Pat Me Down Slowly, It Feels So Good: Our Bi-Weekly Political Roundup

Posted on by

Most people view Thanksgiving as a one day event focused around Turkey and trimmings. To these people we say “What the hell is the matter with you? You’re missing the point entirely!”

The truth of the matter is that Thanksgiving is a holiday that takes no less than three full days to observe properly. These three days highlight all the best of what it means to be an American, and with one of these elements missing, our 3 legged cultural stool would topple instantly. Thursday is of course all about food. Feasting is the order of the day, and failing to eat your weight in carbs is downright un-American. If Thursday is all about gluttony, then Friday is set aside for greed. We buy things because we want them; because they’re on sale, because we can.

Wednesday, however, is our favorite night of the three. It’s the night when people come home from wherever they’ve been and we all go out and drink. And what better place is there to drink tonight than the Laughing Pint with the Baltimore Chapter of Drinking Liberally?

Baltimore's Drinking Liberally chapter meets at the Laughing Pint tonight. 7 pm until... ?

And we may as well talk turkey, since with all the lame ducks around there’s not much happening in Washington these days. All that anyone in the media seems to want to report on lately is the TSA and their army of perverts who are groping our grandmas and molesting our mothers on a daily basis.

We’re truly sick of hearing stupid statements like “Well, it’s better than having a bomb on your plane.” or “Rape-iscan machines give you cancer!” or the dumbest of all “Well, if you don’t like it, just don’t fly. It’s that simple!” Would that it were, but the world is not just that simple, and life doesn’t work that way.

These searches may be awful, but hearing about them every day is as awful, and lasts a lot longer.

One thing we’re not sick of hearing about though is Good Time Charlie going to the well. We didn’t think much of the charges they stuck on Charlie Rangel. Apartments this and stationery that… none of it was really that scandalous. At the same time though, Rangel is an argument for term limits if there ever was one. Uncle Charlie is 80 years old now, and has just been elected easily to another term after 40 years in congress.

This guy is a product of an old Democratic machine system which, for the most part, doesn’t really exist anymore except in the deep down nitty-gritty old school neighborhoods of east coast cities, a perfect example of which is Harlem. Rangel doesn’t so much represent Harlem as he does lord over it in a kingly fashion. When he fianlly does fall over and die, rest assured that he will have hand-picked his successor for the next 50 years.

Don’t get it wrong, we like Charlie and his voting record okay, but we also don’t really like him much at all. He’s less venerable old statesman and more crazy old goat, and when he’s called to the well of the house and roundly chastised, you can believe the Chop will be tuning into C-Span on the big screen, popcorn in hand.

_____________________________________________________

Laughing Pint is located at 3531 Gough St. (corner of Conkling) in Highlandtown. (410) 342-6544

On The Block Screening @ Windup Space Tomorrow

Posted on by

Okay, okay. Simmer down a little. We know you’re excited because you feel like it’s Friday, even though it’s only Tuesday, and instead of spending the rest of the week at work you get to spend it stuffing your maw with turkey or tofurkey, or good tawny port, and starting your Christmas shopping and laying around in sweatpants watching movies.

All of that is preferable to your job where you’re underpaid, overworked, and under-appreciated. We get it. We know. But come tomorrow when it’s time to wash away the cares of the workweek with whiskey and gin, you’re not going to want to do it in just any bar. You’ll want to do it at the Windup Space.

On The Block screens at the Windup Space tomorrow night. 9 pm.

You already know that the Windup Space is the go-to spot for the very best in awful movies, and tonight the crew from Gutter Magazine has dug up a true cinematic gem for your viewing pleasure.

They managed to track down a VHS copy of On The Block, shot and released right here in Baltimore 20 years ago, and largely forgotten since. One look at this incredible trailer will convince you that this is something you need to see. Sex, drugs, vice, cops, drama, politics, depravity; On the Block gives the whole family something to be thankful for.

And that’s not all. Poppin’ Pietro spins for happy hour before Nikki Le Faye heats up the crowd with a burlesque routine from 8 o’clock until the feature begins at 9. Throw in drink specials and no cover for the night, and this is bound to go down as one of the highlights of the entire holiday season.

_____________________________________________________

Windup Space is located at 12 W. North Ave. in Station North.

The Chop Announces the Death of Voicemail

Posted on by

Some of you may know this already. Some of you may be scoffing and cluck-clucking and clicking away from this page.

Still more of you may be shocked. What’s the meaning of this? Voicemail is alive and well. I just left a bunch of them this morning. Well, people still play vinyl records and sit through the Latin Mass, but you know what? They’re both dead, and so is voicemail.

This kind of technology is about as current as voicemail.

Either way, it’s got to go on record.

Most people have no idea how to leave a proper voicemail. Some of you don’t even know how to check your voicemail, and those of you who do know often don’t bother. Of the few who do bother, most of you do it only to get rid of the little icon on your phone screen, and we suspect you’re not even listening to the messages you receive. With the ubiquity of cell phones, you’ve already seen who called and guessed or found out what they wanted.

The Chop remembers a time when there was no such thing as a voicemail. Even then we hated leaving messages on “answering machines”. Most of the messages we’ve heard in life have consisted of half umms… and uuhhhs…. and any one that contains a phone number has to be listened to a minimum of two times. Enough already.

As slow as we were to embrace text messaging technology, we go on record today as embracing it fully and happily.

As of today, the Chop is not leaving any more voicemails for anyone. If you can’t answer your phone, we might hang up and send you a text (since this seems to yield better results anyway) or we might even just give up and call someone else. Likewise, don’t leave us any more messages. Just text. Seriously, we’ll get right back to you.

You don’t even have to wait for the beep.

Share

Bluegrass Tavern: Even Better as a Bar

Posted on by

You don’t need us to tell you about the food at Bluegrass. There are already plenty of reviews out there in the Sun, The Citypaper, Baltimore Magazine and elsewhere. Baltimore is very much a city in which restaurants are their reputations, and when a place like Bluegrass opens up, everyone seemingly wants to be the first one in, and the first one to make that reputation. We’re not just talking about newspapers and magazines, but also about sites like Yelp and Chowhoud, which tend to fill up with very strong opinions from self-appointed experts soon after any decent restaurant opens its doors.

We like to eat as much as the next guy, and even more than that we like to cook, and manage to stay busy enough in the kitchen here at the Chophouse. One thing we don’t like to do though is to write about food. This is not a food blog, and never will be. We’ve already gone on a rant about foodies, and it wasn’t until we checked out Bluegrass’ website and found this little gem that we realized we weren’t alone in our opinions. (Click that link. It’s very much worth your time to read.)

We’re here to tell you that Bluegrass has a bar.

My Old Kentucky Home.

We’re here to tell you that Bluegrass has an excellent bar. With its modest portion sizes Bluegrass has become the kind of place that is becoming increasingly popular in Baltimore; the sort where people go to eat a little and drink a lot. To our mind, if the cocktails are the main attraction, then why even bother with the menu?

Thanks to a bit of architectural foresight, the space’s two dining rooms (upstairs and in the rear) as well as the kitchen (in the basement) are well secluded from the bar. It may technically be a restaurant bar, but it feels very much like an updated version of the South Baltimore corner bar that it is. Being on its own, the intimate bar space is left entirely to take on the mood and feeling of whatever patrons happen to inhabit it at any given moment, which should be the way with all great bars.

But the patrons themselves can only do so much. It’s up to the bartender to do the rest, and with their formidable selection of Bourbons Bluegrass does a fine job of holding up their end of the bargain. Throw in 6 regularly rotating taps, a good selection of bottles, occasional firkin nights, and some purely professional bartenders who pour ’em strong, and you’ve got a recipe for a truly great bar.

It’s one that we’ll be back to whenever we’re down that way, and perhaps even when we’re not. Some say Bluegrass is a destination restaurant, but for us it’s a destination bar.

The best part? They’re open Sundays.

_______________________________________________________

Bluegrass is at 1500 S. Hanover St. in South Baltimore. 410-244-5101. Closed Mondays.

Future Islands, Lonnie Walker @ Ottobar Tonight

Posted on by

Well, we’ve got company this weekend. One thing to be said for the holidays is that they’re good for bringing people back to home and hearth and all that. People who used to live in Maryland come back to Maryland, and we’re glad to have them as ever.

So it is entirely possible that we’re going to be spending most of the weekend indoors, drinking the good stuff, eating like gluttons and doing a bit of the old male bonding you’ve heard so much about. You know: the sign on the front door of the house saying “no girls allowed” and all of that.

If we do make it out though, odds are it will be to the Ottobar for the Future Islands/ Lonnie Walker show.

Future Islands play the Ottobar tonight with Lonnie Walker. 10 pm Doors.

Future Islands has just been getting better and better for a solid year. They really hit their stride with the release of In Evening Air earlier this year, and are still coasting on that. We’re fond of saying that they’re going to ride it all the way to a Saturday Night Live appearance, and we might even start a facebook page about it. (And by might, we mean we won’t. Ever.)

Sharing the stage tonight is North Carolina’s Lonnie Walker, who are also sharing a new 7″ with Future Islands on Baltimore’s Friends Records label. We’d really like to see Lonnie Walker live, if nothing else because we can’t quite tell if they’re yanking our chain or not. 2009’s These Times Old Times was a well produced record which was a showcase for the band’s better than average writing and playing abilities, but at the same time we’re afraid to try to describe the sound at all, especially since it’s one of those cases where what you see live may or may not be reflective of what’s on the record. For us, seeing a band’s live set has always been a good indication of whether they should be listened to more closely or written off, and we suspect this could be the case with Lonnie Walker. If nothing else, they’re certainly one of those unique bands, for which every listener will have to make up his own mind.

_________________________________________________________

Ottobar is at 2549 N. Howard St. in Charles Village. Winks and Bobby are also on the bill. This is a late show: Doors at 10 pm, Show at 10:30. All Ages.