in the Kz’s House of Talent Comedy Contest, held at Floyd’s Bar and Grill in Alexandria. Other comedians featured include Janice Brown and Mike Blejer, both of whom have cracked me up recently at the local open mics.

Cover is $10, which is but a pittance for the massive quantity of entertainment you will receive for your Hamilton. See you there.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

I know it has felt like summer a lot recently but the signs of autumn are upon us and soon hot pants will be replaced by corduroy and tending gardens will be abandoned for washing purple bird shit off my car. Why do birds have to eat poke berries and then shit on my car? Should I be so blessed with abundance in nature as to have both birds and pokeweed along my daily commute?

Until it really starts to feel like autumn, let’s enjoy one last picture of bounty from my garden. Imagine the taste – a sweet earthiness mixed with a lip-tingling spice, whose heat reminds us of the scorch of sun as the shadows grow longer and daylight wanes.

A toast to the summer! To borrow from John Keats’ Ode to a Nightingale:

O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been
Cool’d a long age in the deep-delved earth,
Tasting of Flora and the country green,
Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth!
O for a beaker full of the warm South,
Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
And purple-stained mouth;
That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,
And with thee fade away into the forest dim

This is what I think of when I think back on summer days – the joy and carefree sense of my days, keeping a light heart and drinking, even if just symbolically, from a fluted glass as the wine of life flows through my veins.

What literary or pictorial allusions bring you back to the warmth of summer?

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

image courtesy of Drsnaut

You might think me lazy but really I’m just impatient. Trying to get into the swing of rail commuting, I find myself somewhat put off by the mile and a half stroll from my house to the metro stop. I enjoy the walk, but to get there to catch the early enough train so I can catch the early enough shuttle means I need to be up and our of bed earlier than I want.

Okay, so I’m impatient and lazy.

So I was kinda interested to see a recent entry in Kevin Kelly’s Cool Tools for the Strida folding bicycle. Every folding bike I have ever seen has been, to put it as kindly as I can manage, a complete turd. This one is seems pretty nifty, at least so far as its transportability once folded. I’m not sure I think it looks very ridable – and I’m even less sure I’m willing to pay $500 just to shave 15 minutes off my morning – but I wondered if in a city with as many commuters as we have, have any of you seen any of these around town?

Or do you use any kind of wheeled contraption to speed your trip? If they made razor scooters with slightly more robust wheels I’d be tempted just to get one of those. At $30 or so they seem a lot more palatable for a cheapskate like me…

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Hidden in an alley in Old Town is the entrance to Restaurant Eve, Cathal Armstrong’s canvas. His palette is food of many varieties and his brush is his incredible kitchen. One of my clients, on completion of a serious deadline, took me there today for a celebration. The appetizer today was a tomato soup which was thick and rich and the chives added such a gentle flavor to it that I was very glad that some thick and crusty bread was ready to make sure that not a drop was contained by the bowl when it was whisked away.

For my cohorts, it was the pulled pork sandwich, and the daily special of a ham and gruyere sandwich. For me, though, was the finest combination of tomatoes and pork and bread that I’ve ever experienced. The bacon was the hock-based or back-based bacon instead of the much more fatty American bacon, and the delicate flavor of the bacon combined with the fresh tomatoes and excellent sourdough.

A good lunch, though, ends with sweets. I had the butterscotch creme brulee, but what I should’ve had was the toffee sticky buns with vanilla ice cream. Boy did that look good. Next time. Next time.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Thanks, Clara

In a move sure to further incite Wayan, the Red Cross has altered their questions since the last time I donated. Next to last on the list I had to peruse before they’d stab me with their 18ga: have I had sex with someone who is from or has lived in Africa. It doesn’t say if this is or is not a deal breaker for them, but I figured that even though my darling girlfriend is adopted and we can’t be 100% sure exactly where she came from, my blond-haired ivory dearheart is probably not from one of the West-African states that the Red Cross is concerned about.

Before Wayan or Kim hit full dudgeon, however, I’ll share with you what I discovered their reasoning is: HIV “type O” (here I thought I was well informed but this was new to me) is common in many west African states, and apparently it is prone to evade detection tests. (!) So if you’re looking for that van, Nigelmoose, I hope you’re from the US or European.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

A different Wilford Brimley like-a-look

So I’ve walked out of my office in search of coffee and notice that there’s a Red Cross van parked just down the way. They’ve been after me to donate – I’m several months overdue – and I don’t have any meetings in the next few hours so I figure what the heck, I’ll go do it now.

When I round the big ol’ van to where the entrance is, however, I find a few stacks of boxes and tables, the doors closed… and Wilford Brimley’s younger, pudgier brother standing outside in his t-shirt and jean shorts, smoking a cigarette. He informs me they won’t be up and running till 10am, so I thank him kindly and leave him to his tobacco.

I wonder if I can target my donation for him? Hopefully they don’t ask you to be specific about the surgery itself since I’m unsure if they’ll need it for lung replacement or angioplasty.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

image courtesy of Whappen

Aw yeah! If you don’t have enough surreal in your life then here’s your shot: tomorrow Ron Paul will be at one of Tom’s fave stomping grounds, Boulevard Woodgrill. Personally I more or less concur with the opinion of MB alum Jeff and think he’s an entertaining crank with no chance of winning. I’m reeeeeallly enjoying watching him try, however.

The only thing that tempers my enjoyment is when we happen to concur on a matter and his spaz factor (like the X-Factor, but way less helpful though just as entertaining on tv) paints all of us who hold that opinion into whackos. Oh well.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Those of you who have dined with me may have noticed that I am not afraid to reward good service, even handsomely, when it is deserved. It’s all about service. The mark of good service is not the absence of problems but rather how a problem is dealt with to ensure customer satisfaction. A problem is an opportunity to shine in the darkness of the situation.

Luna Grill at Dupont Circle failed this simple test of customer service.

My brother and his wife were in town and I told them not to eat at their very expensive hotel restaurant when they were merely steps away from Luna Grill, which had been so inviting and good on previous occasions. The three of us got there, drank coffee and ordered food.

Problem #1. When our food arrived, the potatoes I ordered did not make it to the table. I gently reminded the waiter that I had ordered them, figuring it was an easy mistake to make. “We don’t have potatoes,” the waiter responded. I pointed to my brother’s plate and suggested that apparently they did have potatoes, since my companions both got them. The waiter left in a huff and quickly brought my food. Weird but true.

Problem #2. My sister-in-law reached the bottom of her coffee cup and found some trash plastered to the bottom of the inside of the cup. When we told the waiter, he quickly removed the offending cup and brought her another cup of coffee. No apology, no offer to comp the coffee, no sending the manager over to apologize. Nothing. Basically, it seemed rather routine to this particular waiter. I guess that’s normal for Luna. Want trash in your food? That must be the place to go.

Problem #3. The waiter disappeared toward the end of our meal and we had a hard time getting our bill. Then I had a hard time getting my credit card back. I was about ready to go behind the bar to retrieve my card when it was finally delivered to me.

Luna Grill certainly did not meet my expectations for cleanliness or service. Will I be back? Probably not. It’s not hard to keep customers happy. Just give them what they order, apologize if something goes awry and generally be attentive. That’s all it takes. This isn’t rocket science.

If you work at Luna Grill and got a pretty low tip on Saturday morning, that was from me. Yes, I left a tip for bad service, but that was just so you wouldn’t think I forgot, had I left what you really deserved.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

I love the smell in the lobby of my new job. As the entrance is right next to Caruso Florist, it always smells of flowers.

Then, when I walk outside, this is the sight that greets me:

How can you go wrong, or go mad through your day, when you’re greeted by nature’s beauty at your office door? I know I’m put in a good mood every time I walk outside. A wonderful office entrance bonus.

What’s your office entrance bonus?

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Has your neighbor been tooling around in a recently acquired Model T Ford? If so, you might want to alert him as to the cost of his environmental footprint and then give the cops a call. No, it’s not illegal to own such a contraption but there’s a hot one floating around the area somewhere, along with some police model Harley Davidson motorcycles.

The Kena Shrine recently lost some vehicles when someone made off with a couple trailers from the Shrine on Rt. 50 in Fairfax. Likely the offender(s) did not know what they got until they got it home but they sure got something worth a few pretty pennies.

The Model T is one thing, but the other trailer had four Harleys in it. So if your neighbor has a Model T and four Harleys, you might want to drop a dime and let someone know. $1000 reward – not too shabby, although you should do it out of your sense of civic responsibility, not just for the beer money.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

It was 11:00pm at 14th and A, over half an hour since we’d called for a cab to take us to 14th and H. And finally, emboldened by several glasses of wine, we decided to walk. We would fly the eight blocks on wings of bordeaux! But somewhere along the way we met Marvin.

Our Good Samaritan was getting into his car when we three tipsy loons approached him for a ride. I don’t know how it happened, really, but suddenly we were in a perfect stranger’s car being driven to the Rock and Roll Hotel. His name was Marvin, originally from Nicaragua, most recently Pittsburgh, and he had a certain grace and innate kindliness that you sometimes forget actually does exist in the world. We were instantly enamoured and appreciative and the conversation flew around in that strange rapid way when you randomly meet someone you instantly hit it off with – his advice on my friends’ Costa Rican wedding, Frank Lloyd Wright and Falling Water – we kept pinching ourselves afterwards about the oddness of it all, of meeting someone so genuine and well, just plain nice.

I could of course be cynical and say he hadn’t been in DC long enough to have it beaten out of him, but I like to think that won’t be the case, that he’ll continue to spread courtesy for the rest of his life, and that people will respond in kind. I hope so.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

In case you don’t own an Apple product and have been dying to buy one but Clarendon, Pentagon City, Tysons Corner, and Bethesda are just too far away for you, you’re in luck – an Apple Store is coming to Georgetown. According to the Washington Business Journal:

Princeton Investment Corp. sold 1229 Wisconsin Ave. NW to Apple Inc. on Sept. 27, according to a source close to the deal. The French Connection clothing store now occupies the space. Princeton, a European investment group, has owned the property since 1995.

I don’t know about you but I’m going to rush over there to buy a Mac, an iPod, and and iPhone because hey, you’re just not cool until you’ve drank the Apple-flavored Kool-Aid.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Wayan’s DC Photos

Now is it just me or is the Petworth Metro a little hot? Like the air conditioner is not doing its best to cool off Metrorail riders in this October heat wave.

I am waiting for my Yellow Line to DCA and I am sweating just sitting here. In other stations I would usually have a chill but not this one.

How is your station these days? Are you too sweating underground?

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Red Line, Union Station. “Doors closing” chime sounds just as a woman with a child in a stroller is struggling a bit to get the stroller onto the train. She’s only part of the way in when the doors close right on the stroller, which is fortunately strong enough to withstand the pressure, leaving the baby unharmed. Now, we all know that unlike elevator doors train doors do not retract when they strike an object so please, etc., etc. but I try and push the doors apart from outside while another man inside does the same.

The doors open again and the mother and stroller get in. (As an added bonus, I’m able to get in too.) Mother is relieved, baby is oblivious to any incident, everything seems okay.

“Red Line, next stop, Judiciary Square,” comes the train operator’s voice Then, a slightly flippant woman’s voice sounds through the train P.A.:

“Ma’am, that’s child abuse.”

Smiles, some laughter.

But then I thought to myself, What the hell? The mother was trying to get on, and they were the ones who closed the door on her. If anyone abused children that day it sure wasn’t that Mom.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Never underestimate yuppies who love kickball. The Anti-Yuppie Kickball Guerilla Front has suffered a tremendous setback:

Last night, October 5th, after what was thought to be a secret meeting for new members of the front at Chief Ike’s, Inquisitor K (forgot to ask if I can just put his real name now) was arrested by US Marshalls. He says they were watching the meeting the entire time and when leaving they rushed him but he got away and was chased into Rock Creek where he was tackled, cuffed and nearly drowned. We went down to court this morning where he was arraigned on many charges including advocating terrorism (or something like that), providing material support to a terrorist organization, aggravated assault (for a botched ball-napping in July where a kickball player who gave chase was supposedly knocked out with brass knuckles), resisting arrest, 3 counts of theft, another assault charge, and he apparently faces extradition to Maryland and New Jersey for warrants related to narcotics trafficking. One of the marshalls told him they penetrated the private portion of the website in August where they gained access to the video archive and other pretty damning stuff. We were definitely sold out from the inside and we in the front all know who did this. A warrant was also served at his house in Mt. Pleasant last night where computers and other stuff were taken including all of the ball-knapped balls. I suggested we pull the whole website down but he said that he would “never let those bastards subjugate” him and so the link to the site remains below. He seems confident as he has been in jail several times and isn’t worried. He says they are only after him and so the “Rally For Justice” is still on as a fundraiser. Bond was set at $50,000! I’ll try and keep news on the case as updated as possible. We are all a little shell-shocked right now and our thoughts and prayers go to our great friend and leader.

While we cannot verify that the Department of Justice is treating the AYKGF as a terrorist organization, nor can we verify the capitivty of Inquisitor K, we certainly feel for our contacts in the AYKGF.

Or we would, when we stopped laughing at the insanity of it all.

Folks, Kickball’s just a freakin’ playground game, and if you get too caught up in the love or hate of the same, you’re only going to end up like Inquisitor K: belonging to the prisoner with the most cigarettes.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Wayan’s DC Photos

I often get lost in the IKEA College Park maze. That is until I found this secret passage to the outside world.

If you are by the shopping carts and want to escape before your wallet is empty, go right past this nice elderly couple and through that door marked “Emergency Exit Only”.

Don’t worry, there is no alarm, and it will lead you right to the front door of IKEA. Just remember, the front door is entry only. It will not open for you.

You still have to exit by the cash registers, but at least you’re free from the IKEA maze that much faster.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

image courtesy of Art on the Avenue

If you’re not looking to go green this weekend, why not come out to Art on the Avenue this Saturday? It’s in Del Ray, just below Crystal City in Alexandria. My darling girlfriend and I will be there exhibiting our wares, along with about 300 other people who make a variety of things. While you’re peeping – and hopefully buying – some crafts, there’s musical performers, demonstrations, and a good amount of food to pick from. We’re hopeful we’ll be near the crabcake setup again.

Art on the Avenue is one of our favorite shows to do. Del Ray is a cute little neighborhood, there’s always a good turnout for the show, and the selection of things other vendors have are pretty universally good. We’ve been a little our of touch with other artists this year, but my darling girlfriend did exchange some mail with Caitlin of Rebound Designs last week and we know she’ll be there as well, just to give you an idea of some of the other kinds of things you would see there. Beyond mirrors and purses there’s paintings and pictures, wood and ceramics, papercraft and things I couldn’t come up with a category for if I spend a hour trying.

While I know poo poo will be horrified by the idea of coming into Virginia, it’s fairly painless even for the carfree crowd – Art on the Avenue will be running shuttles on the half-hour from the Braddock Road metro stop.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs