‘preakness 036 lead ponies’
courtesy of ‘apium’

Last year’s Preakness Stakes was one of the worst attended in the race’s history, largely attributed to the inability to bring in your own booze to the infield. This year’s Preakness hopes to solve that, but by providing $20 unlimited beer to patrons who can arrive as early as 8:30a for a 6:18p post time. This has shades of Ten Cent Beer Night to me, and could result in some hapless drunkard running onto the track during the race, but that might be me projecting memories from my misspent college days onto the race.

Tickets are still available ($65 after fees for the Mug club, $45 for just the infield at the Preakness), and Zac Brown Band and O.A.R. are both playing the infield that afternoon before the race. Tickets elsewhere on the track start at $70, and go up from there.

‘Brunch at Acadiana’
courtesy of ‘william couch’

The third annual “Taste of 12” is sure to have you tasting a little bit of everything on Friday May 21st.  Hosted by the D.C. Lottery, the event allows you to sample food from area restaurants AND contribute to a great cause.  Proceeds will benefit the Capital Area Food Bank, and will go towards the Pollin family’s initiative to give one million meals to the less-fortunate.  For just twelve bucks, you can sample up to six of the participating restaurants, which include but are not limited to: Acadiana, Matchbox Vintage Pizza Bistro, and Rosa Mexicano.  Zaytinya, the Restaurant Association of Metropolitan Washington’s 2010 RAMMY nominee for “Upscale Casual Restaurant of the Year,” will even be featured.

You might notice that all of these restaurants are located in the same vicinity, which is the common thread that brings them together every year.  The “Taste of 12” is always held at the Verizon Center, and was originally a celebration of the building’s tenth anniversary.  It also served as a thank you to local restaurants and businesses for their support.  The event was such a success that it evolved into a charitable tradition in our community.

The “Taste of 12” will be held between 11:30am and 1:30pm on the main concourse of the Verizon Center.  For more information, you can visit the Verizon Center’s website .  Get your tickets today!

DC music geeks are in for a very special treat tonight that almost slipped in under radar. Peter Kember aka Sonic Boom, a founder of the legendary Spacemen 3, is bringing his band Spectrum to town tonight for a rare states-side gig. They’ll be carefully crafting a a dense force field of sound with their vintage electronics, keyboards, and absurdly modified guitars along with DC area favs Screen Vinyl Image.

As far as I can recall, Spectrum has never played DC before. If they have, I missed it. I am ridiculously excited to catch this band tonight. I saw them at All Tomorrows Parties New York in 2008 and it was excellent but felt painfully short, as is the nature of great festival sets. Tonight’s full set should provide one of the true mind-bender sets of the year. For the curious, Spectrum does indeed unleash some Spacemen 3 classics through-out the set that blend perfectly with their own sound-as-drug approach.

Any fan of underground music within a hundred miles would be a fool to miss this rare opportunity to see Sonic Boom and Spectrum lay down the law.

The show is at Velvet Lounge, begins at 8:30 sharp, and only costs $12.

‘Setting up Shop’
courtesy of ‘M.V. Jantzen’

I learned 2 key points from Tim Carman’s article on DC food trucks generally, and a new food truck coming to DC from New York specifically.

1. I’m going to have to reconsider my earlier assertion that shellfish isn’t something I would buy from a truck, because the coming lobster roll truck sounds awesome.

2. While I knew that food trucks were increasing in popularity as a way around the completely unworkable DC site license requirements for carts, I did NOT know that the trade-off is that wherever the truck stops, there has to be a line of customers waiting. They can’t just park and wait. So announcing their comings-and-goings on Twitter is (essentially) a legal requirement, not just savvy social media use (though it’s that too).

Go read it. I dare you to not get hungry. I will just be sitting here on the far end of the Mall, wishing for the day when a food truck makes it all the way over here.

‘Badged Audience’
courtesy of ‘M.V. Jantzen’

Today is the first day of a four-day event for police departments all over the US to come and honor their fallen, participate in a conference, and have a good time in our fair city. Tonight, there will be a candlelight vigil at the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial at Judiciary Square. Friday and Sunday, there will be a National Police Survivors’ Conference, which might just be the very worst named conference ever, given the trend for Police across the country to militarize and conduct dog-killing drug raids. There will also be a Memorial Service at the US Capitol for Peace Officers on Saturday.

Be mindful that the Police are always welcome in our town, but it would be appreciated, officers, if maybe you wouldn’t pull the fire alarms and engage in drunken debauchery in our town? It would be a bummer to throw the country’s finest in our jails.