Brad Pitt Has Your Secret Shit: Rolling DC

do you have any helmet and or jesus lizard

isnt there a split record?

yeah i have LIAR somewhere (prob at work?) and GOAT on vinyl but in a drawer back home b/c i have no turntable

dude has turned off the music though

Where to take visiting Britishers gay friend for best bits of DC scene on a weekend? bar-wise rather than dancing?

I guess you winged it, or got the answer elsewhere.

Is this just taking cheaper food and marking it up in price, asks cheapskate me?

from GOGs washpost blog:

Three years after he sold his popular Breadline downtown, Washington baker Mark Furstenberg is getting back into the retail business, this time with a 70-seat restaurant devoted to his current passion: street food from around the world

Yep, winged it especially as it was thundering and raining - went into the first bar we saw on 17th - no idea what it was called but it was ok, with huge white leather posing sofas.

(xpost) it's taking cheaper food and using better ingredients and paying downtown rent so the prices are higher.

i am dining at minibar in one week.

i am excited.

I haven't been in a couple years but it's AMAZING.

that is just what i wanted to hear. (the second part, anyway.)

later that night, junior boys. cinco de mayo perfecto.

Spirit Catcher @ Muse this Thursday
John Selway @ Muse this Friday
Wolf + Lamb @ Comet this Saturday
Junior Boys on Tuesday

busy week

the only one of those i can attend is jb :(

Obama's making the restaurant rounds--Citronelle with his wife, and now Ray's Hell Burger in Arlington with Biden

i can recommend he check out minibar (though it wouldn't be good for the optics). pretty amazing.

somehow i'm going to that $$$ cocktail party at proof tonight. dropping more dough on food/drinks in one week's time than i usually do in like four months.

excited, though. 10 cocktails on a monday night. yeah.

see you there

lol my username may be very accurate in this case - I lost my phone after the dinner last year, although it certainly didn't help that I went out for drinks afterward, too.

hey guys, i am playing at comet ping pong next month, is it cool?

It is! It's in a kind of residential part of town but it's a neat pizza place with a backroom they've been using to do really great shows & DJs in the past few months.

Yeah, I've really enjoyed myself the few times I've been. Nice, intimate little venue.

sweet. i am definitely going to eat the #4 when we're there.

xpost - cool, i'll keep an eye out for you.

make sure to get the chicken wings at comet. they are...good. very good.

ooh.

cool, i'll post when i find out the date but it'll be sometime between june 17 - 22.

They got back to you, cool. That's great. I've been e-mailing your buddy. Working on a Baltimore show

thx for the help, steve!

i take it back, we're doing thurs. june 18th at chick hall's surf club

huh.

is that a bad huh?

nah, just surprised. place has a lot of history, but mostly as a country/zydeco venue. curmudgeon would know more, i'm sure. i didn't know they did rock shows now.

i don't even know if your band is rock

not rock

it's new orleans brass band music, so that place might be a cool fit

yeah that makes sense

I told them about both Comet and Chick Hall's and both were contacted and alas, only Chick Hall's was interested.

Does anybody have any suggestions on where they could play a quick free set during the day at a streetcorner or something? Like in front of a Smithsonian museum? This is the other idea I am trying to encourage them to try. There used to be (or still?) a House of Prayer gospel brass band that played near Dupont Circle I think. And I think there's still a paint bucket go-go drummer or 2 near Natural History.

Also, any Baltimore ideas? I think 8 by 10 is booked, and An Die Musik has not responded.

These would be in addition to the Surf Club

I bought a condo. Fenty is doing a walk through the hood on the 27th! Have you guys checked out http://dc.everyblock.com/ yet?

two guys bought a diner, the kind you can move on a truck, from a town in upstate ny. they want to open dc's first "real diner" on a bladensburg rd lot that used to be one of those money laundering car dealers. follow the ensuing hijinks: http://twitter.com/capcitydiner (for best results read from bottom up)

(dcra is the dc dept of consumer and regulatory affairs)

dcra is the scourge of my days

i've yet to hear anything positive about them, ever. surprised someone there has a twitter account!

from everything I've heard, the dcra twitter feed is really helpful!

Not sure how they're working out all the code issues w/ the diner - it it possible to get a building relocated from another state grandfathered? What about accessibility/emergency egress path requirements? I have enough trouble getting regular construction to meet the latest codes so it's hard to imagine how an old diner will.

yeah, i have no idea. it sounds like they thought they had everything good to go, but perhaps they were clueless.

are dc's codes particularly tough? or is it more a question of finding out exactly what dcra is looking for to satisfy them? like, where does breakdown occur that seems to stop so many new businesses from opening or existing ones from expanding?

DC enforces code a lot harder than most other cities and the permit office is understaffed and generally screwed up.

I bought a condo.

o_O

I mean I knew about this, but seeing it on ilx is blowing my mind a little bit.

everyblock.com looks like facebook for a neighborhood--mine's even showing party photos at the moment. much easier to scan their crime reports than inspector d3lgado's yahoo group emails.

Anyone signed up for the DC Police Alert texts or emails? It's pretty awesome, nice to get violent crime reports within minutes rather than days.

Parking in DC sucks, guys. Please build a supertrain to pittsburgh, please.