We Love DC http://www.welovedc.com Your Life Beyond The Capitol Tue, 23 Nov 2021 21:57:50 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.9.9 Why I (Still) Love DC: Tom http://www.welovedc.com/2015/04/22/why-i-still-love-dc-tom/ Wed, 22 Apr 2015 17:00:11 +0000 http://www.welovedc.com/?p=98570

When I started writing about DC more than ten years ago now, it was a reflex. I had decided that I was going to make the best of my time here, I decided that this was a place to love, and that I should love it here. And so I went out to find all the things I loved about DC. There were many of us at that old site that wrote because this city had made a personal connection with us, that it was a part of our makeup.

As We Love DC came into being, we were doing so at the curl of the wave that was a new DC. Adrian Fenty was Mayor, everyone was talking about how DC was changing, growing, building. The Williams administration, though decidedly unsexy, had made DC a place that could receive investment again, that could build a tax base that could increase services again. DC wasn’t the inner city, DC was just the city.

The last ten years have been a major change for the city – not a change that’s been just for the good, there’s been a lot of DC history that’s been swept out past the boundary stones – and it was exciting to be here and watch it happen. Old vacant storefronts became award-winning bars. Breweries appeared for the first time in almost a century. Industry was possible in a city that was largely focused around political capital, DC has proven, and those are the things that have excited me most about the last ten years. We make things here. We make beer. We make bikes. We even make weed now. We make things. We’re not just an economy of accidental convenience, we’re an economy of industry, of confluence, of vision.


More than that change, the District was on the rise again. In the forty years that followed the 1968 Riots surrounding the death of Martin Luther King Jr., there was a slow decline, as the population fell below 750,000 in 1970, ebbing to under 600,000 in 2000. There was this sprawling suburban life that would give birth to the Arlington/Fairfax corridor and the PG and Montgomery County sprawls, but the District was bleeding people.

There’s been a lot of words written that DC isn’t the Chocolate City it was back in 1970, when the population was 70% African American, and they’re right. There’s a decidedly lighter color on average in DC now. This has its crazy moments – just look at what it costs to rent in the city, look at your grocery bill and see all the organics – but like many cities there are ebbs and flows.

I’ve come to appreciate the District’s immense history. Since we moved to Brookland in 2010, I’ve spent more time than ever appreciating the African American writers who called my neighborhood home, from Pearl Bailey to Sterling Brown. More than just its history past, I am part of its current history. I spend time with my neighbors, who’ve lived here since the 60s in some cases, and I listen to their stories of what Brookland was like back then. When I was living in Arlington, everything felt so isolated. Everyone just wanted their own space, they focused on their own lives, eschewing their neighbors. It was the loneliest I ever felt in a big city.

Since we moved into DC, I’ve realized something important about good cities: good cities make it possible for you to intersect with your neighbors without forcing them into every aspect of your space.

When we lived in Arlington, we hardly ever intersected with our neighbors and our neighborhood. That wasn’t part of the focus of our community; everyone could stay in their own sphere, live in their own life, and never take part in the civic arena. I suppose it’s something that some people want, that suburban life where your home is your castle and the moat keeps everyone out.

We haven’t done that in DC. We’ve met our neighbors, had them over for dinner, participated with them in planning a new middle school, helped issue new liquor licenses, saved a park and some old growth trees, and seen more businesses arrive in our neighborhood. Every time I get homesick for California, I think about all the wonderful people I couldn’t leave behind here. I think about all the opportunities we’ve had here. I can’t leave this place behind. I need my neighbors, my neighborhood, my friends, and this marvelous place we share, together.

3,750 posts and 1,875,000 words later, I still love DC. And I think I always will.

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Why I (Still) Love DC: Jenn http://www.welovedc.com/2015/04/21/why-i-still-love-dc-jenn/ Tue, 21 Apr 2015 17:00:27 +0000 http://www.welovedc.com/?p=98628

At the end of 2013, I wrote what I thought was my ultimate love letter to DC, filled with the moments that had sustained me during my struggle with a life-threatening illness. It was a thank you to the city I’d lived in for over two decades, yet I also suspected, at the time, that it might be a farewell – not because I was losing that struggle, but because I thought I was moving. Of course, I was incorrect, life being a lesson in derailment and the power of creative disruption. My DC in 2013 turned out to be the penultimate love letter, and while I spent most of 2014 investigating another city, by the end of that year I was back where I started.

So here we are. DC, you still have me. And yet, the time to leave our beloved site has come to pass. So I find myself writing another love letter, one that’s slightly bittersweet. But don’t worry. I always rally by the end.

If there’s any lesson I’ve learned over the past three years of incredible life change and regeneration, it’s this: the story never ends. You may think you have come to the end of your journey, but it’s only a chapter, or an act in a play that continues on and on. Just as cities never stop evolving, never stop rising, only to fall, and rise again. If not in actuality, then in the mind.

Maybe that’s why there are so many discarded drafts of my Why I (Still) Love DC. They litter my mind, my desk, my laptop, piling up like sediment in an archeological site. Rather as my discarded selves litter the city itself, so many experiences, haunting this corner and then the next. I feel like Scheherazade, and worry that if I ever finish the tale, I’ll lose my head.

I began to wonder if all the difficulty writing it meant that I no longer loved DC the way I used to, and frankly, yes, it’s true. But isn’t that as it should be, after so many years? Love’s not an ever-fixed mark, no matter what Shakespeare said. He knew better, anyway. Love must change – always. Otherwise, it calcifies, and your city crumbles into dust.

There’s a narrative to my love story that’s already established here in other pieces at We Love DC. I moved here for the architecture. The cherry blossoms. The subculture politicos ignore. The fact that it wasn’t New York or Boston, the other cities which courted me, but provided an escape from my New England youth. That DC was supposed to be just a way station on the way to London. That I didn’t leave, because I unexpectedly fell in love, with its music scene, with its theaters and a thriving community of artists. Bought a house, brought it back to life. That was the first act. In another act, life went haywire. My heart stopped several times. I regenerated in many ways, but haunted my old life in others. I was poised to escape, but grounded in limbo. I wasn’t as certain about my love anymore.

We’ll talk about that chapter another time, somewhere else.

I could tell you about all my other selves wandering DC. There’s one sitting at Fox and Hounds, founding We Love DC with this merry band, where another self had sat earlier, reeling from 9/11. There’s one eavesdropping on the Brown brothers outside at Room 11 as they brainstormed The Passenger, which catalyzed some of the greatest friendships I’ve had in DC, a place of many marvelous conversations and adventures. The selves at places that then had multiple selves themselves (whoa): the Asylums, the Black Cats, the 9:30 Clubs. The corners change; men in suits now wander Shaw scouting for development, where once they told me I made “the worst financial decision of your life” to buy an old Victorian there. That Victorian which saved my life. I walk by it now on my way to a coffee shop on a corner I always said should have a coffee shop. Magic.

I could tell you all of that, and so much more. But what I really want is for you to tell me about your selves. Your DC. The greatest gift writing for We Love DC gave me, was the rediscovery of my essential self – the little girl whose first word was “Hi!” Interviewing and connecting with the people who make this city vibrant and alive, helped me break back out of my shell and develop my own life manifesto. Be open. Be curious. Talk to everyone. Listen, respond, respect. Don’t judge. Be joyful. Connect with people, constantly learn about them. Why not? You never know the impact you may have or that others may have on you.

Maybe I had so much difficulty writing this, because there’s nothing comfortable about my love for DC currently. It’s conflicted. Aren’t all great love affairs? In many ways I’m thrilled that a once much-maligned city is now increasingly seen as a cool city. Suddenly it seems the maker culture is about to truly thrive here, suddenly there’s a renewed empowerment to be creative, to strike out and do something. In other ways I’m worried that parts of this chapter come at the price of continued segregation and marginalization. But that’s a far longer, more complex conversation than we can have in this space.

Most of my tribe here are entrepreneurs. They have roots in the city, some have families, houses, storefronts, restaurants, or just a virtual presence, but they all share a common motif. They consider DC their HQ. Home base. The landing and the launching pad. They don’t crow much about being entrepreneurs, they just do it. By its very nature a created city, a capital city, DC has a natural affinity for wanderers and risk-takers. But it also has families who’ve lived here for generations, sole owners of houses since the Civil War. We can’t forget that.

An HQ by its very definition implies the existence of outposts. I live above a Metro station. Twenty minutes to DCA. I often tell myself, especially in moments of panic, “You can leave at any time.” And I do. Maybe that’s why I still love DC. I still love DC because it lets me breathe. Let’s me be who I am. Let’s me leave. Dally with other cities. Return.

Oh, there’s so much more to say! And I’m struggling still to say any of it. But this is like that cab ride I always seem to have, with the interesting driver who tells me all about his life and struggles and dreams and I’m fascinated but suddenly we’re at my corner and I have to get out and meet friends at the bar and there’s no more time to finish the story and…

Well. The story won’t end. We’ll just have to talk again. On and on, somewhere else, some other time.

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Why we love sara http://www.welovedc.com/2015/04/08/why-we-love-sara/ Wed, 08 Apr 2015 12:00:41 +0000 http://www.welovedc.com/?p=98615 Why I (Still) Love DC: Rebecca http://www.welovedc.com/2015/04/06/why-i-still-love-dc-rebecca/ http://www.welovedc.com/2015/04/06/why-i-still-love-dc-rebecca/#comments Mon, 06 Apr 2015 17:00:14 +0000 http://www.welovedc.com/?p=98580

I came to our fair city a fresh faced, college graduate who knew only one thing about her move down here: I definitely did not want to work in politics. Thinking back I only vaguely recall who that girl was or what she was thinking, or even what made her happy. Despite twenty odd years under my belt, I was new to the world, and pretty much had zero life experiences to learn and grow from.

It’s said that childhood and adolescence are the most formidable years of your life.
And while it’s fruitless to argue that those years aren’t important, for me my most formidable years, my 20s and early 30s, happened right here in DC. More profoundly put, I truly grew up in this city.

The last 9 years here have had their ups and downs, their failures, their simple pleasures, their soul crushing, heart breaking events, their depressive episodes when I literally had to scrap myself off the floor, their serendipitous meetings, their triumphant fist in the air celebrations and a whole hell of lot of in-betweens.

At the center of it all is DC; its people, its culture, its evolution, its bars, its opportunities, its music, its heartbeat are all at the crux of this personal growth and discovery. Here I’ve found what I value and love about the people in my life. Here I learned what I’m not good at and need to work on. I’ve not been perfect. Like DC, I’ve dated the wrong people, worn some outfits I definitely regret, and had my fair share of thankfully not-too-destructive decisions.

But out of it all, I’ve formed a grounded, work-in-progress model on how I want to live my life. And it’s in DC that I’ve been challenged, tested and pushed to become who I am and will continue to develop into being. Could another city have played such a significant role in my life? Yes. But it didn’t, and never will, so I’ll celebrate my successes, gain insights from my mistakes and grow from it all.

It’s wonderful that DC is where it is now and that people are moving here. I’m psyched to see our neighborhoods evolve and our city develop. For me, this city has inspired hope, faith and perseverance, even in my darkest hours, and it is my deepest hope that it can and will be the same for others.

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Why I (Still) Love DC: Fedward http://www.welovedc.com/2015/04/03/why-i-still-love-dc-fedward/ Fri, 03 Apr 2015 17:00:57 +0000 http://www.welovedc.com/?p=98597

When I moved to the Washington area in 1998, it wasn’t for any single good reason. I had a few reasons that added up to something, but I can’t say my logic was in any way sound. Mostly I was 27 years old and felt like I’d exhausted my opportunities in my home town. I didn’t have anything tying me down, and I figured I had enough connections here that I could make a go of it. When people asked me, I’d say that everyone else lived in DC for four years so I thought I’d give it a shot.

I had a friend who lived in a group house on the Hill, and she idly said she was thinking of moving out, but she needed a roommate. I told her I’d arrive in August, and she should find us a place to live. That first year we lived in a rented house in Crystal City, but a couple weeks after Metro’s Columbia Heights station opened up I moved into an apartment a few blocks away, where I lived for ten of those four years.

Seventeen years later, I’m a married homeowner and I have a different glib answer about why it would be impossible for me to leave: I can never live anywhere with fewer than three airports. Given the choice I’d never use any of them but National, but I’ll fly out of Dulles or BWI if the itinerary is right.

But that doesn’t really answer the question of why I (still) love DC.

When I came to DC I found a culture that didn’t revolve around the business of government. My friends aren’t lobbyists or politicians. I’ve come to know a few congressional staffers and lifetime feds over the years not because of their answer to the question “so what do you do,” but because of the things they do when they’re not on the Hill (drink, mostly). I know a few lawyers, but most of them continue to prove my belief that the happiest lawyers are former lawyers.

The culture that existed between the margins of what outsiders think of as Washington is now, to me, the dominant culture here. My friends make art; they build apps; many of them create spaces where other people can come together. I met my wife and got married here. An offhand joke resulted in a second wedding (immediately following the legal one) in the best bar in town, presided over by one owner as his brother walked my bride down the aisle. The rings were consecrated with single barrel bourbon.

Cherry blossoms, the Lincoln Memorial at night, fall colors on Grant and Sherman Circles and in Rock Creek Park, hearing monkeys at the zoo through open windows in Mt. Pleasant, concerts at the Library of Congress, Rodin sculptures at the National Gallery, even the three airports: those are all great things, but they’re not why I love DC.

In contrast to Tiffany’s comment, DC isn’t where I became who I am, it’s where I found my people. My people aren’t the people who come for four years, try to make a difference, and then leave again. My people are the people who make DC home. They are why I love DC.

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Why I (Still) Love DC: Ben http://www.welovedc.com/2015/04/02/why-i-still-love-dc-ben/ Thu, 02 Apr 2015 17:00:57 +0000 http://www.welovedc.com/?p=98586

Full disclosure: I really wanted to title this article “Why I (Still) Love DC: Take Two (or Ten)” but Jenn wouldn’t let me. (Something about ruining the pattern or other such reasonable editorial argument.) If you’re a long-time follower of We Love DC, you’ll know I wrote a similarly titled piece back in 2013 after this site’s fifth anniversary.

And then suddenly, here we are not two years later and the party’s over.

Back in the fall, when it was discussed about putting the old gal to rest, I didn’t really want to let it go. I’d hoped that a fresh generation, newer (or older) blood would pick up our baton, and sally forth. But alas–and unlike our lovely Congressmen and Senators on the Hill–our grand lady would not blather on about nothing, limping towards digital obscurity.

And I’m okay with that.

This will be my 647th and final post here at We Love DC. (And, for giggles, that’s about half-a-million words.) I never thought I’d be saying good bye, both to our readers and to the site.

It’s a bittersweet milestone for me, particularly.

2015 marks ten years –half my married life!– since I moved to the Metro DC area. My wife and I escaped a wretched employment outlook in Pittsburgh when the International Spy Museum took a chance and hired me to help run their retail shop. Brenda Young, my manager at the time (and she’s still there, I believe), was a true District resident from Capitol Heights and during our downtime in the office, would tell me all about this city and its secrets. Actually, considering where I worked and who I rubbed shoulders with on a frequent basis, I learned about a lot of secrets in the District…

Anyway, it was during my time there that I stumbled over Tom and his merry band of Metrobloggers. I applied to write, figuring I could bring a ‘fresh-behind-the-ears’ view to the team (only having been here two years at that point). I showed my bona fides and I was in.

And plunged straight into the depths of rebellion.

Secret meetings at pubs, scurried whispers and emails. And with the determination of men and women bent onto a purpose, we unleashed this site upon all of you.

And there was much rejoicing (after a fashion).

I’ve written about a lot of things over the years, many of which have enriched me in ways I never dreamed. I got to see places I wouldn’t normally go, and talk to people that I wouldn’t have otherwise been able to connect. Tried new places to eat, enjoyed exhibits on subjects I knew nothing of, and conversed about issues that are important to locals that don’t get the traditional media’s attention.

I daresay We Love DC has been instrumental to my growth as a new media writer. And, as such, to my career. I started as a retail manager – something I’d sworn years before to never again do – and found myself developing content, understanding web management, and ultimately bringing myself to the edge of a new career in content strategy. I never would have made it to this singular point without this site.

Without these people, my fellow bloggers.

Without our readers. All legion of you.

My personal and professional milestones can be traced through here. My first real photo sale came from my article on NatGeo’s exhibition of the Terra Cotta Warriors. All of my later jobs came after hiring managers read various articles here. A traditional visit to the Basin to see the blossoms every year after writing articles about it. My first non-fiction book contract came after an editor had read some of my museum exhibition pieces, and reached out to me. Being able to cover hockey as a press blogger for a bit, seeing the game from a different perspective…even that came after the Caps credentialed us for a few years.

And now…well, I can’t say that it’s over. I mean, this blog, and its active presence in the area is certainly shelved…for now. But the volume of knowledge, of experience, of culture…of LIFE that our umpteen-billion posts encapsulates? It’s not over. It’s here to stay. It’s part of our city’s fabric, our cultural landscape.

I doubt it will be forgotten.

I will miss this place. But not the experience and the camaraderie. Oh no, those I will take with me, keep with me forever. It’s a proud moment of my time here.

Oh, I’ll still be around. Online, in the city, wandering the environs with camera in hand (probably). Still visiting my favorite museums, checking out new exhibitions and eateries. Still avoiding Metro. Still arguing about what’s important to me, like changing a racist football team moniker or how much I loathe to respect the Caps. Still defending our beautiful city from the naysayers and pessimists.

But I won’t be sharing those thoughts with you anymore, at least not here. It’s time to shutter the place. It’s time for us to step out on our own, time to stop just reading about the vibrant color of our city.

It’s time to go out and explore. To immerse. To find that special something that makes this town resonate us to the very core of our being.

To be DC.

Peace.

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Why I (Still) Love DC: Don http://www.welovedc.com/2015/03/30/why-i-still-love-dc-don/ Mon, 30 Mar 2015 17:00:41 +0000 http://www.welovedc.com/?p=98564

I confess: I looked at the other pieces my cohorts wrote so far before starting this, hoping they’ve give me something to rip off inspire my direction. For what it’s worth, they helped me not at all.

This feels like writing about why I like air. For me the DC area just is, at this point. It’s where I settled, somewhat accidentally, thirteen years ago. It’s where I met so many good friends. It’s where I met the woman who is now my spouse. It’s where I became a dad. Turned forty. Died.

Just kidding about the last one. Would make a nice creepy short story though, wouldn’t it?

But maybe I will die here, just hopefully not soon. It’s hard to imagine going anywhere else. Before all those things above, this is just plain where I felt at home, and that hasn’t diminished in the slightest. When new, cool things come along I think well of course; in the city I came here from I would think well of course when hearing about something crappy. DC is the place where I expect good things to happen, and they so often do.

Maybe that’s the best indication of being in love. You look at the whole thing, warts and all, and can’t help but smile. The minor flaws feel like quirks and the bigger things you think are worth living with or trying to improve.

I love DC for what it has been for me, is, and promises to be.

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Why I (Still) Love DC: Patrick http://www.welovedc.com/2015/03/27/why-i-still-love-dc-patrick/ Fri, 27 Mar 2015 17:00:38 +0000 http://www.welovedc.com/?p=98525 White House Bowling

Bowling at the White House. Photo by author.

So, I have a hashtag. It’s called #RageLikePho.

People have come to associate me with the hashtag to the point it’s often mentioned in introductions to other people.

“This is Patrick, he has his own hashtag.”

People ask to take “#RageLikePho photos” with me thinking the hashtag refers to the goofy yet on-trend face I tend to make when people take photos of me.

They are not entirely correct. The roots of #RageLikePho stem from a We Love DC writers meeting back in January of 2013, when we discussed content ideas and approach of writing stories that reflected each writer’s own personality. A lot of regular features at We Love DC used a well-established pronoun-verb-object nomenclature: She/He Loves DC, We Love Music, We Love Drinks.

In a pizza-induced coma-like state, I started joking around about writing articles on the one good thing I can do: go out all night. I messed up the naming however and jokingly suggested a series of stories that recap my weekend benders and call it “Rage Like Pho.”

Everyone laughed none the less.

A few days later I used it as a hashtag for the first time:

The first mention of #RageLikePho on Twitter

The rest is history.

When people ask me what #RageLikePho is I say it’s more like a lifestyle than a face. You might think it means rampant drinking, dance parties, or streaking through the quad. While it does have some debaucherous overtures, I personally think #RageLikePho is about having a good time, but not in a Clarendon Bro kind of way.

All I really need are friends and a chill place to hang out in a neighborhood that gives us options to mix it up after awhile. I’m not a one-bar kind of guy. Luckily DC has always given me those options in the form of many diverse neighborhoods and experiences.

Bar hopping in Dupont? Jazz in the Garden? Bowling in the White House? For the past nine years now I’ve lived in the DMV and have been drawn to the combination of history, power, and urban life that is truly unique. Sure, Los Angeles or New York may be bigger and Portland or Austin maybe hipper but there isn’t a place that has the right combination that DC has.

The District is my Goldilocks match in a world full of many great cities.

It’s why I fell in love with DC nine years ago and I continue to love it today, whether I’m Raging Like Pho or not.

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Why I (Still) Love DC: Joanna http://www.welovedc.com/2015/03/26/why-i-still-love-dc-joanna/ Thu, 26 Mar 2015 17:00:43 +0000 http://www.welovedc.com/?p=98539

“Snow Shovel 0, Snow & Ice 1.”
“Just die already winter. I hate you. Die.”
“Winter wonderland, we good. You can go now.”

These are the updates I woke up to in February from friends in DC. As of January, I live in Los Angeles, and it was surreal to read people’s misery – to know how cold the winters can feel on the National Mall – and still miss the place. So. Damn. Much.

When my husband and I first moved to DC we didn’t know if it was temporary or permanent, but we decided to invest everything we had in the community there, just to see what happened. We weren’t expecting anything.

Scratch that – we were expecting lobbyists as our only drinking buddies. Dismal.

We left DC five years later, so I guess it was temporary. But by the time we left, our drinking buddies were actors and graphic designers and animators and librarians and, ok, a few lobbyists.

Truth is, we left right when we wanted to stay the most, kicking and screaming. Even reading those icy posts from friends, I had to hold my hands back from typing “cheap flights to DCA.”

Here are three things I miss terribly about DC:

1) Having a conversation with anyone about anything.

The city is full of experts, educated at every level and on every subject. People settle in the nation’s capital not to become bureaucrats, but because they care about stuff. That passion and intelligence is unlike anywhere else in the country, and it’s something I took for granted.

2) Getting around.

In DC, you can go outside and walk, bike, or ride wherever you need to go. Give yourself extra time for Metro, and demand better from it, sure; but never forget you have it, and other options, when so many cities don’t.

3) The village and the metropolis.

In DC, your shows go to Broadway and your Fringe is fringe. You can spend a day for free at one of the best art museums in the world right before joining the regulars at that dive bar. You know everyone and still have so many more people to meet. You can get lost in the crowd or run for president.

DC attracts some of the most creative go-getters in the world, and they still smile at each other and know how to share a proper whiskey. It’s the only place I’ve ever lived where people are as kind as they are educated, as empathetic as they are intense. DC deserves the naysayers’ gratitude, the country’s investment, and the right to vote.

So yeah, I miss it all.

I miss it all except the weather.

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Why I (Still) Love DC: Dave http://www.welovedc.com/2015/03/25/why-i-still-love-dc-dave/ Wed, 25 Mar 2015 17:00:20 +0000 http://www.welovedc.com/?p=98554 Photo by author.

Photo by author.

Sometimes I think it’s easier to love a city, or a place, than it is to love another person. It’s apples and oranges, really, or maybe it isn’t. Maybe it’s just as hard, just as complicated, and just as wonderfully exhausting to love a city.

I used to write a snarky blog called Why I Hate DC, and I’d spend my time finding things to gripe about, usually accompanied by Simpsons references or funny pictures. I wrote a lot and some of it was pretty funny. But it was tiring. It was exhausting to be looking for reasons to be upset.

Years ago, when Tom invited me to write for We Love DC, I was intrigued. I was excited by the premise of the site, its attitude, and the community of contributors. I made the leap, from Hate to Love, and it was wonderful.

I’ve been a few different people in the time since I wrote here. I’ve been a twenty-something, just old enough to think I wasn’t stupid anymore. I’m now thirty-one, gradually accepting the fact that I’ll always be pretty dumb. But, I’ve tried to keep a positive attitude about my life and my city. That’s in no small part to the friends and community that came from this place.

To be truthful, it’s incredibly hard to keep a positive attitude. There’s always a million things vying for your attention, and a lot of them are negative. Political scandals. The Metro crashing or bursting into flames. Children being abducted. Services for our most needy failing. You get the idea.

You have to make a choice to be positive. You won’t always do it. You’ll fail. In fact, you’ll probably fail more than you succeed (indeed like most everything in life). But you can make the choice to say you love the place you live, and that you’ll try to find the good and to praise it when you can.

That’s what I loved about this site, and more importantly, about the folks I met writing here. To Tom, Tiffany, Don, Jenn, Katie, and many others — thank you. I owe you some of you more than you know (and others, you know how much I owe you).

I know that long after we’ve all moved on to what’s next, part of us will always be centered around the idea that we can and will choose to love DC. For that I am so thankful.

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Why I (Still) Love DC: Tiffany http://www.welovedc.com/2015/03/24/why-i-still-love-dc-tiffany/ Tue, 24 Mar 2015 17:00:55 +0000 http://www.welovedc.com/?p=98521

When we started this site nearly 8 years ago, we got a little gentle ribbing from other local blogs about how so many of our original Why I Love DC entries were just super-earnest variations on “DC is where I truly became who I am.”

Funny thing about that: DC is where I became who I am.

DC is where I am becoming who I will be.

DC is where I am, becoming.

The longer I spend in DC, the more I am entwined with it, the more inextricably we become part of one another. Every landmark, every neighborhood, every watering hole goes from being a feature of this geographic location to being an anchor for my life.

When the cherry blossoms peek out and promise the coming spring, I remember the spring I spent riding my bike to work along the National Mall, knowing that it was the only way I was going to see the blossoms that year because I was working too hard to launch an important project.

When I’m cutting through the city, trying to shave a few minutes off my too-long commute, I’m not just driving through strangers’ neighborhoods, but passing near to the homes of dear friends where we grill dinner and relax on the patio, or friends we haven’t seen in far too long and resolve to shove aside the never-ending press of our calendars and make time to bring them over, cook for them, laugh with them, and relax.

Coming up North Capitol, I pass the hospital where my son was born. I drive through the neighborhood my husband Tom and I chose together and see the school Charlie will attend, the playground where we take him to run around and induce a long nap, the homes of our friends whose children will grow up playing with ours. I marvel that they get to grow up in a city other kids will only get to visit once on a school trip.

As the site called We Love DC draws to an end, I still love DC; how could I not? I may first have loved DC for her beauty, her talent, her quirks… but as the years pass, like any other lovers whose knowledge of each other deepens with the passage of time, I love DC for the things affectionately familiar, the things I am still discovering, and the sweet memories we have made and will make together.

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Retrospective: Why We (Still) Love DC http://www.welovedc.com/2015/03/23/retrospective-why-we-still-love-dc/ Mon, 23 Mar 2015 20:06:50 +0000 http://www.welovedc.com/?p=98544

Since our founding in 2008, every writer who joined We Love DC was asked to pen a love letter to the city. Our original Why I Love DC series became a running manifesto for how we wanted to engage with our readership and our lives beyond the capitol. We were unabashedly cheerleading for the District, with no agenda other than to challenge the dominant opinion at the time that DC wasn’t worthy of abiding love. The litany we fought against was: “It’s a transient city;” “No one wants to stay here;” “It’s just a political city;” “It’s boring.”

We felt differently. We still do. All those myths we set out to bust.

Over the subsequent years, we’ve asked nothing more of our writers than to speak the truth about their experiences living here, to be positive, and to write about what they loved. Now that we’re winding down the site, it felt appropriate to ask alumni to revisit their Why I Love DC pieces and take their current pulse on the city’s heartbeat.

While many of the articles written the first time around focused on what it meant to find yourself in love with a city unexpectedly, a city at the time maligned and misunderstood by many, our revisitation comes at a different time for DC. It seems almost overnight the District went from punchline to cool, but of course, it was a far more organic process than the hype would lead you to believe. Those of us who’ve directly experienced the waves from murder capital to millennial chic are thrilled by the District taking its rightful place as a cosmopolitan nexus, a gateway to the world, its beauty fully appreciated, while at the same time some can feel a conflicted nostalgia for those other days.

Like all great love affairs, it’s complicated. That’s what makes passion interesting.

So please join us as we launch our retrospection on Why I (Still) Love DC with articles by past writers over the next several days. Sift through the original Why I Love DC archive for some memory lane action. Join the dialogue #WhyIStillLoveDC and let everyone know your own pulse.

We’re still curious. And that’s as it should be.

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He Loved DC: Marion S. Barry (1936 – 2014) http://www.welovedc.com/2014/11/23/he-loved-dc-marion-s-barry-1936-2014/ Sun, 23 Nov 2014 17:40:41 +0000 http://www.welovedc.com/?p=98512

The news hits you like a ton of bricks, if you’ve ever lived in the District of Columbia: Marion Barry passed away this morning at United Medical Center. Barry was a four-term mayor of the District of Columbia, and a four-time council member for Ward 8, with a career in DC politics spanning 35 years. 

The contentious council member and former mayor was often a polarizing figure, censured for his actions with his constituent service fund, frequently in trouble with the IRS for failing to pay his taxes and with the city for failing to pay his parking tickets, he is best known for his six-month stint in prison related to a drug charge after a videotaped sting operation in the Vista Hotel on M Street (now a Westin Hotel). 

Beyond those charges, and those misdeeds, it is impossible to ignore Barry’s humanitarian streak. His focus on jobs programs for youth brought the Summer Youth Employment Program to fruition during his first term – something many residents of the District say was their very first job. It is also impossible to ignore Barry’s time in the civil rights movement as a co-founder of Pride, Inc, which provided relief for those whose houses were destroyed in the 1968 riots, as well as job training and food for the poor.

It is sometimes impossible for me to resolve the Marion Barry of the civil rights movement and his focus on his constituents in Ward 8, with the Marion Barry of the Vista Hotel, the tax scofflaw, and council misconduct. The extremes for which Barry is known make him out to be larger than life, with impossible conflicts of character. No man better represented the constant fight between the better angels of our nature and our human flaws than did Marion Barry. He was a complicated figure who did much for many of the least of us, but couldn’t keep himself out of trouble.

If while he was alive, Barry’s presence was a target for criticism from the rest of America – some would say the image of Senator Marion Barry was the single greatest argument against statehood for the District – in his passing, he gives one last gift, freeing the city from that association. 

I visited the Wilson Building recently, to see some friends at Councilmember McDuffie’s office, and up on the fifth floor, just past the council chambers, is a set of standees made for the 40th anniversary of the Home Rule Act. There were a number of pictures I’d never seen before from the early days of the city’s new, more free period. In so many of them are a young and vibrant Marion Barry in his shirt-sleeves working on the city. I think I would’ve liked Barry better if that was the one I knew first, instead of the one that made the city into a series of jokes. Thankfully, those jokes are over now. I think that is one last gift he can give us all.

Rest in peace, Mr. Mayor.

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We Love Arts: Fiddler on the Roof http://www.welovedc.com/2014/11/16/we-love-arts-fiddler-on-the-roof-2/ Sun, 16 Nov 2014 15:59:53 +0000 http://www.welovedc.com/?p=98508 It is easy to produce a decent production of Fidd

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Jonathan Hadary as Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof at Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater October 31, 2014-January 4, 2015. Photo by Margot Schulman.

Jonathan Hadary as Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof at Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater October 31, 2014-January 4, 2015. Photo by Margot Schulman.

It is easy to produce a decent production of Fiddler on the Roof. Now celebrating its 50th anniversary, Fiddler on the Roof has enjoyed tens of thousands of productions throughout the world. Set against the background of Imperial Russia in 1905, the musical tells the story of poor milkman Tevye and his attempts to adhere to his Jewish religious traditions, despite the outside influences that encroach upon the lives of his family and village. The script and music, written by Joseph Stein, Jerry Bock, and Sheldon Harnick, are so nearly perfect in their form and structure, even a theatre lacking in any creativity can still end up with a decent production. Because the show’s constructs are so specific in terms of setting, time, and place, the design, direction, and casting for the show end up fairly staid, regardless of production, which is why it is easy to produce a decent production of Fiddler on the Roof.

And yet, the very same thing that makes a decent production so easy to do, is also the reason why producing a truly incredible production of Fiddler on the Roof is so challenging. Directors, designers, and theatre artists wanting to not simply recreate the same production of Fiddler on the Roof that has been seen on the tens of thousands of stages over the past 50 years is extremely hard. This is a show where keeping the integrity of the material is the foremost priority, so trying to find ways of making this iconic musical-theatre staple feel original and unique requires a team of visionaries who understand that sometimes the way to do this is to not try to do something original and unique. Whether or not this was deliberate on the part of director Molly Smith and her creative team at Arena Stage, the final result was that what could have been merely a decent production ended up being truly incredible.

What I appreciated about this production is that Smith and her team kept the visual and directing aspects simple, basic, and consistent with what one would expect to see with any production of Fiddler on the Roof. The show is so well written that it doesn’t require embellishment and they recognized that, remaining true to the text and the original conceptual intent of the piece. There were a few bits of visual charm throughout the show, including the clever use of hydraulics in The Dream and Parker Esse’s incredible choreography in To Life and the Wedding Dance, but for the most part, the show was lacking in technical frills, which allowed for the true magic to emerge—the story. Fiddler on the Roof is, above all else, the tale of a man whose life doesn’t turn out as he thought it would. Try as he might to ensure that he and his family are provided for and happy in the way he wants them to be, he finds himself repeatedly being filled with disappointments in his children, himself, and his God. Forced to redefine what happiness, family, and faith look like, Tevye’s story really is the story of every man, despite being set in 1905 Russia.

Understanding that Tevye really is an everyman, Jonathan Hadary in the lead role was amazing. Although very different from the well-known and iconic performances of Tevye as created by Zero Mostel or Topol, which have since been imitated by thousands of actors over the past 50 years, Hadary made the role his own. His Tevye was sweet and sincere, a vulnerable man whose love for his family was evident, but also a man who uses light-heartedness as a defense mechanism, since to do otherwise would highlight the cruel injustices of life. Hadary’s Tevye remains an optimist, finding that nugget of laughter or happiness in the most grim of circumstances even when he is forced to the breaking point of sorrow. Without a trace of the gruff or hardened Tevye audiences are perhaps used to seeing, Hadary really shows the resilience of the human spirit when he is faced with adversity, disappointment, and sorrow. He can’t choose his circumstances, but he can choose how he reacts to them and Hadary chooses to see the world with rose colored glasses. It was a refreshing take on the role and brought a whole new perspective to the show.

Also amazing in the production were Joshua Morgan as tailor Motel Kamzoil, and Maria Rizzo as Tevye’s daughter, Chava. Most of the actors in the show, in fact, were very talented, but the performances by Morgan and Rizzo stood out because, like Hadary, they found unique approaches to their characters. Instead of simply being nervous and squirrelly, Morgan’s Motel was more focused and driven. Still a bit socially awkward and clumsy, Morgan was able to keep the loveable aspects of Motel while proving to be more assertive and ambitious than he appears. Similarly, Rizzo’s Chava was not ,merely headstrong, but was, instead, curious, soft-hearted, and wise.

Director Smith was also wise in choosing to cast a large group of local performers whose onstage chemistry as an ensemble was incredible. Knowing that these actors are friends both on and offstage produced an energy that was palpable and evident, as each scene and musical number found the performers in total and complete synchronicity. It also made the eviction of the Jews by the Russians so much more powerfully sad. Not only were the Jews in the show seen as the victims of the Imperialist edicts, but the Russians were as well, to some degree, since their pain in having to force their friends out of their homes was unmistakable. This camaraderie was where the real magic of the production happened. Fiddler on the Roof is a show about love, family, and community. To distinguish this version from every other one required something special and, in casting such a well-meshed collective of performers who clearly formed a community of love and became a family, the end result is a tightly-knit show, simple but lovely, and definitely special. This isn’t the movie, nor is it your average decent production. Fiddler on the Roof at Arena Stage has heart. And that’s so much better.

Fiddler on the Roof performs at Arena Stage’s Fichandler Theater now through January 4, 2015, located at 1101 6th St SW, Washington DC 20024. Tickets start at $50. For more information, call 202-554-9066.

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We Love Music: Sonic Highways http://www.welovedc.com/2014/10/28/we-love-music-sonic-highways/ http://www.welovedc.com/2014/10/28/we-love-music-sonic-highways/#comments Tue, 28 Oct 2014 17:09:20 +0000 http://www.welovedc.com/?p=98501 Foo Fighters at Black Cat

When I heard on Tuesday around noon that the Foo Fighters were going to play a club show in DC to go along with the premiere of the second episode of Sonic Highways. When the news was confirmed by the Black Cat, people left their downtown offices and headed for the 14th Street club to stand in line. By 3pm there was a line, and by 4pm, it stretched for blocks. By 5pm, all hope was lost for the second half of the line. 

When I arrived on Friday night, 90 minutes before doors, the line for entry stretched halfway to T Street. They opened the doors early, catching most of us by surprise. By the time ten o’clock rolled around, the crowd was thick and driving, as the monitors started the traditional HBO static. If you haven’t yet watched Sonic Highways, it’s something you need to see. From the Jazz Age of Ellington, to the rise of Go-Go and the bounce beat, to the Revolution Summer and the rise of DC Hardcore. Out of all of that, director Dave Grohl said, came the Foo Fighters.

It was an hour-long love letter to the DC of Grohl’s youth, the grittier, harder DC. A place where bands had to forge their own record labels to build an audience, a place where the hard scrabble of work met up with the idealism of the Capitol to influence style. From Minor Threat to Bad Brains, to all of the little single season bands that came and went like butterflies. Shirlington’s Inner Ear Studio was the venue for this episode’s recording session, where Dischord Records defined the iconic sound of 1980s punk music. The story of its owner and engineer, Don Zientara, is interwoven with the musical history of the District.

After the episode’s conclusion, the Foo Fighters took the stage and played an energetic three-hour set that spanned their twenty-year history and pretty much their entire catalog. They lead off with the first track off Sonic Highways and focused on the Chicago metro area. They followed with extended versions of The Pretender, New Way Home and Up In Arms and an extra long version of Arlandria, named for the neighborhood along Four Mile Run on the border between Alexandria and Arlington where Grohl once lived. 

RDGLDGRN at Black Cat with Foo Fighters

All Photos by Tom Bridge, Used with Permission

No one’s going to hold up Foo Fighters as if they defined an entire genre out of whole cloth, or as a groundbreaking effort, they’re not that sort of band. What they are is a damned fine group of entertainers. You need only look to drummer Taylor Hawkins, who played Friday night as if he was the living embodiment of the Muppets’ Animal. His frenetic play and mastery of his craft was absolutely electric on stage. Hawkins would take the lead on covers of Cheap Trick and David Bowie & Queen that Grohl would call reminiscent of the better art of the Springfield Keg Party band. Grohl bounced between showman and rocker, sometimes being nostalgic for the Springfield Keg Parties of his youth where, as he put it, “lesser musicians interpreted the greats”. That was shortly before they played David Bowie and Queen’s Under Pressure.

Probably my favorite moment of the night was Grohl calling up local band RDGLDGRN to the stage to make sure that everyone could do the chop in the middle of a gallop beat/bounce beat rendition of Monkey Wrench that I’m pretty sure has never been done before, and may never get done again. While the predominantly white crowd tried their damnedest, no one was mistaking the Black Cat for a Go-Go on Friday night, but that didn’t matter. 

When I was 21, and finishing college in Ohio, I took a trip with my college radio station to New York for the CMJ festival. Shows, showcases, panels, all the good stuff, set against the megalopolis’ backdrop. The weekend smelled like hot garbage, the feast of San Gennaro, and it sounded like punk rock, rock n roll, and stuff too weird to categorize. What I remember from that weekend are two things: the diavolo sauce at Umberto’s Clam House is too hot for human mouths, and the Foo Fighters’ show at Bowery Ballroom. I also determined I’d never, ever want to live in New York.

That Foos show stuck with me, not just because it was hard to get in, but because I saw someone who did what he loved, did it well, and could have a good time doing it. I saw a lot of workman-like sets at CMJ, I saw more still at the Newport in Columbus, where bands would play meaningless sets with no drive or passion. I thought that was just an Ohio thing, but CMJ proved to me that the dead-eyed musician wasn’t something limited to the Buckeye state. When I moved to DC, I was petrified I was going to see more of the same. I was thankfully wrong.

What I did see on Friday, though, was a crowd that loves this city the way that Grohl does, and that shared environment that makes this place unique. There’s no question of The Black Cat’s place in rock history, but the places that DC Punk called home are long since gone and demolished to make way for a DC that the 1980s wouldn’t even recognize. Gone are the brutalist buildings of the 60s, and the older buildings that the riots ran down, and the 70s modern that’s made way for the cranes and the backhoes of the late 90s and mid 2000s. Places like the old 9:30 Club on F Street, The Bayou, and dc space are long gone. 

I’m anxious to hear the rest of Sonic Highways as the first two songs have woven in historical elements of note both into the lyrics and into the musical structure. This is the sort of ethnomusicology that I find fascinating, and that some mark with terms like “cultural appropriation”. It’s clear from the episode this week that Grohl and Big Tony from Troublefunk go back a ways, as Grohl threw a party for Troublefunk at 9:30 Club early this year, and I would argue that, if anything, Foo Fighters is working to elevate the profile of Go-Go for additional attention. My main wish is that Grohl had done this years ago before Chuck Brown had passed, as while I enjoyed Troublefunk’s contributions, Chuck Brown’s would have been a next level grab for them.

There has been a lot of (earned) criticism of the last two albums from the Foos, that neither carried enough weight to have been from the band that gave us “There Is Nothing Left To Lose” and “The Colour and The Shape” which were triumphant pieces of both good writing and rock engineering. That is not something that I can attribute to either of the tracks that we’ve heard from Sonic Highways. If they’re indicative of the rest of the album, it looks like the Foo Fighters are back to their old selves. That’s a welcome development. Look for them to play a large arena show next year (RFK stadium perhaps, given the picture of them with DC United Jerseys with #15? That would be excellent.) and I look forward to seeing them play again.

As the three hour set drew to a close, with one song left to go before last call, I wondered if Grohl would make Everlong the final song of the night. I was right. He’d done it before in New York, jumping down off the stage to play amid the crowd. Maybe it’s age and experience, maybe it’s better security, he played from the stage this time. It was no less poignant. “Everlong” was one of the Foos first hits, and Grohl credits the song with the longevity of the Foo Fighters, and much of its DNA.

At the chorus, Grohl wonders aloud, “If everything could ever feel this real forever / if anything could ever be this good again”. 

For me, fifteen years after that New York show, the answer was a resounding yes.

Taylor Hawkins fronts the Foos for a cover of Cheap Trick

Speaking of DC Punk history, tonight, at The Passenger, Brian Baker (Bad Religion, Dag Nasty, Minor Threat), Brendan Canty (Deathfix, Fugazi, Rites of Spring) and John Davis (Title Tracks, Q and not U) are holding an event at The Passenger and Warehouse Theater, with DJ sets from each, to help build the DC Punk Archives. Admission is $5, or a piece of DC Punk Scene to be donated to the event (posters, records, zines, flyers, set lists, t-shirts, that sort of thing), and there will be cocktails from Tom and Derek Brown. 

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Capital Chefs: Aaron Silverman of Rose’s Luxury http://www.welovedc.com/2014/10/23/capital-chefs-aaron-silverman-of-roses-luxury/ Thu, 23 Oct 2014 19:55:28 +0000 http://www.welovedc.com/?p=98483 Aaron Silverman in the kitchen of Rose's Luxury (Photo courtesy Rose's Luxury)

Aaron Silverman in the kitchen of Rose’s Luxury (Photo courtesy Rose’s Luxury)

We’re revisiting our Capital Chefs feature with a series by music reporter Mickey McCarter. A lot has been happening recently in kitchens in D.C. restaurants, and Mickey takes a look into them from his usual seat at the bar in this series, which runs occasionally on Thursdays.

Aaron Silverman credits his neighborhood, Barracks Row in Eastern Market (on Capitol Hill), with the success of his restaurant, Rose’s Luxury.

And a desire to stay connected to that neighborhood is one of the big motivators for why the chef/owner does not take reservations, despite some controversy surrounding the policy.

“We don’t like kicking people out of their seats to sit the next person down,” Silverman told me in a recent phone conversation, “but a big part of it is that it’s advantageous to the neighborhood. All of the people in the neighborhood are at an advantage because they don’t have to drive for an hour or fly to get to us and then find out that we are full. Their risk is much lower. They can just walk across the street.”

Whether a restaurant takes reservations or no, its customers still have to play a waiting game. With reservations, they are calling on the phone every day with hopes to get a seat—four, six or eight weeks out. With no reservations, diners have the opportunity to show up that very day, but they may have to wait in line.

“Anybody who wants to be at Rose’s today can eat there today—guaranteed. You may have to get in line early and you may have to wait, but you are guaranteed to eat dinner there today if you want to,” Silverman declared. “If we took reservations only, we would be booked and there would be no way. You couldn’t just go.”

The policy of no reservations is the “lesser evil” because people who have waited can enjoy their meals for as long as they like, Silverman said.

And there has been plenty to like about Rose’s Luxury, which has an off-beat menu that contributed to it being named the best restaurant in the United States by Bon Appétit magazine in August. The recognition was only the latest in the string of accolades that have kept Silverman personally very busy jumping around the country when he’s not cooking or expediting food on his own line.

The staggering popularity, coupled with the no reservations policy, has kept Rose’s Luxury quite full mostly every day.

“It keeps your tables more full. The more full you are, the more money you make and the lower you can keep your prices and the more you can do for your staff,” Silverman said.

Pickle-brined fried chicken

Pickle-brined fried chicken

Indeed, the humble Silverman contributes the restaurant’s success to his staff—“very talented people that we are fortunate to work with.” And while the food may be good, the staff also are the single strongest element of the restaurant, the chef said.

“While our food is good, I don’t think it’s the strongest aspect of the restaurant. That’s our hospitality and our general attitude toward our employees and guests. That’s a huge reason for our success,” Silverman said.

Throughout his career, the chef said he’s only really learned to cook. He didn’t manage people because he didn’t want to do so, and he didn’t set out to own a restaurant.

But he read Setting the Table: The Transforming Power of Hospitality in Business by New York restaurateur Danny Myer, and it really affected him. He started thinking about the restaurant business in a different way. Silverman then developed and nurtured an ambition to run his own place.

“Danny Myer’s book really made me think about things a lot,” Silverman said. “That’s how I approach things now. I constantly ask, ‘Why?’ Why do we have to do this way or why do we have to do this or that? And can we do it a different way?

“So many things are ingrained because they’ve been around forever, and I kept asking, ‘Why does it have to be that way?’” he continued. “A lot of times it does have to be that way, and it makes sense. But sometimes it doesn’t have to be. Learning to think differently came from Danny Myer’s book, which really opened my eyes.”

The book also reinforced something he had seen at restaurants in New York—the quality of life for employees is very important. Myer advised putting employees first always, and Silverman agreed after finding that important in his restaurant jobs. So the chef likes to spoil and bond with his staff. For example, he closed the restaurant after training yesterday and took everyone bowling.

“There are some upsides to being as popular as we are. You are busy all the time; you make more money; you can afford to do nicer things for your employees—you can afford to give your managers rotating three day weekends every other weekend,” Silverman said. “There are things you can do that are very nice.”

Of course, hiring very skilled staff also helps to make great food. And Silverman acknowledged that he wants everything on his menu to be remarkable.

“We try to be very picky about what we put on the menu. We don’t just put anything on. We really taste and taste and taste anywhere from 20 to 200 times before we put something on the menu and make sure it’s craveable,” Silverman said. “I didn’t want to have a menu that only had two hits on it. I wanted to have a menu where everything is a hit.”

Silverman’s personal favorites at his own restaurant tend to be pastas and desserts. He calls last year’s mushroom gnocchi “fantastic.” And up until last month, Rose’s Luxury offered a sun-gold tomato sorbet that Silverman also admired. An earlier poached pear with smoked cheese also drew fond memories.

Challah bread at my first meal at Rose's Luxury

Challah bread at my first meal at Rose’s Luxury

Little things that Rose’s Luxury does like its hot bread, free to diners seated for entrees, are also a big hit with everyone. Sitting outside the open kitchen, you can watch the bread as it comes out of the oven—and its smell is always as delightful as its taste.

“It’s something that we didn’t have to do. But that’s the whole point. We didn’t have to do it. And that’s why it’s awesome. We didn’t have to, but we ask, how can we take it to the next level? How can we make such value for people that it’s surprising?” Silverman said.

As successful as the menus at Rose’s Luxury have been so far, Silverman has “about 500” other things he would like to add to them. He keeps playing around with these unfulfilled ambitions when he has the time, which has been scarce lately.

“We’ve really wanted to do a roasted onion dish—sweet onions that are roasted. We’ve done them at pop ups in the past before we opened,” Silverman said. “It’s the whole onion roasted with the skin covered in butter and salt, and roasted for four or five hours until it becomes completely melted inside. It’s sweet and all of the juice comes out and that starts to caramelize and turn into an onion caramel.

“We’ve been working on this dish for a long time but it’s never really come to fruition,” he added.

The staff also have envisioned uni French toast, following on the heels of the restaurant’s foie gras French toast. They have developed uni ice cream but they have not yet assembled the full dish.

“Uni ice cream is fantastic. It sounds weird and often those things are weird, but in this case it’s incredible,” Silverman said.

Bucatini with sungold tomato sauce

Bucatini with sungold tomato sauce


Silverman came to DC because he feels it fosters that sort of creativity. He was seeking a good quality of life for himself and his future employees, and he felt that DC had the right mix of ingredients to support the sort of venture he sought to create.

“DC is changing tremendously and that’s the coolest part of DC—that it changes so fast,” Silverman said. “There is the intelligence, drive and the money to support it in DC, so change can happen so rapidly. It’s incredible, and it’s amazing for business and amazing for creativity. It’s awesome that the city accepted us and what we are doing.”

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We Love Music: Ought @ DC9 –10/16/14 http://www.welovedc.com/2014/10/17/we-love-music-ought-dc9-101614/ Fri, 17 Oct 2014 17:28:28 +0000 http://www.welovedc.com/?p=98474 Ought (Photo courtesy Constellation Records)

Ought (Photo courtesy Constellation Records)

Tim Beeler is on your stage, and he has something he wants to say to you.

Guitar in hand, sometimes he sings it to you, but just as often it seems, he speaks over the snappy art punk beats of his band, Ought.

And Beeler wants to talk about being in the moment, being in love, putting things together — but all in a perspective from “every man.” In that way perhaps, the lanky vocalist is extremely reminiscent of David Byrne or Lou Reed in his delivery.

Thursday night at DC9, Ought opened with “Today More Than Any Other Day,” an amazing tribute really to living one’s life. It’s a bit like lyrics by Byrne superimposed over melodies that could have come from Television. Musically, Ought could have sprung straight from 1977 via New York City.

Take a look at these lyrics from “Today”:

“I am excited to feel the milk of human kindness
And today more than any other day
I am excited to go grocery shopping
And today more than any other day
I am prepared to make the decision between two percent and whole milk”

Today more than any other day, I’m excited to listen to this band!

The rest of the band consists of keyboardist Matt May, drummer Tim Keen and bassist Ben Stidworthy. The quartet live in Montreal, where they met in college, but they are all ex-pats. Three of them hail from the United States while drummer Keen is Australian.

Keyboards are used as backing emphasis to a jangly guitar and a punk rock rhythm section. The melodies are spare and infectious.

The band’s debut LP, titled More Than Any Other Day, consists of eight songs that run on average about six minutes long. They just about performed all of them last night. At times, the material really verges very closely to that of one of my all-time favorite bands, the Talking Heads, perhaps nowhere more so on the very good song “Habit.”

Beeler sings:
“In a nonspecific party, in a nonspecific city
Or anywhere
Anyway you feel this way like this song or that song
Act like you feel it but it doesn’t heal you, it doesn’t make you smile”

And he cleverly addresses the feeling of falling in love as “a habit forming” and sings in such a Byrnesque manner during the chorus “And there it comes again! And I give in again!”–being sharp yet vague and resonant yet punchy all at the same time.

Now don’t get me wrong. As much as I like to run away with these comparisons to my musical heroes, Ought are no pastiche. The four young gents have their own personality, their own rhythmic cohesion. Beeler seems very comfortable in his own skin, providing the aura of a congenial tour guide/academic. Overall the band members have a strong focus and a good rapport amongst themselves and their audience.

They only have two more U.S. shows on this leg of their tour—in Princeton, NJ on Saturday and SUNY Purchase on Sunday—before dashing off to Europe. They’ll surely be back soon, likely to play to an even bigger audience.

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We Love Music: Yelle @ 9:30 Club — 10/11/14 http://www.welovedc.com/2014/10/14/we-love-music-yelle-930-club-101114/ Tue, 14 Oct 2014 16:18:18 +0000 http://www.welovedc.com/?p=98469

About two-thirds of the way through her set, French pop siren Yelle strides up to a platform to situate herself between the two drummers comprising her band.

Performing the bright electropop song “Tohu” from her new album, Complètement fou, she picks up a disco ball and holds it in her hands before her. Laser-like lightbeams crisscrossing the stage until this point changed direction to target the ball.

The lights scatter from the disco ball. The resulting light shower rained out over the room and the audience, and everyone was dazzled.

Yelle followed up the theatrics by bouncing right into the popular “Safari Disco Club,” the title track to her second album.

Indeed, light tricks or no, the sold-out audience was consistently dazzled by Yelle when she stopped by the 9:30 Club on Saturday, Oct. 11 in a tour supporting the latest album, released last month.

All of her songs are in her native French, and anecdotally, much of the audience didn’t speak fluent French. But that didn’t stop Yelle from winning admirers old and new with her upbeat attitude, sassy demeanor and danceable synthpop

She sang in French; she danced around stage; and she periodically struck poses during dramatic pauses, freezing in her tracks while her two drummers — producer Grand Marnier and Franck Richard — stopped and pointed their drumsticks at her.

A lifetime ago, I studied six years of French, and I can still recall enough of it to read simple passages or, for my own benefit, to understand that “Je Veux Te Voir” or “I Want to See You” is a pretty dirty song. (Of course, that tune from her debut album, Pop Up, won me over because it was written initially as a retort to a misogynistic rapper named Cuizinier. The lady has spunk!)

The crowd definitely lit up at the proven hits like “Comme Un Enfant” and “A Cause des Garcons”–songs of innocence and exasperation driven by love or lust, respectively. But everyone embraced the new material as well, singing and dancing to the encore of “Complètement fou” as if they learned it especially for that occasion.

For her part, Yelle seemed positively pleased to have drawn such a large enthusiastic crowd. I caught her twice previously at the 9:30 Club in support of her two previous albums, and the crowd certainly has grown each time she has come through. It’s remarkable how people who don’t know her lyrics word for word due to the language barrier nevertheless embrace her playful pop poise and Euro new wave sensibilities.

If you would like to “rendez-vous avec Yelle,” you are mostly in luck – her U.S. tour has barely started. She’s in Toronto, Canada, Wednesday but then returns to the States for a date in Cleveland Friday to dash across the Midwest to the West Coast and through Texas.

Yelle has been selling out many of the venues on this tour, and you should make the effort to join those crowds, whether you understand a word she sings or not! She’s bound to win you over either way.

Amuse-toi bien!

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Local Indigenous Artist Showcases the Racism of Redskin http://www.welovedc.com/2014/10/10/local-indigenous-artist-showcases-the-racism-of-redskin/ Fri, 10 Oct 2014 13:00:43 +0000 http://www.welovedc.com/?p=98454 (c) Gregg Deal

(c) Gregg Deal

Those who think the continuing movement to change the name of the local pro football team is a waste of time and trivial were clearly not at the recent Art All Night event here in the District. Secreted in one corner of the venue was local Indigenous artist Gregg Deal. His project, “Redskin,” took on the racial overtones of the team moniker and projected it at his audience.

What he, nor spectators or his helpers predicted was just how pointed it ended up being.

Deal first let me know of the project in early September. What initially struck me about his proposed performance piece was the fact he was willingly subjecting himself to some serious abuse. Natives in the area–as well as those protesting football games elsewhere in the country–have always been subjected to abuses by team fans, especially if they’re open about their opposition to the name. (Witness the reactions by fans, as recalled by several Natives, during a recent taping for The Daily Show.)

So why do it, especially in an art venue? “As people of color, or more specifically, Indigenous people, we deal with something called microaggression. It’s the needle pricks in our general American society and culture that says or does things that are offensive to Natives. They’re called ‘microaggression’ because they are passive aggressive enough to get by your average person, but still aggressive,” said Deal. “For example, when I worked at the National Museum of American Indian in 2004-2005, someone asked me if I still lived in a Tipi. This would be microaggression because it’s an insane questions that is based on stereotypes, but it’s also a statement about what this person believes quantifies me as an Indigenous person.”

The term ‘redskin,’ painted faces and faux headdresses, drunken war chants – these are all examples of microaggression. Deal’s performance piece was meant to use all of these abuses, commonly found in tailgate parties at FedEx Field and used by team fans around the world, over an eight-hour period. “I ended up calling it after just over four hours,” said Deal. “All of us–my friends who were helping me and myself–were just mentally and psychologically drained from the experience.”

Bryce Huebner, an Associate Professor at Georgetown University, was one of Deal’s assistants who played a part of one of the abusive fans. “I said things that I would never say in real life, in hopes of making it clear how ugly and harmful the casual racism against indigenous people in the United States is,” he said. “I was struck by how difficult it was to start playing that role, when I arrived my heart was pounding and I could hardly speak; but more troubling by far was the fact that it became easy to continue as I started to play off of the other actors. There’s an important lesson there: if you surround yourself with people who espouse hostile attitudes, it’s much easier to adopt those attitudes yourself.”

Deal said a lot of the audience mentioned to him how truly real it felt, watching it unfold, and he agreed. “After it got rolling, the invective felt truly real, like a few situations I’ve found myself in around the District.” When I mentioned that a Huffington Post review said it was unauthentic because he had used his friends as the antagonists, Deal laughed. “They should’ve been in my place, then. It certainly felt real to me.”

Deal (seated) in the middle of his "Redskin" performance. (c) Darby

Deal (seated) in the middle of his “Redskin” performance. (c) Darby

Tara Houska, a board member of Not Your Mascots and a big proponent of the name change movement in the District, was one of the audience members. “The experience of watching Indigenous-based racism being hurled at a Native was difficult, to say the least,” she said. “Some of those phrases hit too close to home, and brought me back to moments in which I’ve experienced racism. At times, it was hard to keep in mind that it was a performance. I wanted to yell at the antagonizers to back off, and felt the hurt Gregg must have been feeling.”

Both Houska and Deal were also participants in the recent Daily Show segment that showed a panel of team fans and a panel of Indigenous people who, after separate discussions, confronted each other through the show’s direction. The segment has had mixed reaction in the press, with a lot of sympathy generated for the four white fans (who all self-identified as some fraction of various tribes, but with no real knowledge of their heritage – or, in one case, how generational fractions work). The incidents taped at FedEx field later between some of the Native panelists (specifically, the 1491s) and fans weren’t shown, which is unfortunate.

“Honestly, both the Daily Show and my art performance felt very similar,” said Deal. “The racism against Indigenous people in this country is so ingrained it it’s culture that the only way a team could exist as a mascot (which is defined as a clown, a court jester, by the way…nice ‘honor’) in the first place. The Washington Redskins–and other Indian mascots–are a really good illustration of not only how disconnected America is from it’s own history, but how disconnected it is from the issue of equality towards Indigenous people is. We are literally sitting on an issue where a significant amount of this country’s Indigenous are saying ‘it’s offensive’ and the answer is ‘no, it’s not offensive at all!'”

Gregg Deal with "Colonialism"

Gregg Deal with “A Nice Can of Colonialism”

Deal went on to say the whole movement to change the name isn’t really about offense, but about equality. “What you’re looking at is the tip of a very big iceberg of issues that are simply illustrated by this specific issue. The fact that we don’t seem to own our identity enough for someone to allow us to assert that identity appropriately, but that a corporate sports team is making billions from our image and likeness and has the audacity to fly it under the flag of honor is insanity,” he said. “Let’s be honest here, it’s not about honor, tradition, or any other lame excuse Dan or his constituents are saying. It’s about money, and the fans have all bought into supporting one of this country’s financial top one percent.”

Houska felt that Deal’s passion really came through in his performance piece, and she applauded him for taking a stand in such a public way. “I think it was a very in-your-face method to get locals aware that Natives experience racism, including the racist imagery and name of the Washington team,” she said. “We have all experienced being belittled and told to ‘get over it.’ I hope that people walked away with a sense of understanding that microaggression is a very real and damaging thing. And how it feels to be deluged by caricatured Natives via the Washington football team and having no say in it, despite being the subject of that caricature.”

Deal agreed. “I believe the term REDSKIN, if it belongs anywhere…it belongs to Indigenous people. In the same way the Black community essentially own the N-word,” he said. “While there are different schools of thought on that word and it’s usage in the Black community, it’s understood that if you use that word outside the Black community, you’re a certain type of person. The word ‘redskin’ belongs to us, and it’s not up to [non-Indigenous people] how it’s used.”

For more information on the name change social media movement, visit Eradicating Offensive Native Mascotry, Not Your Mascots, or follow the #changethename hashtag on Twitter.

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Capital Chefs: Alex McCoy of Duke’s Grocery http://www.welovedc.com/2014/10/09/capital-chefs-alex-mccoy-of-dukes-grocery/ Thu, 09 Oct 2014 18:05:05 +0000 http://www.welovedc.com/?p=98447
Alex McCoy at the bar in Duke's Grocery

Alex McCoy at the bar in Duke’s Grocery

We’re revisiting our Capital Chefs feature with a series by music reporter Mickey McCarter. A lot has been happening recently in kitchens in D.C. restaurants, and Mickey takes a look into them from his usual seat at the bar in this series, which runs occasionally on Thursdays.

Alex McCoy, the chef and co-owner of Duke’s Grocery, really doesn’t like to make a dish unless he’s traveled to its country of origin.

“You can go online right now, and if you want to learn how to make Indian food, you could spend hours and hours and hours watching videos and tutorials and reading up about it,” McCoy said.

“Twenty years ago, in order to do the same, you would either have to live in India or work with an Indian chef,” he told me one recent sunny afternoon while sitting on the patio of his East London-inspired bar and restaurant.

McCoy believes there is an element of authenticity to the latter approach, which he takes very seriously. For example, the young chef very much enjoys papaya salad, and perfected his own after travels to Thailand. While anyone may look up how to make a papaya salad, it’s a totally different experience to experience the food directly from a street vendor who has lived with the dish her entire life and who has made it in front of you, he said.

“In many cases, unless you’ve seen someone making that dish in its element and in the place it was created, it’s really hard to respect food the way food should be respected,” McCoy said.

Today, he quipped, he envisions a little old lady from Thailand sitting next to him whenever he makes his papaya salad. This woman represents the street vendors he grew to love there. If he gets the salad wrong, she scolds him.

There is very little, if anything, to find wrong about Duke’s Grocery, the 17th Street pub McCoy founded with two business partners a little over a year ago. The cozy, friendly establishment seems like an extension of the affable McCoy’s personality. And it serves up food he knows very well.

McCoy’s parents grew up in London and met there. Starting from his birth, he would travel there a lot with his mother, a chef, and his father, a government official. And from a young age, he experienced traditional British and immigrant foods that pervaded the city of London, particularly its East End.

Eventually, McCoy determined he too would be a chef, and worked at various restaurants, eventually running the kitchen at the Rugby Café in Georgetown until it closed. But a couple of equally influential things occurred along the way. McCoy and his brother won an NBC television competition called Chopping Block in 2009, which led to an opportunity to work with Marco Pierre White, who is now enshrined in portrait at Duke’s.

“That was massively influential,” McCoy said of the month-long experience of learning from the youngest British chef ever to earn three Michelin stars. “It’s asking the Dalia Lama, What’s the meaning of life? You can spend a whole lifetime researching it and trying to figure it out or you could ask this guy.”

McCoy also has worked with Roberto Donna, most notably managing the bar at Al Dente, where Donna shared his love of Italian food with the younger chef.

“He gave me the opportunity to learn recipes from him. He’s a spectacular teacher and a really nice guy,” McCoy said. “Roberto is such a chef through and through to the core, he would put 800 things on the menu just so he would have the opportunity to work with 800 different ingredients. He just loves food and making food so much.”

McCoy vowed to open his own place by the time he was 30 years-old, and indeed signed the lease on Duke’s only days before his deadline.

Once McCoy and his two business partners set the restaurant in motion, he knew the kitchen would draw its inspirations from East London, and specifically the neighborhood of Shoreditch, home to Brick Lane curries—and in my opinion an endlessly fascinating nightlife scene.

“I kept hearing people talk about how the food in London is terrible. I kept saying to myself, ‘Well, you don’t know London then, because there’s fantastic food in London!'” McCoy declared.

London itself has a truly international atmosphere, McCoy said, and nowhere is that more obvious than during a walk through Shoreditch, where you can find a banh mi shop, a funky bar, a traditional pub and a Bengali restaurant in the same block. There along Brick Lane, a stone’s throw from the famous Rough Trade East record shop, you’ll find the world-famous Beigel Bake, home to a renowned brisket called salt beef, a dish Duke’s Grocery has introduced to D.C. with resounding success.

The international backdrop of East London and its immigrant-heavy population also gives Duke’s Grocery an opening to put a lot of different dishes on its menu.

“Because we idolize a neighborhood that has so many culturally diverse influences, there is really no limit to what we can do,” McCoy said. “I can really experiment with a whole spectrum of cuisine and then mix and match. And try to see how we can combine different kinds of influences together that’s unique but still representative of that part of town.”

While the international flavor of Duke’s cuisine might go over well with the denizens of well-traveled D.C., McCoy thinks the comfort of a local, familiar spot has just as much if not more to do with the success of Duke’s Grocery to date.

“When I was a kid growing up here, you had a lot of big restaurants and types of places where you are working on the Hill and swipe your corporate card and take someone to a meeting but you didn’t really have a focus on things like 17th Street or 14th Street,” he said. “There wasn’t that space with a neighborhood gathering point, but now more and more neighborhoods are trying to find those places.”

A comfortable, familiar space gives McCoy an opportunity to introduce his diners to things they may never have tried previously. By the same token, McCoy favors a familiar format for delivering that food—sandwiches (or “sarnies” in the British vernacular).

“One of the reasons we chose sandwiches is that you can be from Southeast Asia or South America or Europe or the United States and you still feel comfortable ordering a sandwich, because a sandwich is a sandwich,” McCoy said. “It’s a vehicle to introduce people to things they may or may not be comfortable with on a regular basis in a way they are okay with it. They will give it a shot.”

The Brick Lane Salt Beef (the signature brisket of which appears in other sandwiches like the Ruby on Rye) was a hit in part because it was new yet familiar, McCoy said. The salt beef has been surpassed in recent months by the Proper Burger, which has won accolades at home and across the country for being remarkably tasty. McCoy originally resisted the idea of a burger because he wanted to avoid typical D.C. “pub grub.” He warmed to the idea eventually but he wanted it to be the best it could be.

“As opposed to the big thick burger, I kept saying to myself, ‘What’s the best burger? What are the burgers I go crazy for?'” McCoy said. “They are usually the greasy, cheesy Five Guys or diner burger. Those are always the best burgers. You always eat them at 3 o’clock in the morning and nosh on some massive, greasy burger. We tried to do our spin on that. That’s why we do the thin patties and the double decker piled high with toppings.”

McCoy personally enjoys the curries at Duke’s Grocery, which are made from scratch. He’ll ship ingredients from India to get them right (just as he sources authentic ingredients for all of his dishes).

In the future, McCoy plans to expand his kitchen so that he can offer the salt beef all of the time instead of only periodically, as it takes two weeks to prepare the beef, which then sells quickly at 600-700 lbs. a clip.

“I generally don’t plan menus ahead of time. They appear when they appear,” McCoy confessed.

That said, he is interested in adding charcuterie, cured bacon and homemade pastas to the rotations on Duke’s menus. And he would like to see more Indian curries on a regular basis, along with tikka masala, lamb vindaloo and Indian Dal.

Personally, I discovered Shoreditch and its wonderful variety of food, the very staples of Duke’s Grocery, because of my own musical interests. During several visits to London, I’ve done little other than shop at Rough Trade, hit the stages and turntables during the Stag and Dagger music festival, or marvel at the environments that housed such places as John Foxx’s recording studio The Garden.

So of course, I had to ask McCoy about his own taste in music.

“My menu is very representative of my music choices–a little bit of everything,” he said.

Today, that includes some EDM as well as classic rock and modern R&B.

“In the same way food can be beautiful because each dish is the sum of its parts, music is the same way,” McCoy said. “I don’t think one genre of music is better than another. You have to take each genre of music as its own thing and look at all of the different components that go into that. All genres are beautiful in their own way. I love folk music. I love country music. You can’t compare them.”

Duke’s Grocery has won praise for its music playlists as well as its food, and the observation sparks McCoy’s enthusiasm.

“The ambience is as important as the food. Restaurants live and die off details, and the nuances are the most important thing,” McCoy said.

And so all details of a restaurant are equally important, he said. Hold them all the same level of care—whether lighting, music, food, service or bar.

“If you do that and you really respect every little detail in a restaurant, you are going to create a really dynamite atmosphere,” McCoy said. “Great atmosphere makes the food taste better; great food makes the atmosphere feel better; great music makes everything better. They all work together, and that’s what really creates a successful restaurant.”

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